We were up at 7 again, ready to largely repeat what we did the day before. Mondays in Prague are the day of the week that most stuff is closed, so a number of things were closed the day before. So today we had to repeat a lot of our steps to see things that weren't open yesterday. Similar to the day before, we walked across town and the Charlest Bridge. We realized we had hardly any pictures of us yesterday, so we made a concerted effort to get a couple more today, including on the bridge. We went up through the mala strana again, but stayed on it this time, going past the St Nicholas Church and the Prague Castle. The road got very steep headed uphill, and it actually got warm on the walk. In short order, there was nobody on the road but us. To our left there was a rolling green hill with vines of some sort, we assume grapes.

We arrived at the Strahov Monastery just before 9am. We had come here to see the library, which theoretically was chock full of historical items along with decorative rooms to house the old books. Again, we arrived just before 9, and killed some time before the ticket office opened. Inside, we could see the two halls full of old books, but we couldn't go in, as there were half doors that were shut preventing any entry. At least we could see in, however. In the other area of the library, where we were, there were other antiquities and curiosities, including a bunch of animal curiosities - we wondered how they got all of these items hundreds of years ago. There were corals, ocean creatures, odd birds (maybe a Dodo?), none of which were remotely close to landlocked Czechia. There were also some really old books, including the first bible translated into Czech (from the 15th century) and Al-Sufi's Astronomical Atlas (mid 14th century).

After about 10-15 minutes we saw a small tour in the Theological Hall, and wondered how they set that up - we vowed that we'd arrange one for next time. The roof int he Theological Hall was painted with all sorts of frescoes (maybe the wrong phrase, neither of us are artists) with lots of pastel colors, and thousands of old books. At the far end of the hall, above the doorway, were two locked doors. As best as we can recall from our research, these locked doors were where the monks kept the "dangerous" books such as those by Copernicus detailing how the Sun was the center of the solar system. Back in the day, these dangerous books were kept at bay by the church, with people needing to have a good reason to look at any of them. The other hall, the Philisophical hall was thinner, but with a higher roof and one big painting. We saw a worker in there doing something on the shelves, and it was helpful to get some scale for the size of the hall.

After leaving, we headed down through a hillside towards the KGB museum. The KGB museum was notable for its proprietor - who apparently was quite the character - and for theoretically being able to shoot AK-47s. Other than that, we didn't know much of anything, but we were about to find out. Unfortunately, however, the road we were supposed to take halfway down the hill was closed for maintenance, so we had to go off-roading on some slippery grass and mud. We didn't want to fall at all, but especially with two weeks of our trip to go, so we went very slowly, one small step in front of the other. Eventually we made it down, near St Nicholas, but further south. The KGB Museum was only about five minutes away, and we got our way there without any futher detours, only to see that there were tours on the hour, and no open door. There was a handwritten sign stating that the next tour was at 11, and to ring the bell. But there was no obvious bell we could see. We looked at our watches, and it was 10:17, and we didn't want to waste 43 minutes standing around, especially when it was our last day in Prague and we'd missed some stuff the day before.

So we told ourselves we'd visit the KGB Museum on the next trip, and walked back down the Mala Strana, and across the bridge to the north of the Charles Bridge. Just as we were getting on the bridge, the sun actually came out for a bit, and we got some good views south down the Vltava River. Once across the river we were in the Jewish Quarter, where everything had been closed the afternoon before. We tried to visit the cemetery, but found out we had to purchase a relatively expensive combo ticket that included a visit to the cemetery - the cemetery could not be visited on its own. Then, after purchasing our tickets, we were sternly informed that we had to actually go into the synagogue next door before going to the cemetery.

The Pinkas Synagogue had the names of all of the Jewish people killed during the Holocaust, and the names took up wall after wall after wall throughout tbe building - 77,297 people. We didn't spend a ton of time here, not because we didn't care, but because in reading up in advance of the trip we read about all of the horrible atrocities the Nazis had committed throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and we didn't feel like we needed to see/read about them over and over. The cemetery was a nice quiet walk outside (still in the sun), inside what was a very busy city just outside the walls.

The next stop on our combo ticket was the Maisel Syagogue, which had been closed the day before when we walked past. This was more of a museum than a Synagogue, and had a bunch of historical information about when the Jews came to the area, why they came, what they did in Prague, what the neighborhoods were like, etc. After leaving we headed south to Old Town and went into the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, which is the giant double peaked church on the east side of Old Town. We couldn't find the entrance, and actually walked all the way around the building until we realized the entrance was down a hallway that looked like it was just shops or restaurants or something.

We tried to go to the St James Church next, but we got there a little after noon and saw a sign stating they were closed from 12:00-14:00. So we decided to come back after lunch. We walked a little north to get a couple blocks away from Old Town Square - and thus avoid overly touristy restaurants - only to realize that the Spanish Synagogue was right there, so we decided to visit that first. This Synagogue was intricately decorated on the inside, with really tall and large columns and domes. There was a big tour guide of high school or college students there, and they were focused on posting photos to IG and taking selfies.

For lunch, we had no clue where to eat, as we'd exhausted our list of bars and restaurants. So we just looked for something that didn't look too touristy (i.e,, as little English writing outside as possible) and looked like it had a good number of people inside. We decided to head into VKolkovne, which checked these boxes. Crystal got a hot alcoholic drink to warm her up from the inside, and Justin got a Coke (for the caffeine) and a big beer. Justin got a Bohemian Plate to eat, which was a little bit of everything, including sparrow (which wasn't a bird, but instead some roasted pork that was phenomenal), a ham-type piece of pork, a beer sausage, a 1/4 duck, and three different kinds of dumplings (bread, bacon, and potato). Crystal got roasted pork neck. Over lunch we decided to prioritize what to do in the afternoon, since stuff was strewn about all over town, and we realized we probably wouldn't hit everything, particularly with the sun going down at 4pm and lots of stuff closing around 5 or 6.

Our first planned afternoon stop was Vysehrad, an old castle on the east side of the river, a good deal south of Old Town. Since it was close to the river, we were able to put the map away for a while, just walking down the riverbank. We passed by the National Theatre, then the "Dancing House", a Frank Gehry building we'd read about that didn't seem to have a single straight edge anywhere. The sun was out (mostly at least), so we had a nice walk down the riverbank despite it being - at most - freezing outside. Once at Vysehrad, we were really happy we'd chosen to come here, as there was almost no one there. First we went in the church, which was again freezing. Outside, there was a viewpoint where most of the city could be seen. The current downtown was to the south-southeast, there were lots of houses and apartments across the river to the west, and we could make out Prague Castle up to the northwest. Vysehrad may be at the location of the first settlement in Prague, but that has been hard to confirm. Vysehrad was at its "peak" in 12th century, when it was the palatial residence. Now it is more known for its park, where we got all the views.

There were a good number of people outside taking in the sunset, and we got some shots but then headed north up the river, hoping to get to the Dancing House (and its rooftop bar/terrace) before it got too dark. We arrived just after sunset, but still with sufficient light to make things out. We had sundowners on the roof terrace, trying to keep warm. There were about 15-20 other people with us, and everyone was taking photos. The only outlier was some British guy on his phone talking about some upcoming interview - it was important to him, but not to any of us, and we were wondering why he didn't take the call in a more private (and more quiet) location. Shortly after we went out on the terrace, the lights came on at Prague Castle, but for some reason not the National Theatre, which wasn't too far to our north. We gave up waiting for its lights to come on (we were freezing), so we just headed down and started walking again.

We'd checked off a ton of items, and those we hadn't seen were now closed, so we weren't sure exactly what to do. Crystal made the good suggestion to just have each of us pick one thing, and we'd alternate choices until we ran out of things or until one of wanted to go to sleep. When we passed the National Theatre we noticed the lights had come on. Given where we were, Justin suggested we grab a drink at the Hemingway Bar, since we were right there. This time we were downstairs, right in the corner, at the bar. We had a different, but equally good, bartender. Justin tried out some of their large selection of rums, based on the bartender's recommendations. Crystal had champagne. There was another American patron nearby, and we alternated talking with him and the bartender. With the bartender we talked about food and drinks, as we didn't know where to go for dinner. He recommended some restaurants, including U Flecku (which we'd already been to, and were considering going back to). But when he mentioned Lokal, Justin remembered that one of the guys who did Youtube videos about Prague, Honest Guide, mentioned Lokal on a couple different occasions.

So we decided to head over to Lokal. It was northeast of Old Town, near where we'd been the past two days, but a little further afield, so we got to see some new streets. On the way we went past the Charles Bridge one more time and got some night photos of the bridge and the Prague Castle. We also checked out Old Town one more time. At Lokal, there was a bit of a wait, so we put our names on the waiting list and each ordered a beer. We waited about 20-30 minutes whilst we drank our beers. Right as we were about to order another, we got our table. We had been checking out everyone's plates, and everything looked pretty good, but we weren't super hungry, so we decided to just order some appetizers and sides and split them.

We spent most of dinner trying to figure out who the picture in the middle of the restaurant looked like. It looked like some actor, but Justin couldn't remember the name. Crystal suggested the dad from 50 First Dates (Blake Clark), who wasn't the person Justin was thinking of, but might have actually been a closer resemblance. Justin was thinking of the actor who looks a lot like Danny Aiello, but isn't him. It was driving him nuts. Finally, shortly before leaving, Justin gave in, turned on cell service, did a Google search of the person he was thinking of - "Danny Aiello lookalike actor" - and it returned a couple web pages that led him immediately to other people wondering the exact same thing (link). Turns out the actor's name is Mike Starr, who is perhaps most remembered for being in the car with Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber.

With that off our minds, we could now go to sleep. We went back to hotel and got ready for sleep. We left ourselves a good amount to do in Prague when we return, including the inside of the Old Town Hall, the KGB Museum, inside the towers of the Charles Bridge, Letna Park (where the pedestal of the giant Stalin statue still remains), St James church, the National Museum, a river cruise, the Jerusalem Synagogue, and a tour of the halls of the Strahov Monastery Library. But we felt like we got a lot out of these two days, and our feet were witnesses (over 16 miles walked yesterday, over 17 today). We fell asleep around 10 or 10:30.