Our holiday was for a week and I will be the first to admit that a week in Prague is too long; even the receptionist at our hotel commented on the length of our stay. We had read a lot of guides on things to do in Prague and had pretty much done everything by day 3. We’re used to holidays where you rent a car and drive up and down the country so a city break is foreign territory (pun not intended) for us and I think we overdid it.
We did the obvious touristy things first. Our flight got us in for 10 am on Friday so we immediately went to the Old Town Square for some people watching and food. There is a strong possibility I was drunk by 12 pm but that just made the one and only torrential downpour that occurred during our stay a lot more tolerable.
After we'd watched enough people, my drunken self was dragged out of the square towards the bridges and we somehow found ourselves wandering up a disgusting amount of steps towards a park. I can’t for the life of me remember if this park had a name but I can tell you it features a lovely portaloo that is dirtier than the toilet in Trainspotting.
Our Saturday was spent exploring Prague Castle (more stairs!) which gave me the most overwhelming urge to watch Lord of the Rings. It’s the largest castle in the world and you can easily spend half a day there. We refrained from buying tickets for the exhibitions so we wandered around the outside of the castle and also around the gardens. Thanks to our lack of knowledge we had no idea what each building was for so a tour guide would’ve been beneficial but, as organised tours stress me out, we muddled our way through the history instead.
Sunday was my other half’s birthday and it was spent at the Zizkov TV tower and playing mini golf. We were staying quite far out of the centre of Prague so the tower was only a 5-minute walk from our hotel. The tower is a prominent building in the Prague skyline and it looks completely out of place. It also has 6-foot babies crawling up and down it which is just as random as it sounds. We spent an hour at the tower and then the rest of our time was spent in the restaurant below and on the mini golf course. I got my ass handed to me by my other half during our game and I have officially lost my self-given mini golf champion title.
The following day was spent doing something I never thought I would. I had found a couple of shooting ranges during my research into Prague and we decided to book a slot at Top Gun. We went for the Full Monty package so we were shooting with a Glock 17 pistol, a Magnum Revolver, a shotgun, an M16 rifle, a 9mm Uzi, an AK47 and a Dragunov sniper. I was dreadful with the pistol and didn’t hit my target once but somehow I was perfect with the shotgun despite the fact it practically sent me flying. My other half still beat me in the end but I’m adamant I looked cooler with the guns (just ignore the fact I couldn’t hold most of the guns for more than a few minutes without my arms getting tired).
The hottest day of our holiday seemed to occur the day we had decided to go to the zoo. I am too Scottish to be wandering up and down hills in 39 degrees and probably looked like a minging sweaty mess all day. The zoo was surprisingly quiet (considering it’s the 4th best in the world I was expecting it to be full of people) so at least very few humans saw me completely drenched in my own sweat.
Usually, I get quite upset at zoos because the majority of animals look really sad and bored but they all seemed quite pleased with themselves at Prague zoo. The orangutans were having a fight with their blankets and a hedge, the elephants were enjoying a nice swim, the otters were playing with each other and the penguins were enjoying waddling around in the only way penguins can. The only things that didn’t look pleased were the snakes and that’s probably because they could sense my fear. Needless to say, I never want to walk into a dark room and see an anaconda staring at me from a tank ever again.
Thursday was technically our final full day in Prague but somebody (not me for a change) got too drunk at a cocktail bar 2 doors down from our hotel on Wednesday and spent the whole day in bed with a hangover. I did tell him ordering 10 beers was a bad idea but at 99p per beer, he couldn’t resist. It did give me a good opportunity to sample a lot of cocktails that I’d been meaning to try for a long time. Apparently, pina coladas are my new favourite drink.
Other than New York, I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a city before but Prague has totally captured my heart (prepare for a sloshy power ballad moment). It’s such a beautiful city – just ignore the crap graffiti that the buildings are covered in - and it’s a place I'd totally live in. I would happily go back just for the food alone and now I’m doing everything I can to stop myself from booking another holiday there just so I can have more spinach, bean and walnut burgers!
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