As usual, all these photos and many more can be found HERE in my online photo album.

Day One

Setting off to Heathrow airport early on a Sunday in what has been the coldest March in the UK in 20 years was the first challenge. The photo below shows the state of the A1M in Cambridgeshire which at that time of the day should have been 3 lanes of free flowing traffic.

But I did get to the airport and soon I was up and away.

Prague is only a 1 hour and 35 minute flight so soon I was across central Europe and I could see that the grey clouds of the UK were well and truly left behind.

Arriving in Prague bang on time, the transfer to the hotel was quick due to it being a Sunday afternoon. This time I stayed at the Holiday Inn at the Prague Congress Centre which was a typical modern western hotel.

Having checked in I was able to jump on the Metro right next to the hotel and head up to Hradčany which is by the castle to the Klášterní pivovar Strahov which is a monastic brewery that serves amazing beer (brewed in the monastery) and great food.

Day Two

Day Two saw the walking shoes well and truly on and the guide books and maps all safely left back in the hotel room. Today is about exploring and just following my nose.

So the hotel was in the Vyšehrad area of Prague which is home to Pragues second castle. Whilst this one is not as well preserved as the one everybody knows, it sits high on the banks of the Vltava river and offers equally stunning views of the city

Walking down to river level I hopped on a tram and headed up to the other side of the river to explore some of the back streets that lead up to the Charles Bridge

From here it was then over Charles bridge and into the old town square which as you would expect was full of tourists although as this was outside of the school holidays, not too bad.

From there I continued West until I reached the Masarykovo nádraží‎ train station which whilst very dirty and neglected on the outside revealed that eastern European attention to detail on the inside when you looked up

From there it was up to the National Museum passing the State Opera House on the way before looping back on myself and heading down to the “Fred & Ginger House” on the river

From here it was back to the hotel to warm up as by this stage of the day, the local temperature was still well below freezing

But the day wasn’t over yet.

I wanted to get back out into the city after dark which is when this very pretty city gets even prettier.

By this time my ears were frozen solid so it was time to put away the camera and retire for the night

Day Three

Once again off the beaten track and this time I headed West to the Žižkov TV Tower which can be seen from all over Prague.

It’s only when you get close up do you realise that it’s not as serious as you may first expect with dozens of babies crawling over the outside

As expected the views from the top were stunning

From here it was a meander through the residential streets of Vinohradská and back into the town centre.

Jumping on a tram, it was back up to the castle district for lunch at the monastery and then a look around the castle itself.

Lunch consisted of a Pork Knuckle which is a traditional Czech dish (and a large one at that) washed down with far too much beer but at least it warmed me up

From this part of the city, the views are equally as spectacular and there are things to see and do in all directions. All the architecture is on a grand scale and some of it is just breath-taking

So by now it was getting late and cold so back to the hotel before heading back out into the old town for a final (if not less traditional) meal and some live music at the Hard Rock Cafe

Day Four

Time to go home.

A fun few days all be it rather too cold for this time of the year but leaving enough unseen for me to want to return (preferably when the weather is warmer)

Practicalities

Whenever I do post like this I get a lot of questions on how or where so here are some of the more useful points.

I flew with British Airways from Heathrow to Prague. A journey that sees you in the air for just over 90 minutes.

For the airport to hotel transport I used Prague Airport Shuttle. Having used this service a few times now, I can’t recommend them enough.

I stayed at the Holiday Inn Prague Congress. Whilst on paper this seems a bit far out of the city, it is right next to a metro stop which is just 2 stops from the centre of the city.  In reality, the location of this hotel worked really well but the price was very attractive.

Throughout the city, many venues have free Wi-Fi (including my hotel) so staying connected was easy however I also bought an O2 Pre Paid SIM which when loaded with Kc500 of credit (about £18) gave me 3GB of mobile 3G data lasting for up to a month. With hindsight, the Kc90 (about £3)  package that would have given me 1GB lasting for up to a week would have been plenty. In any case, high speed mobile data was excellent no matter where in the city I was.

Getting around is simple.

Remember that I did this trip without carrying a map and I still failed to get lost.

You can buy a 1 day ticket for Kc110 (about £4) which means you can jump on and off all the public transport in the city. The public transport system (like most European cities) is extensive, clean, safe and efficient. This is not the sort of city you would hire a car in unless you were planning on heading out of the city itself.

Summary

I think this is one of those cities where you could just keep returning to for a few days, year after year and still keep finding new things and it really is picture postcard pretty even when the temperature is below freezing with grey clouds.

It is also an inexpensive city. My lunch (pork knuckle) at the monastery came in at less than £20 and that included LOTS of beer. The day before I stopped for lunch and had 2 beers and goulash which came to Kc289 (less than £10). Stay away from the main tourist areas as here, prices can be a lot higher

So as a city break destination this has to be top of the list every time. Cheap food and drink, short flight times, stunning architecture and loads to see and do and as safe as any other city in Europe.

I know I’ll be back soon. In the meantime all these photos and many many more can be found HERE in my online photo gallery

Thanks for looking

I am sat here questioning if I am turning into a dinosaur.

We used to joke about how you needed to get a child to help their parents program the VCR (remember them?) but I can’t help thinking I am heading in that direction myself.

This week I have been reminded that the online world that I have existed within since around 1995 is constantly changing and evolving as Google has announced the retirement of Google Reader.

For me this was my primary source of news and information online. With some 250  RSS feeds, I was able to sit down in a morning and rattle through hundreds of relevant (and not so relevant) news items in a matter of minutes from many different sources. The workflow was efficient and, in line with modern thinking, I could access this “river of news” from any device at any time. If I read an article on one device it was marked read on all other devices.

But now I am forced to change.

So it’s not as if I haven’t done a whole hearted shift in approach before. Not that long ago I went through the exercise of moving my online world online. Shutting down my own servers and using platforms such as Google Apps, WordPress and SmugMug to do the heaving lifting. Enabling me to concentrate on the content and not the platform.

So Google keep saying that the world of online content is getting more social.

Services such as Zite, Flipboard and others can take these news feeds and present them in an online magazine style with nice graphics, lots of social interaction and what have you. 

These types of services have been described as “Lean Back” services. You sit back in your comfy chair and browse through your magazine. Which is fine if you want to read through a handful of articles but simply doesn’t work for hundreds of news items.

I don’t want fancy graphics and other readers opinions. I want the information delivered straight to me eyeball without distraction and without the ads preferably as I down a cup of strong coffee. See what this always on world of news has turned me into?

But it’s the ads that power the internet and it’s the advertisers that rely on the social element to target those ads accurately. One can’t help thinking that the real reason Google killed Reader is because it didn’t support their primary business. Advertising!

So I have to accept that just like the death of Usenet before it, the concept of raw RSS feeds is an old fashioned one and so I am dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

It doesn’t help that Google Reader was actually a service not a client. So it’s not just about finding a new application to read my news in (like Zite or Feed Demon etc) but a service that all my clients on all my devices can connect back into.

I am currently playing with Feedly and it shows promise. I think with time it could help wean me off my Google Reader addiction whilst still allowing me to stay in touch with all that is happening around me but the good news is that I am not alone.

Bloggers around the world are screaming about what Google has done so I am sure there will be plenty of opinions on which service is a worthy replacement and all of those opinions will continue to be delivered into my River Of News on a daily basis.

So what has changed in the last 12 months?

Often it hard to pick out those advances in technology that impact your day to day life because the don’t arrive with a big bang. The arrive bit by bit so that you think you have always done things in a certain way.

I mean 6 years ago, none of us were using Facebook or Twitter and now look.

But as I get to the end of 2012 I can’t help noticing that my life and my home is a lot more connected.

Take my living room as an example.

Suddenly that stack of AV kit in the corner of the room has an Ethernet switch connected to it. My Sky+ box has an internet connection, my Yamaha AV amplifier has an internet connection and of course there is an Apple TV in there which again is a connected device. We had none of these connections 12 months ago.

And of course all of that is controlled not by your common or garden remote control but by an app running on an iPad or an Android phone etc.

But not only is everything connected to the web, but more importantly everything is connected to everything else plus because all of this is connected to the web, I can access a lot of things from outside of the home.

Want to set something to record on BBC1 tomorrow night but find yourself halfway around the world? Not a problem. A few clicks on your phone and the recording is scheduled.

And it’s not just in the home.

My car is a rolling WiFi hotspot. My phone can connect to it to access the internet. Plus the satnav has it’s own data connection which it uses to connect to Google Earth to they display that satellite imagery onto the screen on the dashboard

Meanwhile my phone is talking to various back end servers and my PC on my desk and by iPad and loads of other things all at the same time.

I’m pretty sure that things were not this connected or as easy to get connected either this time 12 months ago. Add to that, a lot of things are going mobile.

You want to hope that the network carriers have got good plans in place to carry all this new mobile data.

Certainly we are moving towards a more connected world and a much more mobile world but so far, the world of the future still doesn’t have my flying car.

So eventually somebody saw sense and the dealer did the right thing and the Mercedes was handed back. It was however all rather short notice in the end so I found myself car shopping with little or no research looking for something that would make a good family car, be fun to drive and own, would not rattle and was available pretty much from stock, all without costing me any more per month to own and run than I was previously paying.

So after far too much time spent sitting in car dealers last week, I have taken delivery of probably the least likely car I could have ever ended up with.

So it’s an Audi A7 Quattro which means it is rather large, very quick and might actually make it off the drive this winter if it snows.

It is also fully loaded with toys including top end multimedia with Bose speakers, head up display, full online services including Google Earth, fancy lights, powered everything and more menu options on the dashboard than even Captain Kirk had to deal with.

It’s also very quick and very quiet.

So here are a few more pictures and I will report back in a few weeks on how well it is doing.

I was put onto the uniquely Dutch concept of Bungalow Parks so after a bit of research we left home on a dull grey Friday morning at the end of August bound for the channel tunnel and beyond.

We arrived at our destination 12 hours later after driving through France, Belgium and most of The Netherlands. We were staying at the Landal Bungalow Park of Esonstad which is up on the North Sea Coast on the edge of Lauwersmeer which is a huge wetlands national park.

Our house was on the edge of the water and to be fair was exactly as it had been described in the brochure. Spacious, clean and will everything you could want facilities wise, this was our home for the week. Our house was on a small peninsular away from the main park of the park (but still only 5 minutes walk)

The View From Our Patio

This was certainly not going to be a beach holiday and the weather did not disappoint on that front but armed with a guide book (and diesel at 20p per litre cheaper than in the UK) we set out to explore.

Here are a selection of photos from our days out and of course all our photos can be found here in the album.

The fortified town of Bourtange

Very up close and personal with some Meer Kats at the  zoo at Emmen

The very pretty town of Sneek

Edam (yes where the cheese comes from)

You knew we would have some of these sooner or later

We even found an old submarine in a car park at Van Helder

Up periscope

And as for this! I have no idea except they all arrived on bikes before posing for this shot. We will never know.