In August 2025, with our fourth Super Half just two months away, the long-awaited entries for the Generali Prague Half Marathon were finally announced with little notice. It wasn’t until the day before entries opened that the time was announced as well. The 'secrecy' around this seemed to frustrate so many on social media, and I guess I can understand why. It was, however, going to be First-Come-First-Served, so without a ballot to be concerned about, we were in with a chance; albeit with a bit of planning. Or so I thought.
A few weeks before the entries opened, we booked an AirBNB in what looked like a great location in the hope that we’d get a half marathon place, and this would be booked before there’d be a rush of people trying to get accommodation.
On the day of the entries opening, from 13:00 until 13:25, both me and Carmen were trying to get through to the booking page. Refresh after refresh we tried, but when it wasn’t showing an ‘Internal server error’, it was showing only half the page without the ability to pick the race. I could see the problem was likely that they’d put CloudFlare, a caching service, in front of the main site, but hadn’t considered that it was still putting pressure on the database for the non-static pages, and hadn’t done anything about that. They may not have even done anything to the 'register' sub-domain at all. Their web server was three years out of date, and missing crucial security updates as well. It wasn't instilling confidence in their ability to manage large demand.
Someone on Facebook posted a picture of the race being sold out, and this was timed at 13:04. I didn’t want to believe it, and thought maybe it was to put people off trying to improve their own chances, so I carried on. When we found the page that said ‘Sold out’ ourselves, we resigned ourselves to not going to Prague.
So that was it. Despite our best efforts, we’d been defeated. The last two Super Halfs were looking like they were going to be a challenge not just to do, but to do together as we’d planned.
We started looking for an alternative European half marathon to do around March time, and I cancelled the AirBNB booking I’d made. It was reminding me of the Valencia registration, but with a less successful outcome. It seemed like a strong possibility that they'd make this one a ballot next year too, so it could take years for both of us to complete the set. It was very disappointing, and despite the pointlessness of it, I didn’t want to give up.
I kept refreshing the page, partly out of curiosity for whether they would eventually remove the ‘register’ button. I wondered what people on Facebook were saying now, expecting many disappointed people, and spotted that someone had messaged the organisers and had been told that the site was misreporting it as sold out due to server capacity issues. With renewed hope, it felt like I was trying even harder to get through. As time passed I got a little further, so I could actually select the race, but then it was timing out trying to save the details. The reignited hope of getting a place was not flickering out just yet though, and it kept me trying for a couple more hours after that.
“Is it already sold out ???????”
“Hello, it’s not sold out, but the server is not working, because of the amount of people”
Two and half hours had passed by. I finally reached the page for entering personal details for myself, and then Carmen. After that it was then the horror of ‘504 Gateway Time-out’ and ‘Internal server error’ messages once more, making it seem like the previous pages had provided some false hope.
Once three hours had passed I finally got to the page where I could select optional extras such as medal engraving and race photos. This then returned to the usual pattern of error pages, until I then got to the final basket summary with the message:
Overbooking
In the meantime the contingent of some of your items was sold out. The items with insufficient contingent are marked red.
Nothing was marked in red though! I clicked the 'Remove overbooked items' button, and it sent me back to the start. This time I had two browsers open - one to try another joint booking, and one for just mine - with Carmen now trying again as well as she’d got a gap in her schedule. I managed to get through all the way on my solo booking. I then quickly rebooked the AirBNB I'd not long cancelled, and added an extra day to it so we'd be arriving back on Easter Sunday. I felt that by adding an extra day, they’d be more likely to accept our booking after me having only just cancelled it. I had perhaps been a bit too hasty earlier.
Carmen wasn't having much luck though, so I then started trying to book for her as well, but she eventually got through and booked. We were going to be going to Prague!
It would have been nice for things to have gone smoothly after that, but no. We quickly moved on to booking our flights, but I had a problem booking. I’d made it all the way through to the bank's ‘Secure Customer Authentication’ page, and completed that, but instead of seeing the confirmation page, I saw nothing. I checked my bank account first, and could see that the payment was showing up on my card as pending already, and in my British Airways account my Avios points were gone as the booking was showing in my Avios statement too. There was however no booking, and no confirmation email.
I tried calling BA to start with, but this resulted in an automated message saying they were busy due to call volumes, and terminated the call. I tried the online chat, and eventually got to a person. They found my booking reference, but said I hadn’t paid, despite evidence to the contrary. They told me to try the telephone number again, and this time I got through. They found my order using the booking reference the previous person had found, but they told me the order was now completely empty except for my name. It took about an hour overall, but eventually they were able to sort it. I never did receive the email confirmation, but at least it appeared in my account now!
Another consideration was something I found out via the FCO website:
If you do not have a Czech Republic residence permit, you must register your address with the nearest foreign police department (in Czech) within 3 days of arriving. You can also register through your hotel or accommodation service. If you do not register, you could get a fine of up to 3,000 Czech koruna.
It’s not something I’ve had to do before, and was unsure whether the AirBNB host would handle this or not. When I’ve been to other countries that require this, I’ve stayed at a hotel, and they would photocopy my passport and handle the registration themselves. With an AirBNB I wasn’t sure how that would work, but was sure this was how it had worked in Florence and the host had sorted it.
I’d not seen anything on the AirBNB listing about this so thought maybe we’d do this ourselves. I started looking on Google Maps to see where we’d have to go, but then stopped - it’d be better to see what other tourists have done when using AirBNB in the Czech Republic. After some digging I found that AirBNB on their terms page, state that the host is responsible for this.
If you are a Host in the Czech republic, you're required to notify the foreign police department of guests staying at your property within 3 working days of your guest's arrival. You must also maintain a guest register.
That was one less thing to worry about. All we needed to do now was to figure out what there was to see and do for over a week.
Background
The Czech Republic, once part of Czechoslovakia, is now better known as Czecia, with Prague being its capital. Throughout the centuries, Prague has often been a city of importance, as for a time whilst being the capital of Bohemia already, it became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire as well. This lasted until the rule of Ferdinand II when he moved the Empire’s seat to Vienna. After that the city then saw a steady decline, as the population moved away. It saw further devastation in the great fire of 1689, but after that they were determined to rebuild the city better than before.
There is one further link that Czechia has to major world events. Konopiště Castle, not far from Prague, was the last residence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand - the heir apparent for the Austro-Hungarian throne, until his assassination in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. This was the death that led to the outbreak of world war. Had these events not happened, his plan had been to expand the empire to include the Czech Republic.
Once the war was over, Prague became the capital of the newly formed Czechoslovakia. It then saw invasion by Nazi Germany during the second world war, and was taken over by the Soviets after that. After the Velvet Revolution, the country split back into its parts, and Prague became the capital of The Czech Republic once more.
In preparation for visiting, I watched a YouTube channel called Honest Guide who has a lot of handy tips for tourism in his home city of Prague. He covers useful topics such as whether or not the water is drinkable there (it is), and where to find drinking fountains whilst out and about. He also mentions one thing I always try to remember to do - if you use your bank card overseas, always choose to pay in the local currency. It’s also important to remember that jaywalking is illegal there.
Sightseeing
With the race booked, there are usually two questions we ask ourselves next. “Is there a parkrun?” and “can we get our LEGO passport stamped?” Unfortunately Prague does not yet have a parkrun, but it does have a LEGO store quite a way from the Old Town.
Then when it came to coming up with a list of sights to see, I had an additional source to help with that. Before the trip, I read Dan Brown’s ‘The Secret of Secrets’ and found it was set in Prague. This is in addition to the city being used as a film location for movies such as Spider-man: Far From Home, and TV series such as The Rookie. The list I produced seemed pretty big with enough sights to fill maybe five days.
The main problem would literally be the volume of sights that might be worth seeing, along with the number of local cuisines worth trying. It would create a challenge of ordering sights such that we could minimise the amount of walking each day, so Carmen’s leg injury would have time to heal, whilst also making sure we’d be able to have suitable stops for lunches and dinners.
I found the easiest way to do this was to print a big map, with all the sights plotted, and then look at walking times and distances between places to see what could fit into a relaxed day.
Getting Around
When I first started researching information for Prague, the ticket prices for their public transport were 30-330 CZK for thirty minutes to 72 hours tickets. Since then, they’ve introduced a price increase, and the cheapest way to get tickets is by the PID Lítačka mobile app, which is around 3-10 CZK cheaper than the new paper ticket prices when boarding the bus.
For 36 CZK, we’d now be able to get a ticket that would last for thirty minutes from the point of validating. If we’d be doing more than four thirty minute journeys a day then a day ticket would be preferable, though based on our location it’d be unlikely we’d need this many.
Money Matters
Unlike other European countries I’ve visited recently, the Czech Republic does not yet use Euros. They are committed to eventually using the Euro, though no politician has yet made that jump due to strong public opposition. Instead, they use Czech Koruna (Crowns).
Most places will accept cards, and contactless payments such as Apple Pay, but it’s still worthwhile having some cash available for any occasion where it’s needed such as for public toilets that charge 10-20 CZK. I know it’s important to be wary of ATMS, particularly Euronet, due to YouTube’s ‘Honest Guide’ channel. Some are known to trick tourists into withdrawing more money than they need by showing typically higher amounts when foreign bank cards are used. It’d be advisable to stick to ones that are associated with banks.
Prices wouldn’t be too difficult to approximate with 10 CZK as the equivalent of £0.36, we could roughly divide prices by three as a rough guide. This means that a thirty minute ride on their public transport is around £1.30, so we’d spend very little on transport whilst there.
Restaurants and cafes would not be badly priced, with main meals around ~€8–€12 (200–300 CZK), and lunch menus being around ~€6–€8 (150–200 CZK) when away from the main square. Around the main tourist areas you can expect to pay an extra 50-100% on top of those prices. Tipping isn’t a big deal in Prague like it is in some countries; they will usually expect you to just round up the bill, or maybe 5-10% if you’re really happy with your food.