Friday 20th April 2018

Man has it been a hot couple of days in London reaching 30 degrees for the past two days. Tonight we are flying to Prague to check out the capital city of the Czech Republic, home to 1.3 million people. I had the day off work since I couldn’t be bothered working another night shift after finishing Thursday morning since the weather is just too good but Lew has been at work. He ran home arriving at 5pm and we showered, packed up, had a quick pasta for dinner and made our way to good old Stockwell station. We would be flying out of Stanstead Airport again with RyanAir and our flight is leaving at 2050hrs. We caught the Stanstead express at 1839 which got us out to the airport slightly later than our usual 1.5hrs before. We had to line up in the RyanAir queue to get my “visa” checked which is basically just looking at my passport and deciding if I need a visa to enter the country or not. I don’t but it’s a process we still have to go through. The line was rather massive and to make it worse Lew hadn’t printed the ticket for me like I asked so I knew we would have issues despite checking with a girl last week whether this was entirely necessary. With our gate closure looming I managed to get into the priority line where the girl quickly checked my passport and printed me a boarding pass so she could confirm my visa had been checked. No one ever looks at this again though which is dumb. We hustled through security but got separated into different lines which was a pain since I had the two bags full of liquids and your only allowed one each. I asked the man whether I needed to run my other bag across to Lewis and he said “na I trust ya”. Turns out this wasn’t enough and my bag got pulled aside and I was questioned regarding my liquids. Everything was fine when Lew turned up and claimed one of the bags as his own. Seems he was oblivious that we were limited to just one bag each as it was. I began to run to the gate whilst Lew fast walked and he finally told me the plane wasn’t boarding yet so it wasn’t necessary to run. We had to catch a train to our gate and discovered a long line of travellers waiting to board our exact flight in a very stuffy terminal. The plane journey was only 1.5 hours and Lew scoffed down his pasta that he refused to eat earlier and had been carrying around it a container for the past 5 hours. We were in the absolute last row of the plane and I got the privilege of being stuck between Lew and a large man who stunk like BO. Not to mention they both liked using the armrests so my personal bubble was invaded the entire time. Once the pilot literally bounced the plane on the run way we were offloaded into a shuttle bus to the terminal. We went through the usual process of security and claiming my bag back before booking ourselves an Uber to the Airbnb. It was a 28 minute drive into town and only cost us 465 Czech Koruna (czk) (£16/$31 nzd) . Finally we are back in another super cheap country 😁. The Airbnb hosts had given us some super easy directions as to how to check in and within 5 minutes we were inside this cute apartment with a full kitchen and everything you could possibly need. Since it was about 2am local time at this point we didn't waste time showering and headed to bed- although it was seriously hot in the apartment.

Saturday 21st April

It was nice waking up in your destination and knowing we didn't have to travel today and we also got some pretty exciting news this morning as well! John one of our close friends from Colorado got engaged to his girlfriend Avery last night and they are planning to get married this coming winter! This really made us smile for the rest of the day and we planned on trying to ring them later on for a catch up. We had booked an Airbnb experience with a company that does E-bike tours around Prague at 10am which was across the other side of town. There wasn't a citymapper for Prague and Google maps made it seem like it was going to be difficult to catch multiple buses and trams just to get there. We already knew Uber was cheap from last night and we booked one of those which would only take 15 minutes to get there. Our driver dropped us off a short walk away from where our tour would start as we later realised when we got out of the car that this was the area where the US Embassy is and since the World Trade Center terrorist attacks in NYC in 2001 there has been security based here bomb checking every car that enters the area. The company for our tour was called "I like E-bike" and was pretty easy to find on the corner just up from the KGB museum. We were greeted and made to signs a waiver form before being introduced to our guide Roman and shown how to use the e-bikes. Neither Lew or I had ridden electric bikes before but from what we could see already Prague did have a few hills and the ability to have a motor that gives you some extra power was going to make this bike ride a dream - or rather the kind of bike ride where you can't exactly call it your 30 minutes of exercise for the day. We had a reasonably large group of people - there were 4 from America, an older couple from Austria, a mum and daughter from Prague itself and us two Kiwis. Roman was also from Prague so we knew he would be able to give us the ins and outs of the city and it's history. We set off down the hill and stopped outside the American Embassy and Roman told us that it has a BBQ pit and even a basketball court out the back on its huge piece of land. Then we continued onwards making our way to the area Mala Strana (or lesser town square in English) trying out the power boost we got when you have the electric setting on whilst peddling. Roman pointed out St Nicholas church was built between 1704-1755 on the site where the former Gothic church from 1283 used to be. It is most famous for its incredible organs that even Mozart used to play whilst he was visiting Prague with the main organ having over 4,000 pipes up to 6m in length. Out of the 120+ churches in Prague only 3 were open whilst Prague was part if the USSR as Catholics were persecuted during those times and many of the religious order were imprisoned or put into forced labour camps. Next was a street called Nerudova Street or Kings Road in English which was the first hill we had come across where we needed to enlist the help of our electric motors. As we sped up the hill Roman was able to point out the emblems above the doors of each of the houses which was how each family was able to be told apart from the neighbours before house numbers were introduced in 1770. The emblems reflect what job the person living in the house does for example the gold star above the door at the top of the street was the house of astronomers and the red lamb the house of a Shepard. Roman continued to take us up this street until we reached an entrance to a park called Petrin Park which gave us an incredible view over the city and its red roofs below. Roman continued to take us a little further around the park to his lookout location where we were able to dismount our bikes and take photos including a group one. I think it would be pretty on par with the views over Florence with both cities having beautiful red brick roofs with green domes of churches spread amongst the buildings. Roman pointed out the Prague castle on our left with St Vitus Cathedral directly behind it and in the far distance we could see the žižkov Television Tower. Thank goodness the Soviets didn't design everything as glaringly obviously and positively hideous as their TV towers (photo further down the blog)! This one thankfully sits quite far out of the beautiful old town and closer to where we are staying in the Vinohrady area. Along with another area along the river the TV tower now has crawling babies with barcodes as faces attached onto the side of the tower. There are 10 babies in total that are just under 2 meters tall and they were designed by Czech sculptor and artist David Černý, who made his reputation protesting the late Soviet communism that controlled the Czech Republic until 1989. Roman also told us about May 1st which is lovers day as during communist rule they were not allowed to celebrate Valentines Day so they created their own tradition. Lovers are supposed to kiss underneath the cherry trees or underneath the statue of Karel Hynek Mácha who was a poet who died on his wedding day at aged 25. Roman said the park is far too busy that day so they don't bother doing any tours! Another fascinating thing is that you are able to ski in this park and there is a funicular installed that allows you to be taken back up to the top of the mountain. On the top of Petrin hill stands the Petrin tower which looks strangely like the Eiffel Tower. It was built in 1891 at a small height of 60 meters due to the fact it is already on the summit of Petrin Hill at 318m. During the communist rule the tower was used as propaganda and a giant red star attached to the top of it and lit up brightly at night time so it could be seen across the entire city. There was lots of construction around us which Roman told us is because in October this year the country is celebrating 100 years of Czechoslovakia which was founded after WW1 as one of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. January 1993 Czechoslovakia was separated to form the Czech Republic and Slovakia which is how we know the counties today. I have to admit I was always very confused between the multiple names of the places and I even recall talking to people and asking them about Czechoslovakia not even knowing that the year I was born that country no longer existed. Rather embarrassing now that I am aware of the countries history. We took our bikes down the slopes of the park and quickly stopped off at Strahov Monastery Brewery that serves St Norbet beers where we were told we had a short 5 minutes break if we wanted a beer. Lew contemplated it but his beer usually gets warm he drinks so slow so 5 minutes wasn't going to cut it. I tried to ask whether this was one of the 11 "trappist beers" in the world since it is being brewed in the Monastery but it seems that is only a Belgium term and a bit of googling later in the night confirmed that it is not. Riding out of the park we stopped off at Loreta square with Černínský palác (the home of the foreign minister) on our left, the Prague Loreto on out right and in front of us a statue of Edvard Benes (co-founder of Czechoslovakia and champion of democracy and international coöperation in which he was able to regained freedom for his country). The Prague Loreta is a Baroque historic monument (Baroque meaning the building style of the Baroque era which begun in 16th century Italy) famous for its wonderful carillon with its 30 bells that chime over the roofs of Prague every hour and have done so since 1695. We didn't go inside the church during this tour but were told that it shelters priceless treasures composed of gifts given to the Capuchin community by rich donors: monstrances, chalices, crucifixes, and crowns. The next stop was the Prague Castle but we made a brief visit to the Schwarzenberg Palace which was built between 1545-1576 for Jan Lobkowicz, a Prague Count which was why it was originally known as Lobkowicz Palace. It is the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Prague with the incredible sgraffito decorations on the wall gives the impression that the walls are built out of large pyramid shaped stones. Sgraffito is done by putting down a preliminary surface, covering it with another, and then scratching the superficial layer in such a way that the pattern or shape that emerges is of the lower colour. A very impressive and eye catching way of decorating a building or rather a Palace. The Prague Castle was now just in front of us and was very crowded with tourists probably due to the fact we had come just before midday which was when the changing of the guards occurs. It was stinking hot at this point and I was overheating in my shorts and singlet so I had no idea how those men stood so still in their full military style outfits as they even had little white gloves on. Roman said that they do 12 hour shifts but they do one hour on and then the next hour off so they only work 6 hour days. They even get paid €13,000 (£11,400/ $22,200 nzd) per year for their service of literally standing and doing nothing, personally I think it's a waste of money. The changing of the guard was interesting but it was difficult to get a good view with the hundreds of other tourists in the way and as soon as it was over we were making our way out through the crowd wheeling our very heavy bikes. Roman had told us a few other interesting things about Czech and that was that women get 3 year maternity leave with 60% of their usual wages received. Education is free and healthcare is similar to that of America with compulsory health insurance. Heading back up a slight hill which was basically unnoticeable as you just increased the settings on your bike to help you out we went past the presidential houses of which there are 3! We weren't allowed to stop but you could see that they were heavily guarded and every bit as grand as a palace. We road down a hill making our way to another park where we stopped next to Queen Annes Summer Palace which is another Renaissance building with a beautiful copper roof that is currently being restored for the anniversary. A short bike through the park we came across the gigantic metronome which is a symbolic spot on any map of Prague as it used to be the location of the excessively large statue of Joesph Stalin where he overlooked the city. The statue was blown up using dynamite in 1962 and the metronome installed in 1991 symbolising Prague's past, present and future including the change of political systems between communist and democratic. You might see from the photos the two large bowls either side of the metronome which were entrances to nuclear proof bunkers for during the Cold War if a nuclear attack ever occurred. Continuing down to the biggest beer garden Letná Zahradni in Prague set amongst the trees and overlooking the River Vltava we were offered another quick beer stop. The Americans were keen once again but we just sat in the shade admiring the view over the city from a different angle. Due to time constraints we were going to have to miss out the Jewish Quarter but Lew and I would head back there tomorrow. After everyone had finished their beers we biked to another viewpoint over the city where we invaded the personal space of two sunbathing meat-heads smoking a joint to get yet another group photo overlooking the city (clearly the photo didnt work out well as they didnt send it to us!)

We finally wound down the hill and over to the WW2 memorial in which Roman told us has the years 1938-1945 which was a year earlier than when the war was declared as that was the year Germany entered Czechoslovakia and gained control. Lew was fading fast by this stage and he was so keen for lunch. Luckily I had packed some bread rolls from the supermarket which helped since we still had half an hour left on the tour. Next stop was the Franz Kafka museum who was a German-speaking Bohemian Jewish novelist and short story writer and one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. Neither of us had heard of him and to be honest we were more intrigued by the two sculptures of men peeing outside the museum entrance. Once again it was the work of Cerny who had created the two gyrating, mechanical men urinating on a map of the Czech Republic. One was peeing on the location of Prague (Bohemia) and the other on the region of Moravia in which there is always constant rivalry ie a pissing contest. The Czech Republic is made up into three different provinces - Moravia, Czech Silesia and Bohemia. The final location before we dropped the bikes back to the office was the John Lennon wall. John Lennon never actually visited Prague during his life but he was more of a symbol of love and freedom as under the Communist rule western pop was banned by Communist authorities. The wall was initially nicknamed "the crying wall" in the 1960's as it was associated with protest text/lyrics and art despite the authorities regularly painting over this. When John Lennon was murdered in 1980 people poured out their grief onto the wall and with a painting of his face and the old gravestone it becomes the John Lennon wall. Initially the culprits were arrested for painting John Lennons face but 9 years later it was given permission to stay and anyone is able to write on it now. Roman said that everyday the wall is different with so many people painting their own story and adding to the wall when they come and visit. There are often buskers in front of the wall like there was today and it feels like such a relaxing place to be. Some of the most notable designs on the wall are the 3D faces sticking out of the wall, subtle images of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road and of course paintings of John Lennons face. We headed back to the office where Roman gave us a few more points on the map to visit before we left. Lew was already scoping out the best burger place in town by that stage but unfortunately it was back in the direction of our apartment. With it being 2pm we begun the half an hour walk across town to a place called Dish. We obviously walked through the most tourist packed area since we found ourselves on the very famous but extremely busy Charles Bridge. This was in fact Pragues oldest bridge in which building was started 1357 and was finished in 1402 with its two fortified towers at each end (Lesser Town Bridge Towers, Old Town Bridge Tower). Between the years of 1683 to 1928 30 statues were carved to decorate each side of the bridge. The oldest of the statues is St. John of Nepomuk in it's original bronze form, dating back to 1683. I don't think we really appreciated the beauty of the bridge due to the amount of people on it. We shuffled along like we were in the underground in London at rush hour forced into the center of the bridge due to the many stalls selling jewellery or offering to draw caricatures of you in 7 minutes. Plus Lew was reaching the stage of severe hunger and I'm surprised he didn't just begin pushing the other tourists aside to get to his burgers. I do think we timed it badly as looked around I saw the umbrellas of what would be three different walking tours that we were stuck in between. The crowds continued and we made our way through part of old town. By the time we got to dish we were rather hot and starved and both ordered large burgers with a side of garlic & rosemary fries as well as some honey mustard coleslaw. The place had exceptional reviews and we could see why as the burgers appeared in front of us. They do really good homemade lemonade here but Lew of course wanted a little slice of home and got a Karma Cola. It was a pretty cheap meal at 764.85 Czech Koruna (£26.36/$51.40 nzd) considering how much we brought. The plan was to go home and shower before heading back out but by now it was 3.30pm so we decided we may as well  head out for a bit longer before making out way home. We walked back into town going by another statue of Franz Kafka which is made up of 42 mobile tiers, 11m high which rotates and align to form the face of Kafka. Once again it was by artist David Černý and has been here since 2014. It really was impressive in the sunlight as it reflected the colours off the buildings around it however, it was slightly out of alignment which made him look as if he had a very wonky nose! We made our way to the waterfront in the hopes of perhaps getting out on the water in a paddleboat. It seemed as though every other tourist in Prague also had the same idea and the lines were exceptionally long. No one seemed to want the row boats which we would happily use but we didn't want to waste time in a line and instead found a spot to make a phone call to Colorado. We caught up with the newly engaged John as well as Pat our adopted Colorado mom whilst sitting in the afternoon sun. Once we had finished our long catch up (I don't remember the last time we spoke!) we caught an Uber back home since it would take us 44 minutes vs 15 minutes in a car. After all it did only cost 145 CZK (£5/$9.70 nzd) which was so minimal. With the sun slowly dropping in the sky we quickly grabbed some food for dinner tonight from the nearby supermarket before Lew loaded a run into his watch for us to head out into the sunset. He deliberately didn't tell me how far we were running but I knew we were headed back to Petrin Park for the hills. We left at 7.30pm and it was a seriously beautiful night and the park was full of lovers strolling around staring at us as we huffed and puffed as we ran up these steep hill. Neither of us have seen hills in a long time after moving to London and it was a bit of a struggle! We discovered a beautiful look out over the city and stood admiring the sunset hitting the buildings and a stone wall. Lews watch decided to die but thankfully we had got into the habit of taking my phone which I tuck into my sports bra for photos during the run and also for navigation if required! We got a bit lost and basically ended up running exactly where we biked today. It was now pitch black and I knew we were still miles away from home. We ran past the dancing building with its unsymmetrical windows as well as David Černý babies on the side of the river. As we ran through Mala Strana we also checked out the narrowest street at 49.8cm wide whilst we were at it and it even has traffic lights it gets so busy during the day. It doesn't take you anywhere interesting though since there is just a restaurant though there and we had to come straight back out. We ran and ran and ran. The worst part was the in the final 4km home across the bridge it is on a slight incline which is when my legs really begun giving up. Lew was still looking good and he did explain to me that he thought we were going to be running about 17km and with his marathon in only a months time if he was running terribly at this pace and distance he would be in serious trouble. I felt better since I was wasn't trying to run the marathon but just get home in one piece! We arrived back at 9.30pm and after a quick shower I begun preparing dinner. Turns out when Lew plotted it back into the map (since his watch which normally does this for him died) we had indeed run 17km. Easily the longest I have ever run and my legs were certainly feeling it already as I struggles to sit down on anything. We ate steak, baked courgette and a mixture of peppers, eggplant, and cherry tomatoes panfried in oil and balsamic vinegar for dinner with a couple of ice creams to finish the meal off. We were absolutely had it by this stage and Lew called him mum quickly whilst I did some stretching before bedtime unsure if I would be able to walk tomorrow if I didn't!

Sunday 22nd April

It was easy to tell it would be another beautiful hot day in Prague but after our busy day yesterday we decided to take it slow this morning. My legs were still incredibly sore after our long run yesterday (basically an afternoon stroll for Lew however!). We left the house just before 11am and decided to try Old Town again thinking perhaps we had just been through the most chaotic touristy area and that surely not all of Old Town is like that. We walked up to the northern area of Old Town stopping by the gingerbread shop that had been recommended on a blog I had read. It took us awhile to walk there as Lew had to constantly watch the live times of the men’s race in the London marathon. His favourite man Mo Farah wasn’t expected to win the marathon but the marathon extraordinaire Kipchoge was. He was also trying to break the 2 hour marathon time. He had a 2 hour 25 second race on a track with a pace car but in an actual marathon this was a different story as pace cars are not allowed and there isn't another man faster than him that could be his pace man. It was a hot day in London which wasn’t favourable conditions to run a fast marathon anyway. We found the cute gingerbread house called Perníčkův sen which was filled from basically floor to ceiling with gingerbread all shapes and sizes decorated with beautiful icing. Lew was still head down looking at his phone as the race which was in the last 5kms so I chose a packet of iced gingerbread men in Czech colours. We headed back outside and perched ourselves on the bench eating our gingerbread men and watching the race. Mo Farah has dropped off the main pack a while ago but was sitting in third behind Kitata and Kipchoge. As Kipchoge went over the finish line at 2 hours 4 minutes he hadn’t broken any records but still looked as though he could continue running. Mo finished with a PB and also the title of GB fastest marathon time which was pretty impressive. Lew still was watching the rest of the athletes and their times as we continued to walk towards the Jewish Quarter. I don’t know why but there were all the flash brands and cars in this area in huge beautiful buildings. There are a surprising amount of Synagogues within the area and we admired two from the outside. One was called Staronova Synagogue which was a strange mixture of old and new design. The next was a much older looking building called Klausen Synagogue which is home to the Jewish museum as well as the famous Jewish graveyard. We didn’t want to pay to enter them but there was a small peep hole around the side of one of the brick walls that allowed you to see into the cemetery. It is the oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds in the world and the earliest tombstone dates back to 1439. The last burial took place 348 years later and despite the cemetery being expanded multiple times it was not big enough to meet the needs of the Jewish town. Space was so scarce that bodies were buried on top of each other with graves layered up to 10 deep. There is around 12,000 tombstones in the cemetery and when we looked through the peep hole the tombstones were all shapes and sizes leaning off to every direction. We reached the river and contemplated going on a boat ride. They were very cheap for an hour boat ride costing about 330 czk (£11/$22 nzd) and we walked up along the riverside to see what was available. There were all sorta of vendors selling rides and there was one we were keen on which was a smaller paddle steamer but after standing at the information board for at least 5 minutes without anyone speaking to us we gave up. Lew then said he was beginning to get very hungry and I hid in the shade looking for somewhere to eat whilst Lew checked out the marathon times of some of his running mates in Fulham running club. We begin walking to a Mexican place across the river called Las Adelitas when we ran into a big ?protest of people first enjoying some sort of busking whilst holding signs and huge Israeli flags but then once the dancers had finished the mob of people begin to moved across the bridge. We got stuck in the hordes of people before shuffling off to the side of the bridge to confirm where we were walking to. The restaurants website didn’t state there was a restaurant where I was walking us to so we begin walking back across the bridge to the branch in Old Town. We weren't far off arriving when we walked past this cool looking cafe with a decent menu that caught our eye. There was a lot of indoor plants so I was 100% keen to check it out! We discovered it was called Cafe Mistral and the menu made it difficult to chose from since eberything looked amazing. Lew went with the chicken sandwich whilst I went with the eggplant and hummus wrap. Lew got a beer since it’s cheaper than even water or fizzy over here and I got a homemade raspberry lemonade. We both felt rather relaxed and the food was excellent. We weren't sure why we were feeling so exhausted after both sleeping so well last night. The meal cost 452 czk (£15.55/$30.50 nzd)  which was so cheap compared to London.

This afternoons plans were to head to the Prague Castle and I lead the way back across the bridge. Seems there is more than one castle in the area and I took us to the wrong one despie it being very very obvious which one is the main castle. My navigation duties were almost confiscated from me but post lunch Lew wasn’t in the mood to deal with it himself. We did however come across another beautiful Palace called Wallenstein Palace which was where the protest had ended and speeches were now occurring . There was a wall called the Dripstone wall which I thought were flowers from far away until you get up close and it’s just a mess of fake rock that looked rather hideous. It was built between 1623 and 1630 and of you look close enough you can begin to see imagery of snakes, monsters, and random, distorted faces which also provides a crucial acoustic element. In front of this wall was some photos of Czech over the years and depicted some of the harsh times the country has gone through. Some of the things that stood out to me was a photo of the giant statue of Stalin which is now where the metronome is that we saw on the bike tour yesterday. There is also a photo of townspeople ice skating on the Vltava river which used to freeze over when it got cold. Anther photo shows a group of Germans who were waiting to be removed from Czechoslovakia after WWII ended which is controversial issue even today. One of the more random photos was of an man called Ludvik Hess who founded the "baby hatch" in Prague which was put into operation in 2005 and are still in use today. They have had a total of 16,172 babies abandoned in them so far with a total of 72 hatches across the Czech Republic. The final photo that sparked my interest in something I didn't know about is the Czechoslovak and Austrian foreign ministers cutting the barbed wire creating the iron curtain between the two countries borders. That was the boundary line that divided Europe in two different political areas: Western Europe had political freedom, while Eastern Europe was under Communist Soviet rule. The term 'iron curtain' also symbolised the way in which the Soviet Union blocked it's territories from open contact with the West. As we learnt from last weekend in Berlin this iron curtain became the iron wall separating West and East Berlin. We continued walking up the hill further and came across a Xmas decorations store, yay! We asked the shop boy what the most Czech decorations were and from that we chose a small dark blue bell with a house and the name of the city on it for 178 czk (£6.13/$12 nzd) . With that tradition taken care of we were able concentrate in seeing what the castle had to offer. After reading online this morning and almost buying a skip the line ticket we decided just to go there and see what the line was like or whether we even needed tickets. Sure enough you were able to get into the castle grounds for free after a quick security check and there were multiple activities for free. First up was St Vitus Cathedral which unfortunately we had missed it's free visiting hours by 10 minutes. I had been carrying around a jacket and an extra T-shirt all day so we could enter still if they had an issue with my skimpy attire. We weren't too bothered though as I do feel that once you have seen a few Cathedrals in Europe they are basically much the same. It was however very funny to watch a group of young Italian men getting frustrated that they weren't allowed in. The Cathedral is considered one of the largest and most important in all of Prague as many coronations of Czech Kings and Queens took place here. The Cathedral is a place of burial of several patron saints, sovereigns, noblemen and archbishops. Building was started on the cathedral in 1344 by Charles IV  but due to many wars and the effort of building such a Cathedral in those days meant that it wasn't consecrated until 1929. The cathedral is home to many irreplaceable items such as the Bohemian Coronation Jewels which are kept in the Crown Chamber. I highly doubt this is on display though and you probably just get to see a large stone vault. There was one other place I was keen to see within this area and that is Golden Lane. I had read that you needed tickets but we overheard an English tour guide say that after 5pm they open it up for free! What good timing we had since it was just after 5pm. Golden Lane is a row of small coloured houses dating back to 1597 in which emperor Rudolf II decided to give the space to the castles marksmen of which there were 24. With the lack of space the very small houses were built out of stone, mud and wood. The best part about them was that they sold homemade items and hadn’t been turned into tacky souvenir shops. There were shops selling puppets, marionettes, plates/bowls, napkin rings etc. In one small toy show we came across these wee handmade wooden characters with large springs attached to them. There was the most adorable nurse one and they weren't expensive at all being 290 czk (£10/ $20 nzd) and I decided to buy one for our future children. Seemed very premature but it was completely adorable and it wouldn’t be so easy to send it home to any of my friends who already had kids. Another building in the lane housed weapons and arms from medieval times and even boasted a creepy torture chamber with the most alarming item being the chair with the metal spikes and the contraptions attaches to force you down onto the spikes. Leaving the lane we came out into a stone balcony giving us an incredible view over the city. Lew has promised to take some photos with the tripod today since it’s always difficult to get photos of us both. Perhaps I should threaten him with a selfie stick? There were too many tourists around here to deal with so we planned to walk back up to Petrin hill to the lookout we came across yesterday during the bike tour and then again on our run. The route took us through the beautiful gardens surrounding the castle which would close at 6pm. With it being 5.45pm we would have just enough time to walk them and continue to our destination. The bells of the churches begun to ring telling us it was now 6pm and we followed google maps which showed us we could get out at the top of the garden. We were about 1 minutes walk from leaving when the Czech military men suddenly decended the stairs with a big Alsatian forcing us all to walk back to the other gate we started at. Lew and multiple other people tried to point that they wanted to leave from that exit but they simply shook their heads and pointed back in the direction we came from. Lew was already annoyed, tired and very reluctant to have to take these photos so this really didn’t help. We were able to walk back up through the castle grounds and exit out the main entrance from which we found our way to Petrin Park. Lew was picky with setting up his camera and reminded me how not in the mood he was for this. But we carry the tripod around all the time and my favourite photos are of us together when we are travelling. Getting a shot of us with the city of Prague behind us we quickly packed up and ordered an Uber to get us home. I was going to give running a miss tonight but Lew still had to go out and do some fast training. The Uber dropped is outside the Albert supermarket just down from our door and I went to get stuff for dinner whilst Lew got ready for his run. I brought a lot more than I needed including a large wooden pellet of strawberries which were so cheap at 80 czk (£2.80/$5.40 nzd)! I rung Lew on my way back home hoping he would come down to let me in since you needed the key for the large wooden door at the street as well. After 5 minutes and a lot of locals staring at me wondering what on earth I was up to I called Lew again and he said there hadn’t been a knock on the door yet. I had to remind him I was still stuck our on the street. He opened the window which happened to be directly above the door and threw the keys down to me. I cooked dinner and Lew went out for his run at 8pm meaning we were going to have a late dinner again! He arrived back at 9pm and I had dinner ready shortly after. We watched some YouTube videos of a family I had discovered last week on YouTube called the Devine’s. Brad & Hayley travel the world with their two kids Lucy and Greta and the best thing about it is that it reminds you how your life doesn’t end when you have kids. They appear to have so much fun and the quality of their blogs is pretty fantastic. Highly recommend you checking them out especially if your as clucky as I am. We packed up ready for the morning since we knew it would be a rush as usual and headed to bed. I’m still hating how they don’t have top sheets in Europe as this is totally a night you want just that on and not the entire duvet!

Monday 23rd April 

A 4.15m wake up call again leaving us 30 minutes to get ready for the airport. There wasn’t nearly as many Uber’s around this morning meaning the cost was 675 czk (£23.20/$45.50 nzd) almost double what we paid to do the same journey on Friday night. Our Uber driver was friendly and chatted away to us with his broken English and we were only able to pick up words every so often. He also drove like a grandma much to Lews annoyance as you never know what sort of drama your going to encounter at the airport where you will need extra time. We arrived and went straight to the Ryanair check in desk for my visa check which is 100% pointless because they only looked at my passport and didn’t check my actual residence permit. Thankfully the line wasn’t as big as Friday night and we managed to get through border control easily. Although it’s taking longer and longer for them to look at my passport every time I travel since they check every stamp. Security was strange as it was at the gate again despite this airport being much much bigger than Berlins Tegal Airport and Lew and I were thinking the other day that these airlines are so stupid and just need to make it one checked bag free. Every cabin sized bag that can’t go under the seat gets labelled and you have to drop it off before you get on anyways so it’s under the hold. We had issues with Lews bag for the first time also which is large and obviously can’t go under the seat. Usually when they want to tag it by saying he’s carrying batteries and fragile camera equipment they leave him alone. Not this time though as the guy was adamant he had to take the camera stuff out. Once we removed the camera stuff however the bag wasn’t literally a shell containing running shoes and a couple of pairs of underwear. The guy still wasn’t interested in letting him take it on the plane. He wasn't a Ryanair employee and was just doing his job so it was hard to be angry at him. We were both at the front of the plane in rows 5C and 3C and I couldn't be bothered paying the extra money for us to sit next to each other since it wasn't for long anyway. We arrived into London Stanstead airport at 0730 hours and got through customs easily using the e passport gates. We grabbed our bags and headed to the train station where we caught the Stanstead Express at 0800. It was very full and we ended up standing. The train journey was incredibly slow and just as we pulled into Tottenham Hale station Lew decided it would be faster for us to get off and now connect to the underground Victoria line to go straight home. It meant we did have to pay a little bit extra but he did remind me he had to go to work. We walked in the front door of our house at 0930, two hours after the plane landed at the airport and we realised how much time you waste getting to and from airports in this place! Lew headed to work after a quick shower and I tidied up our stuff waiting to hear whether I had a night shift tonight. We have this weekend in London before heading to Copenhagen to watch the Division 1 Mens Ice Hockey Championships the the following weekend. It will be nice to have a bit more of a slow weekend thats for sure! Catch you all next weekend in Denmark!