Day 1

I'm writing about this trip from memory 11 months ago so it's difficult to break down a day by day itinerary so bear with me for this trip. 

Travelling from the Airport to Prague center

We got the bus and metro from the Airport which dropped us around 20 minutes walk away from our hotel. We arrived at the hotel around 15:30 so was able to check in and get refreshed before heading out. 

Our first day we like to spend exploring the local area's so we know where the local stores etc are located. We arrived late afternoon we was running out of time to do to much exploring. 

Day 2

Our first day we explored. One thing I noticed about Prague was the floor. Pretty much all the pavements are cobbled. As someone that works in the industry that lays cobbles occasionally I can truly appreciate not only the quality of workmanship but the shear amount of cobbles and the time it must have taken to lay the streets of Prague. Stunning work of art. 

During the morning of exploring we saw the famous Head of Franz Kafka. 

The Head of Franz Kafka: The kinetic sculpture is 10.6 metres tall and made of 42 rotating stainless steel panels weighting 24 tonnes in total.^[6] Each layer is mechanized and rotates individually.^[7] Inside, there are 21 motor modules and 1 kilometre of cables.

As mentioned above the head rotates, I think it rotates every hour and when we arrived at the head with just a minute or so left before it started.

Because we kind of stumbled upon the head we found ourselves located behind it. A large crowd gathered in front facing the head with camera's and phones at the ready, rather than moving to the front we just stayed behind.

A great tip for anyone wishing to see the rotation without fighting the crowd is to stand behind the head. (It's a rotating head remember!) The head rotates round giving a great view of the head without a huge crowd to fight over.

Once the head was finished rotating we turned to our right and noticed a shopping centre in the corner. We decided this would be a perfect time for a break. Let me just tell you the decision to take a break at that time and at this location was great timing. 

We entered the building and headed up the escalator finding a food court, a whole floor of food and drink from a wide range of cuisines. I was in Heaven!

This place had lots more levels so we headed to the top of the building where we found a multitude of attractions.

First off we headed to the top floor where there is a roof top bar and restaurant called (Fly Vista – Rooftop restaurant and bar) Now it's late December and the weather isn't the warmest so heading up to a rooftop bar at midday with a glass of bubbles in Prague was either genius or stupid. I'll let you decide. Due to the weather the view from the rooftop wasn't as good as you would get during the summer months but we had the entire rooftop to ourselves. 

Once refreshed we headed down to the next level and found a museum called Back in Time. https://backintimeprague.cz 

Tickets cost around £15 each: Save time and buy your tickets for Back in time from Get your Guide. This was a great little find. Explore the history of Prague in a fun way with a 5d cinema experience. There was even lockers for us to leave our valuables before we went inside. Def worth a visit. 

The floor below had a fantastic feature called Heroes Park. A whole level dedicated to super hero's https://heroespark.cz/en/heroes-park-en/ If you've got kids then 100% you can't pass up this floor. Unfortunately we didn't have time on this visit to go into the heroes park, why not you ask?

Well the next two floors down took up a lot of our time. It was amazing. A whole two floors of amazing action packed fun. 

LEVELS Prague - The largest entertainment center in Central Europe

This place is unreal. It was totally unexpected and our short break had gone from a 15 minute stop to multiple hours of drinking, sightseeing, history, more drinking and fun! Levels Prague is such a great place. There is way to much for me to list here so check out the website https://levelsprague.com/en/ if you're in Prague and maybe the weather isn't so great or you have younger kids with you then you 100% need to come here.

As we'd now spent plenty of time in Levels Prague we headed out and found the Prague Astronomical Clock, also known as the Orloj, is a medieval clock located in the Old Town Hall in Prague.

From the square here you get a great view of the Roman Catholic parish at the Church of Our Lady before Týn http://www.tyn.cz/cz/.

As it was during the festive period this square hosted a Christmas market with lots of entertainment and food stalls etc. 

The route back to our hotel from the old town took us back past the Head of Franz Kafka  which was lit up and looked a lot nicer at night time. 

Day 3

With a long day of exploring ahead we needed a hearty breakfast. We looked around online and found a cafe that had some great reviews so decided to eat there. 

Kavarna co hleda jmeno, Stroupežnického 493/10, 150 00 Praha 5-Smíchov

At the time we visited here it was difficult to find. No signposts and adverts. Nothing to actually help us find the cafe, we searched for it and walked past or nearby several times, we walked around like headless chickens trying to find the entrance until we stumbled across it. If you're looking for this place note you had to walk into the car park next door and walk to the far left side where you can find an old wooden looking gate with a tiny sign hanging next to the gate. We only noticed it when we seen someone leave here. 

Inside was small, very crammed and not much waiting room. Several people came in and left. We joined a queue of people and waited in line. The staff were very rude and ignorant. Nobody spoke to us at all and the staff continued to walk past and walk around ignoring anyone that walked in unless anyone approached them. 

They are obviously very busy and are used to people coming in waiting in line but some manners would go a long way in here. Some people had the insight to book a table in advance and when they arrived they went to the front of the queue and got shown to seats pretty quickly. Until we was next to be seated nobody spoke to us. It took around 30-40 minutes before we was seated and I wished had left and found an alternative venue to eat at this point. We did eventually get seated and for the time it took to find this place and the wait to be seated along with the ignorant staff we was extremely disappointed with the food. 

Our goal was the advertised fluffy eggs and they did not disappoint in terms of being very photogenic but that's where the attraction stopped. The food was luke warm at best and lacked any real flavour. Other than the experience of being served up an unusually large fluffy poached egg then this place really wasn't worth everything we'd been through to eat here. 2 Star review!

Once breakfast was done we headed out to Petrin Tower. The walk (Hike) up the hill through Petrin gardens was a picturesque journey up long windy pathways to the top of the hill. At the top you will find several attractions including Petrin Tower and the Mirror Maze. We purchased a dual ticket through GetYourGuide which cost around £11 each. We looked at the queue of people lining up to enter Petrin Tower and decided to head over to the mirror maze first. Like any other hall of mirrors / mirror maze this attraction is over quite quickly. It was quite small but we still enjoyed the time we spent in here. When we was exiting we spoke to the staff and they advised us to go to the exit of Petrin Tower and bypass the queue as most people in the queue was buying tickets and as we had our tickets already we didn't have to queue up. To the left of the main entrance is a small cafe by the exit, we headed through the exit and passed what looked like a very long queue so def worth noting that if you're visiting Petrin Tower. 

Once we had finished in Petrin Tower we headed down hill towards Prague Castle.

As we explored the city during the daytime we passed many of the iconic buildings and tourist attractions in Prague including:

• • Dancing House
  • Lennon Wall
  • Prague Castle
  • St. Vitus Cathedral
  • Old Town Square - Staromestske namesti
  • Charles Bridge

We recommend buying tickets for Petrin tower and the mirror maze in advance to avoid the long queues. We purchased our tickets form get your guide for around £10 each. 

Day 4 - New Years Eve

New Years in for us was very different to normal. We wanted to do something different so we decided to go to the Zoo. 

NYE in Prague is cold so wrap up warm if you go during the winter months. 

The good news about going to Prague Zoo during days like the deals you can get. Off peak is already cheaper than normal; you can get tickets online from Get your Guide for around £11. But if you go on NYE and pay cash on entry it was half price. As mentioned above it's cold so it's probably a contributing factor to the Zee being quiet. Not as quiet as we was expecting but not all the animals are out so don't expect to see everything in the zoo. 

Prague Zoo is around 40 mins away via the metro and a bus dropping you off near the main entrance. 

Prague zoo is huge, we managed to see majority of the zoo and I think during the summer months when all of the animals are out and a lot more visitors and tourists are visiting then it would be difficult to see whole zoo in a single day, especially if you have younger children with you. 

We really enjoyed our day out at the zoo. 

Once we got back into the old town it was time to party. As they say "staying in" is the new "going out" so once we'd took in the atmosphere in the Old Town we retired for the evening. 

Day 5 & 6

We continued with exploring the city venturing over to Lesser Town over Charles Bridge and headed up to Prague Castle where we explored the castle for the best part of the morning. 

As if the temperature in Prague is not cold enough we decided to head over to the Prague Ice Bar.  A top tip is to buy your tickets in advance. Grab your tickets for the Prague ice bar here because the entrance fee if you pay on arrival is a lot more expensive. There is an option to get into the robotic bar next door where a robot can make you a cocktail of your choice which was quite good. 

Prague Castle had lots of different tours and lots of different options. Normally we would go with a guided tour but this time we chose not to and instead grabbed a basic ticket from get your guide Prague castle. 

Now when you're visiting Prague there are a few things must do things. For me I don't think you can come to Prague and not drink BEER! Some fantastic bars all over Prague and below I'm going to let you know my favourite bar and also a recommended bar also worth a visit but first lets talk Staropramem!

We made a stop in the afternoon to the Staropramem brewery for a tour. Once again you can get your tickets from Get your Guide. 

We booked the tour including a tasting option of the finest beers made by this brewery. The tour itself is quite short and it doesn't take long to get round. It's not actually a tour but a recording that guides you through the different areas until you come to the grand finale! Beer tasting!

Recommended bars

After trying so much beer in Prague I thought I'd let you know my favourite bars in Prague. Although there was many different bars all serving great beer my favourite was the Hany Bany Bar.  

• • • Hany Bany Bar, Veleslavinova 5, Prague 110 00 Czech Republic

The Hany Bany bar was a small local bar with a movie theme decoration. Small, cosy & welcoming it's advertised as doing student nights and I can see why it would be attractive to students. They have a happy hour in the afternoons for a short time where the beer is half price, this means you get 2 pints for the price of one. Around £2!! 

My second recommendation goes to the nightmare horror bar. 

• • • Nightmare Prague Horror Bar, Újezd 598/5, Prague 150 00 Czech Republic

This bar is located in Malá Strana (Little Quarter) underneath Prague Castle. There's a cool story about it once being a Kings route taken by future kings on their way to coronation - originating in the Old Town, crossing Charles Bridge and leading to Saint Vitus Cathedral. The bar is fantastic and any film lover, especially iconic horror movies will love this place.