James Went To Prague

So one of my closest friends of the last 15 ish years is from the Czechia (sorry, Czech Republic), yet I’d never even been to Prague.

It was time to put that right in August. And…it was hot and sunny into the mix.

In fact it was probably too hot at times – it was 33’C when we arrived on the Friday afternoon, and with quite a walk to the nearest bars and restaurants I became a tad hot and flustered – our Airbnb seemed to be in an area full of Airbnbs. I’m sure the locals don’t want to live in the centre of Prague anyway. Right?

So we didn’t do too much on the first night – one bar where I made the mistake of ordering a large beer, which was the size of two pints.

And then we went for some traditional Czech food at Restaurace Tiskárna Jindřišská, where I had duck and dumplings – damn the gravy was on point.

Living The Tourist Life

It was time to get touristy for the next day or so.

Firstly to watch thousands of people gawk at an old clock that does stuff every hour, recording videos that they will never ever watch back, and nobody else will watch when they post on social media (roughly the same amount of people that will read this).

It’s one of the obvious things to do in Prague, as is walk over Charles bridge (not actually named after our King Charles), go to the John Lennon wall and walk up to the castle.

We ticked all the obvious tourist boxes in the centre – though interestingly as busy as some spots were, you didn’t have to walk very far to escape the tourists. There’s clearly an obvious route that everyone takes, as did we – but venture off 10 minutes and it feels like locals are using the city.

I quite liked Letna Park – there was a kind of ex-communist monument area in the park – the statue of Stalin was demolished in 1962, but what remained still had an interesting aura – now populated by skateboarders, with some graffiti, and also a bar serving beers – which is the main reason I was there, of course. Along with the drizzle spray which was so nice to walk under, on a hot and sunny day.

Though it did still have a certain rustic communist charm.

Same cannot be said of Letna Park beer garden, proliferated with stag groups, ATMs with huge charges to withdraw money to pay at cash only bars with half-decent beer. Yay. That said…the views were ace, and the people watching was funny.

Prague By Boat

My highlight of the trip was quite possibly getting a boat along the River Vltava – an hour or so long cruise just before sunset, with the dimming light bringing the best out of the nearby buildings.

It was quite mesmerising, and even more fun with a glass of prosecco.

Other touristy things we did included going up Petrin Tower – which is like a much smaller version of the Eiffel Tower, with a ridiculously old and slow lift, which obviously is part of the tourist charm. I walked back down rather than waiting for the lift.

Also the house of mirrors, which was fun…albeit 10 minutes of fun.

And on the last day we paid some stupid amount, I think £15, to ride a vintage tram around the city. Well, it was something to do that didn’t involve drinking beer.

All Of The Goulash

Eating out in eastern Europe when one of the party is a vegan, and the other two definitely not, is a challenge.

There are plenty of vegan restaurants. There are loads of restaurants where every dish includes meat. There are not so many which realise that vegans might associate with meat-eaters, and, hell, dine with each other.

Possibly the best meal of the holiday was at a veggie restaurant (who even am I) – Lehká hlava.

Fried goat’s cheese, topped with walnuts and stuff, on top of potato and some salad. It was great.

More on the average side was Mediterranean Restaurant & Bistro Antonio Sandev – again somewhere which would definitely do vegan, but also served chunky pork chops. Served rare, it was good…but I think there were better options on the menu.

The Neanderthal in me just needed a bit chunk of meat, after braving a veggie lunch.

Peas…What Was I Thinking?

On the Sunday, lunch was eggs benedict at Kampa Cafe – again plenty of vegan options, and the poached eggs were superb.

But then after a day of drinking good beer along the river, and spending around 6 hours deciding which of 138 restaurants on our to-do list to go to, we went to U Modré Kachničky – a really nice restaurant, proper Prague kind of place and apparently semi-famous.

And then for some reason I ordered rabbit in pea sauce.

Pea sauce…I fucking hate peas.

What was I thinking?

I really didn’t enjoy it, but even the rabbit was coarse and nothing like what I expected. A very poor decision from myself.

I tried to make up for my stupidity the next day with a giant pork knee, at Potrefená husa Platnéřská.

Is There Good Beer In Prague?

Finding good beer wasn’t quite as easy as I expected in Prague. No, Pilsner does not count in my book, and certainly Staropramen doesn’t.

We actually struggled to find beer I enjoyed at first – everything where we went was mostly Staropramen or Pilsner Urquell. The latter is fine, I’ll drink it – but, at least in the places we went at first, bearing in mind I was the only one of the three who wanted beer, I didn’t have much success.

We did find a tap room, Sibeeria Tap Room – surprisingly hot inside considering the name, but it had what I’d call a proper modern IPA selection.

Yet we did find our perfect area of Prague – starting at a place called (A)void cafe, which was along the riverside and well away from almost all the tourists – still a few American accents here and there, but it was quite quiet, and I think there was some locals around too.

Anyway – excellent beer, I had an NEIPA, I think from the aforementioned Sibeeria. Sat in the hot sunshine, on a Sunday afternoon – I was very, very happy.

But also all along that strip there are lots of other bars, many of them on boats, some of them serving excellent beer, others not so. It was great for people watching – and river watching, though also needed a bit of patience with the wasps. Maybe this was the highlight of the trip…close call between this and the cruise along the Vltava.

Prague Completed

And that was Prague completed, pretty much, bar getting a beer delivered on a train track.

Is that cool, or what?

I was very much charmed by Prague – we found great spots for everything we wanted, food, beer, tourist life, people watching – and the weather was glorious and hot (though I think the next weekend it flooded).

I’ll leave you with a little gallery of Prague’s characters – and trams.