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Published: April 14th 2012
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Old Town Clock Tower
The Old Town Square Clock Tower that is home to the famous Astronmical Clock Well it has been a while since I have writen anything on my blog but then since my last entry myself and Katharine have had a beautiful daughter and havnt really had chance to go anywhere until now.
At 7 months we thought it would be a good time to trial a short break with our daughter and organise a city break which wasnt too far away on a flight. We are also in training for a marathon later in may so we wanted to find somewhere we could incorporate our run. We decided to head to Prague and also entered the Hervis Prague Half Marathon as well.
We flew in to Prague on the 29th March with Jet2.com, last time i book a flight with them as we got stung on top of our booking for another £57.50 each for checking our luggage in at the airport. Dissapointing as online it clearly says that we have to check in at the airport if you have infants. had it of let us book our baggage online we would have paid half that! Shame on you jet2.com... anyway, at immigration meredith showed her passport for the first time
Church in the Old Town
One of the many churches in Pragues Old Town and the immigration man stamped her passport to remember her first ever trip which was nice of him. We had organised a taxi to collect us when we arrived at the airport the company we used were brilliant, they were waiting on time and provided and excellent baby seat for Meri and took us quickly to the Hotel Friday on Na Prikope in Pragues old town.
The Hotel was really good, we had emailed them in advance to ask for things like a travel cot, a room with a bath and a kettle for heating the babys food etc and to their credit they did everything we asked of them. The rooms were nice a big, very clean and the hotel was situated just a 5 min walk to the main old twon square.
Prague is stunning at night as you arrive, there is such beautiful architecture everywhere you look and prague castle sits on top of the hill overlooking the town all lit up. We didnt do a great deal more friday night apart from grab a quick bite to eat and headed off to bed.
Friday morning we needed to go and find the Half
Hervis Expo
Me and Katharine under one of the hervis Half marathon Banners near the expo tent marathon Expo area so we could register and collect our start packs. It was easy to find and the process was well organised. We were pretty chuffed as after we registered we saw our names pop up on a big wide screen showing our names and GBR next to them. Made us feel we were actually running for the UK. Lunch then at a restuarant which we stumbled on by chance called the apropos was great, they were very welcoming and happy to have children in the restaurant, the waiter even brought a small teddy bear to the table for Meredith. We had soup werved in a round loaf of bread which was a czech traditional dish and was lovely.
From there we went for a walk over the famous CHarles Bridge overlooked in the dustance by Prague Castle. The bridge boasts lots of splendor with large icons and statues lining the edges of the bridge. very popular with tourists and I wished I was able to have it to myself to take some photos but not to be.. we walked down some steps over the other side to walk up to the next bridge along the riverside. I
helped a Lady back up the steps with her pram and half way up she said " this is fine, I will ask someone else to do the rest who is younger!" first time I have ever thought i must be getting old 😊 am I really doing a half marathon tomorrow!
31st March Race day, start is at 12pm although they advised us to be there at least an hour before hand so that we could be organised in to our running pens. Word of experience take an old jumper which you can discard at the side of the road when the race starts as it was pretty cold, i think we were the only ones who were stood there in running vests and shorts! once the race started though you soon warmed up. The race took us south of the river and then came back on itsself for the first 6k and then headed north of the river. It crosses over the river 5 times in total over various bridges. It is quite tough in a lot of places as a lot of the streets are cobbled and have tram tracks running through it too
so you have to watch your step. 11,000 running in total which was a sell out and we ran past some fantastic scenery. Our previous and only other half marathon was 4 weeks prior at Blackpool so a different contrast to that! we both finished with New PB's me 2:04:13 sec and Kat 2:02:01sec both very pleased and showing that thr training for edinburgh is going in the right direction! Very glad the Hotel had a nice deep bath for when we got back!
1st April - Sightseeing day today. We decided that we were going to head to the Castle and rather than a steep walk we opted to take the tram which we were told went directly to the top. The Tram we needed to get was the 22 so we headed to the nearest tram stop and bought some tickets which are available at most tobbaconists or general stores near the tram stops. It was about a pound each for the tickets which is pretty reasonable. After about half an hour of being sat on the tram the buildings around us started to get a little sparse and a lot more suburban and it definately felt
like we were heading out of Praguie, we asked a girl if it was going to the castle and she said the 22 does but we were on the one going in the opposite direction and that it would be better to get off and wait for another! we hopped off and got the next one heading in to prague and by the time we got back to where we started it then only took about 10 mins to get to the castle. still at least we got to see a bit more of Prague than we bargained for!
Prague castle was stunning and hosts a magnificent cathedral "St Vitus" which has the most amazing high ceilings and stainglass windows I have ever seen. We purchased a ticket for about £8.00 each which gave us access to 5 areas of the castle. and spent the next few hours mooching around. It is well worth a visit and has some nice restaurants and coffee houses as well. The view from the top over the city of Prague is gorgeous.
Last Day 2nd April
Another great breakfast in the Hotel Friday and then out to see some
of the sights on offer. We headed to the old town square and climbed to the top of the tower where the Astronomical clock is, the view from the top over the city of prague is fantastic. there isnt a great deal of room to walk around the parapet at the top of the tower and if you dont have a head for heights dont look down as the people below look like worker ants.
We wanted to visit the Jewish cemetary as it is believed that due to lack of space some graves have people buried 12 on top of each other. However on arrival the cost was £10.00 per person to enter the cemetary and to be honest we wernt £30.00 keen so we headed back to the Apropos restaurant for some lunch. Very chilled afternoon walking along the Vitava river watching the tour boats taking swarms of people up and down the river.
After that we met the taxi to take us back to the airport and headed back to blighty ( with a 2 hour delay )
All in all Prague was a great city break, the people are either very friendly or
very surley, fantastic architecture, great food, lots of good sights to see and reasonably cheap. I would like to go back again in winter when there is snow on the ground as I think it would be quite enchanting especially with the christmas markets.
Thats it for now and hopefuly it wont be another 2 years until my next post!
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