You know that it is an amazing run for an American abroad when the highlights from your route include seeing castles, eating from apple trees, and seeing architecture older than the USA herself.

It was vacation time and our first time back to Europe in awhile! We had planned to go to the Czech Republic and Luxembourg and it would be a first time visit for both of us. We have a scratch map at home of the world and this would be the first time we would get to scratch off a country in Eastern Europe. About 200 countries more to go!

Janel and I flew into Prague last Friday and found it pretty easy to navigate via bus towards our downtown apartment housing. We got blessed with some pretty warm weather that didn’t feature high humidity. A first for us Texas for the year. The bus took us within a couple blocks of the apartment we would stay in and that sure made dragging the suitcase along the cobblestones not too shabby. With some amazing food and a beer later, we had a great night of sleep. We had food without preservatives that couldn’t have tasted fresher in any way. The food recommendation shoutout goes to another blogger, Grimfoot, who writes at runningfrommyblackdog.

The food was as incredible as we had hoped without all the extra preservatives we typically find in the US. Each slice of bread with some veggies thrown in made for some weight gain and happy memories with our personal favorite dish being goluash. Once you eat it, you can only describe it as yummm. Also the cheese was so good.

The next day, I got out the door at 10 a.m. to get in my first international run of the trip. I couldn’t have asked for more gorgeous weather for running and I got started around from the downtown central area. Janel booked us a great place that turned out to be close to the local mountain park called Petrin Hill (Mountain to a Texan, hill to the Czechs). I decided that this would be my go to route to test out my elevation base from the month before and see gorgeous sights of the city. Time to rumble!

According to Wikipedia, Petril Hill rises 130 meters above the river in town and according to my feet, I felt every single one of those meters when I began my ascent. With little to zero humidity, it felt amazing at the beginning! At the end of the day, a hill is a hill and that got tougher. Janel and I had walked to the bottom of the hill briefly that morning for coffee and turned around before the elevation truly began. Now I see the joy in turning around sooner.

Tons of people were out and about enjoying the beautiful weather. I threw out Dobrý dens left and right and was thrilled with the amount of people who greeted me back! I try to speak as much of a local language as I can when I travel and I felt many people gave me a pity response due to dealing with my American accent. At least I saw many smiles out of the morning exchange.

After climbing about 50 meters or so, I got my first great view of Prague! Certainly a gorgeous city and the good weather made it wonderful too.

On top of the gorgeous view, the route began splitting into dirt paths that my shins were grateful for. The cobblestones take a toll on Texas feet and the much needed break felt good. The hill had many of these paths in any direction that you could wish for.

As I continued on, I heard a brass band in the distance. Being a tuba player myself, I hoped to catch a glimpse of the musicians but I couldn’t seem to locate where the sound was coming from. I did find a lot more dirt paths on my way over and enjoyed running the downhills quite a bit. On the bright side during my band search, I did see the Prague castle in the distance. I forgot to take a picture because I was too excited but luckily Janel and I saw it closer later in the week. Spectacular view from the top and very much worth the trek to see if you are in town. This was the closest picture I got that reflected old architecture and it was probably many times older than the USA.

On one of the downhill paths, I came upon people picking some apples. There were about 80 apple trees in the hill orchard and most of the apples had fallen onto the ground. After giving out my typical Dobrý den, I got a huge greeting in response! They said many sentences, not use the Czech hello. I wish I could tell you what the locals said but I didn’t speak any more Czech than my greeting phrase. Luckily, they waved me over and gestured at the apples and it looked like they wanted me to try one. Why not? As they say, when in Czech, eat the apples! At least I assume that is what the locals say. Tasted pretty good!

With an apple in the digestive system and time ticking away, it was time to head back home! Well, the home away from home apartment. The total mileage ended up being 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers since we are in Europe) and an elevation gain of 716 feet (218 meters). I definitely felt as if I earned all the good upcoming food that I could find. With the low humidity too, I did the miles on the faster (to me) side at 8-9 minute pace with the elevation gain.

Overall, it was a great start to European miles and Prague was much more breathtaking than I realized. I didn’t have any ideas about how the city looked and that made it so much fun. The park near us was so nice too and I highly recommend getting the chance to explore that area!

Hope you all had a fantastic week and were able to enjoy lovely weather if it came your way. Happy running!