“No idea,” says Mimi. “Ottla Kafka had a house at number 22. Her brother, Franz, stayed with her and wrote some of his short stories there.”

I can see that the place has history, but whatever Golden Lane used to be, it is now a tourist trap.

“A famous fortune teller once lived at number 14. Madame de Thebes. She predicted the fall of the Third Reich.” Mimi shakes her head. “She was arrested and tortured by the Nazis.”

The Kafka house is now a souvenir shop.

“Number 12 was the home of film historian Josef Kazda. You can see a recreation of his workspace.”

“Can’t wait.”

At the far end of the street is a museum of sorts. Weaponry for the most part. Swords, spears, axes, pikes, along with shields and suits of armour. Everything you would need to kill people. We make our way up a narrow staircase that only has room for one person at a time.

“Look, Bird.” Mimi points to a sign. “You can shoot an authentic crossbow.”

“Pass.”

“I’ll be the damsel in distress,” says Mimi, “and you can save me from the dragon.”

“Pass.”

“I’ll take your picture.” Mimi tries to keep the smile off her face. “Indian with crossbow.”

So I shoot the crossbow. I get three shots. I hit the target twice.

“Tell me that wasn’t fun.”

“The bows weren’t full strength,” I tell Mimi. “The arrow barely stuck in the target.”

Mimi nods. “They probably don’t want a bolt to ricochet and hit a tourist.”

The weapons museum seems to go on forever, and it doesn’t take long for the second wave of boredom to set in. And then Mimi finds the torture room.

“Is that what I think it is?”

In addition to a rack designed to stretch people and tear them apart, an iron cage with spikes, and an assortment of wood stocks, pliers, manacles, and chains, there is a wooden chair covered in nails. There are nails on the seat, on the back, on the armrests, and on the neck support.

Along with thick leather straps that can be cinched down to hold every part of you in place.

Mimi is impressed. “What kind of sick mind would think up something like this?”

I suggest the Department of Indian Affairs.

“The chairs at residential schools weren’t nail chairs,” Mimi reminds me. “They were electric.”

You might imagine that you can still hear the cries of the people who were tortured with the devices in the Golden Lane museum or that you can taste the blood and smell the bodily fluids that would have soaked the floor.

But you can’t.

“And during the reconciliation hearings,” Mimi says, her voice hard as flint, “school officials were adamant that the chairs were never used at full power.”

So we’re in Prague. At the castle. We’ve just toured Golden Lane, and now we’re both cranky.

“I have to find a bathroom.”