Czechia

We had heard so many great things about Prague that we simply had to visit on our way down from Germany to Austria. We had also heard it can be incredibly cold, so this was one of the reasons we had stocked up on warm clothes. Fortunately the cold snap ended as we left Germany, so Prague was cold, but not impossibly so. On the train down to Prague I was trying to arrange with our host to meet us at our accommodation. He seemed to be very confused and unhelpful until I re-checked our booking and my heart sank - I had booked for the wrong month. We had nowhere to stay when we arrived in Prague and potentially were about to lose a chunk of money. The first major botch up of the trip. Fortunately Nix was on it straight away and managed to secure us an AirBnB place in a couple of minutes, conveniently located and cheaper than the previous place I had booked.

Prague is an incredible city - the layers of history reflected in the architecture, the organic, crazy layout of the streets, and the wonderfully people-centric nature of the place. No wonder it is a tourist magnet. Winter is a less popular time to visit, but the streets were still filled with tourists. The winter market took up the majority of the Old Town square, which was twinkly, buzzy and filled with different kinds of stalls than what we had seen - like a blacksmith making tiny suits of armour and swords.

The city history had to wait - by popular vote, our first destination in Prague was the Lego museum. The tiny little Lego shop had a rather underwhelming little sign pointing down the stairs to the museum. We were a bit hesitant in handing over a fairly substantial number of Czech Crowns to visit the museum but as we progressed from one little room to the next, at least one of us (and maybe two or three) was impressed by the huge Lego sculptures and the unique collections of almost all Lego sets produced over time, including a certain very special castle produced in 1984. We were wondering why there was a Lego museum in Prague, but then found out that one of the largest Lego factories in the world is located in Kladno, just outside the capital.

We spent the afternoon on a (free!) guided walking tour of the Old Town. We met our local guide, Pavel, at the edge of the square and were quickly captivated by his stories of life under communism, his humorous take on Czech history and his top tips for tourists. It takes a lot to get one's head around a history starting in 900 AD and the multiple religious revolutions, monarchies, saints and dynasties involved, but the net result is a wonderfully interesting city. The tour took us past, amongst other things the Powder Gate, the Tyn Church, the Astronomical clock, the Estates Theatre and the Jewish Quarter, including the interestingly-named Old-New Synagogue. The tour had to stop half way through for a coffee break otherwise we would have all frozen to the spot. Fortunately the Christmas market with hot chocolate and gluhwein was close by.

For our second day in Prague we had considered the guided tour of the castle precinct, but decided to slow the pace a but and do our own thing. We started off with a visit to our favourite European shop - Decathlon - for more warm clothes, and some Christmas shopping in the fancy Novy Smichov shopping centre. There we witnessed the contradiction between certain stalls only accepting cash, while some of the fast food restaurants had robot waiters serving food and clearing up dishes! The kids had a ball playing in a frozen playground and having snowball fights along the Vltava River. We skipped the chilly hike and took one of Prague's impressive trams up the hill to the castle. The castle grounds incorporate the enormous and ornate St Vitus Cathedral, the smaller and ancient St George's Basilica, and the charming Golden Lane, which housed the most amazing collection of medieval armour - definitely Daniel's highlight of Prague!

For our last evening in Prague we took up Pavel's recommendation for genuine Czech cuisine and went to U Parlamentu pub/restaurant. Pavel's comment was "Czech food is not sustainable for your health...", comprising a fusion of German, Hungarian and Austrian influences - mostly pork, dumplings and cabbage. Nevertheless, U Parlamentu was packed and we had to wait 20 minutes for a table. Our enthusiastic waiter simply assumed we would have a beer and informed us that he would choose what beer we would have! We opted for the goulash, schnitzel, and a delicious beef dish with cream, lemon and cranberries in a tomato sauce with bread dumplings - surprisingly good!