Prague

Day One:   photos

We were up bright an early in preparation for the drive down to London Luton Airport. The airline had been sending us emails for days saying that there would be delays through security and we MUST get there at least 4 hours early....so we did...It took us 5min to get through security (obviously no one else had got the memo about delays) and then the plane was delayed for an hour!

When the plane finally arrived it was a mad rush as people tried to get seats (budget airlines don't do assigned seating, it really brings out the animal in people lol). As Claire was pushing my way through the crowd she saw someone waving  from the back of the plane. 'The young man so eagerly waving  was her friend from Cumberland College.  And he even had two free seats beside him.

 

We caught a bus+train combination to get us to our hotel - got totally lost! Eventually we managed to find the hotel, and it was AMAZING! Brand new and fancy! Went out for tea at a local Restaurant called Lupe Fiasco where we had a really nice meal but also inhaled buckets worth of second hand smoke.

 

Day Two:

next morning we pulled back the curtains and saw SNOW!! Ran down to the hotels Breakfast Buffet where we gorged ourselves on chocolate croissants and a great variety of hot and cold food.  By the time we left the hotel the snow had turned to rain and it stayed this way for the rest of the trip.

Got into town and bought a ticket for the hop on/off bus and started our tour of Prague. To say the city is pretty is a terrible understatement - it's like a fairy tale! All the buildings are massive and grand and painted different pastel colors. It has a long river running through the middle of the city and an imposing Gothic castle overlooking it all from the top of the hill. We stayed on the tour till the end and then jumped off to have an early tea at the Imperial Cafe, which was very imposing with snooty waiters .

Day Three:

Caught the tram up to the castle and joined the walking tour. Saw the changing of the guard (Claire and I  had to cling to the fence to see anything!) and then decided it must be time for a drink. Caught the bus to the monastery down the hill where they brew their own beer. Amazing views over the city! And a yummy lunch of deep fried cheese and wine...mmm  diet food it was not.

Walked down an old cobbled road to the river and then ran to the Jewish Quarter to join up with the next tour. We listened to horror stories from WW2, especially about one family that lost 200+ members of their family, only one girl survived. Their house has been left untouched since they were sent to the camps, very haunting.

The tour ended at the river where we hopped onto the boat. We got about 10m down river before it became really obvious that there was something wrong with the boat. Seriously wrong. So wrong that the boat wasn't working at all. Thankfully there was another boat going past with a dinner cruise on board and they kindly towed us back to shore. That night we had tea at the medieval restaurant. Obviously the term had been used very loosely as there was nothing remotely medieval about it. We had to cut apples in half and look for patterns and choose items from jars to tell our fortunes. We thought this was hilarious and proceeded to get a bit tipsy and laugh at the terribley slow service.

Day Four - Christmas!

Had a lovely long sleep in and then opened the £10 presents we had brought the day before. Spent the whole day at the Prague Zoo, after a long view to get there, quite nice along the river ( Moldau)! There were Polar Beers and Wolves some wonderful gifaffes and lots of others.

We had our evening meal at the cool, alternative vegetarian restaurant that had the biggest selection of cocktails I have ever seen! Wine + Strawberry (something) was so good. A bit different for christmas dinner.

Day Five

Went into town to do some shopping on Boxing Day and all the shops were closed! Instead we thought we would do the WW2 tour, and the guide never showed up. Finally we just wandered about town, saw the church were Heydrich was assassinated ( I had recently read the book HHHH about the man and the assasination so was able to fill in some of the gaps.)

Day Six:

Caught the train to the bone church, which is exactly what it sounds like. A church decorated with thousands of human bones. I thought it would be creepy but I was actually kind of impressed with the amount of crazy effort it took to make it all. Highlight was the chandelier made of skulls. The town it was in felt like a ghost town, obviously the tourists don't walk the mile into town. It had a very empty theme park feel about it, like it would normally be packed with people.

Day Seven:

Lots of travel to get back to Leeds