I went to Prague last week. I also want to be a Bill Bryson/Michael Palin type, so here are my thoughts on Prague.
Travel
Prague is small. Like, not the size of Folkestone small, but still quite small.
Despite the fact that it took me over an hour to find a metro station on my first day and then even longer to find one that would sell me the ticket that I wanted, this is more due to the fact that I lack a sense of direction than any problems with the public transportation service.
I think because I’m used to London, the fact that I could and often did – occasionally on purpose – walk pretty much anywhere I wanted to seemed incomprehensible upon arrival. I thought that I would need transport passes that would allow me to travel on the metro, trams and funicular wherever and whenever I wanted. I was wrong.
The price of these all-day or multi-day tickets is over 100 crowns a day, but individual tickets that last half an hour are just 24 crowns. I would advise you to go for these individual tickets as I don’t think I made enough journeys to warrant the cost on any of the four days I was there.
These tickets are also only available from certain ‘information’ stations. So by the time I’d eventually found a metro station on the first day, I was told that I’d need to go to another one to get one of these tickets. I had managed to walk past one of the information stations about 5 minutes walk from my hotel and so adamant that I wasn’t going to pay more than I needed, I walked to the next one. The metro seems to work on an honour system though, as not once did I have to present my ticket. Had I known this, I probably would have just bunked the tube to the next station.
The metro is really easy to use. There are just three lines which interest at three transfer stations. This makes it extremely easy to work out which route to take and which platform you need. Compared to the London Underground, it’s a right doddle.
I didn’t try using any trams as I didn’t have any need to but from the map it looks like between the metro, trams and buses pretty much the whole city is easily accessible.
It seems that the taxi situation is slightly less praiseworthy. There are two taxi firms – AAA and 111- which are guaranteed to give you a fair rate and these are the only ones allowed to park directly outside of the airport and at certain ‘Fair Price’ taxi ranks. These taxi drivers are very good. I accidentally tried to get into the driver seat – cars on the continent have driver’s seats on the other side, who’d have thought it? – which made him chuckle and then he amusingly had a go at me for taking my own suitcase out of the boot as he said that was “my job”. He got a tip.
On the way back to the airport, the hotel called a cab for me which ended up costing around £5 more on the £15 fare that I had paid to get there. The driver also kept swerving two and fro about the road, making me feel like I was going to die. This driver did not get a tip. It looked as though you could have pre-booked one of the fair price taxis for the return trip to the airport at half the price, which in hindsight is something I wish I had done.
Food and Drink
Traditional Czech food seems to largely consist of meat. As I don’t eat meat, I didn’t taste any of this traditional cuisine.
I didn’t find any problem getting anything to eat though. A personal preference was to try to find restaurants which were slightly off the tourist trail and less crowded which seemed to pay off as service was generally very quick and friendly. The prices of food were a lot less than I expected. I ended up paying between £3 and £7 for a main meal, generally at the lower end of the scale.
As you’d expect for a capital city, there are a lot of restaurants with different cuisine. I tried something at an Austrian restaurant which I was expecting to be something new and exciting but turned out to essentially be macaroni cheese. My favourite restaurant was Hombre del Monde which I heartily recommend as they have the most amazing quesadilas (anything with a lot of cheese basically suckers me in, though) and is literally right outside Andel metro station.
Beer was also quite cheap. You’d be looking at around £1.50 a pint. Even though a quarter of the pint would be head, you’re still getting a good deal.
I arrived in Prague a few days after a ban on alcohol over 20% came into effect. Some might say that they had heard I was coming, especially as the ban is due to be lifted a week after I have left. As such, I didn’t get my hands on any absinthe. There were a large number of shops which appeared to be specifically absinthe stores which seemed to be practically closed. A number of places were selling ‘prohibition cocktails’ but I didn’t try any of these. It was a bit odd to see all these businesses which would have been fully operational just a week or so before almost being pushed out of business.
The guide book also told me that there was a pub which sells banana beer among other unique varieties. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to make it there, but if you do, please tell me what it’s like.
Attractions
I had bought the Lonely Planet pocket guidebook which I disagree with in some respects. Some of the things they said weren’t very good (e.g. The Museum of Communism) were some of my favourite parts of Prague, and some of the things they said were top sights (e.g. Loreta) I found rather dull. On the whole though, the guidebook was rather useful and one of the cheaper ones on the market. Although obviously after reading this, you probably no longer need one.
I’m not going to lie – Prague castle was the big selling point when I was deciding where to go and I spent around 5 hours there. I could easily have spent more if it wasn’t getting a bit too crowded and I wasn’t getting so hungry.
At noon each day, there is a changing of the guards which I found slightly comical. The music for some reason made me think of Thunderbirds. Then they push each other away. Then they do a silly Monty Python-esque slow walk. It’s definitely worth checking out. There’s quite a good video on YouTube here if you want to see it beforehand.
I bloody love castles. I’ve not worked out why. I think I want to be a knight, really. But they just hold a fascination for me. However, by far the best thing at the castle was in the guard’s tower on Golden Lane where you can pay money to fire a crossbow. I was so immensely rubbish at it but it was by far the coolest thing I did the whole time I was away.
It probably won’t surprise you that I also checked out Vysehrad castle which is south of the river. It’s awesome that you can see one castle from the other and this one did have it’s little treats such as a little playground with exercise equipment which I especially enjoyed (I am just a big kid) but if unlike me, you don’t have the patience for two castles, check out the main one on the top of the hill. It’ll be more crowded, but probably more enjoyable.
As with any capital city, there are a lot of museums. Some more enjoyable than others. Of the ones I visited, I thought that the Museum of Communism and the Kafka Museum were the best.
The Museum of Communism gives you a great sense of the recent history of the Czech Republic and makes you proud of the people there who stood up for what they believed in, especially Jan Palach who burnt himself alive to protest the Russian invasion – a memorial to him is at the top end of Wenceslas Square in the form of a wooden cross in the pavement which looks like it has suffereed a small very localised earthquake.
The Kafka Museum was a great and surreal experience which reflects the authors work. I’ve not encountered something that so accurately reflects the work of the person it is playing homage to. I don’t want to say too much more as it might ruin the experience, but it’s something I highly recommend.
The Jewish Museum recently surpassed the castle as most visited tourist attraction in the city. It’s not actually just one museum. It’s several museums based in various synagogues in the Jewish quarter. You can buy a ticket that gets you entry to most of them or a ticket that gets you entry to all of them. I went for the first option and I was glad I did so as after visiting them all, I was all museumed out. Especially as the first one I went in, The Pinkas Synagogue, was easily the most moving. With several rooms lined wall to wall with the names of the 70,000+ Czech jews who died in World War 2, it really hits home just how many people lost their lives and it’s even more moving when you realise that this is only around 1% of the total who died.
The other museum I visited was the Mucha Museum which I found interesting enough but it didn’t bowl me over. It was the only art museum I visited (aside from various rooms at the castle) as the The Museum of Cubism has been mysteriously shut down.
Other sites I visited that I wasn’t overly impressed by was the Bethlehem Chapel which is an old chapel which has been refurbished but which is basically just a room with some chairs and a pulpit. Loreta I felt was just a church. It has some nice treasures and sculptures but it wasn’t worth the 30 minutes I spent trying to locate it and seemed overpriced for the size of it.
The astronomical clock is one of the most well known attractions in Prague and is slap bang in the middle of the city. However, if you want a good view of when it chimes hourly, you probably have to go early in the morning as I went at 2pm and the crowds were so big that I could barely tell what was going on.
The city is littered with a bunch of random surrealist artworks, mainly by David Cerny. The Piss Scuplture being the most famous. They are enjoyable to stumble upon and if you’re nearby I would pop and have a visit but I wouldn’t go especially out of your way to see them. And I definitely wouldn’t go out of your way (which you have to literally do as it took me a while to locate it) to see the cubist lamppost unless you have a particular interest in art.
I would recommend checking out the Memorial to the Victims of Communism which is at the bottom of the east side of Petrin Hill and is rather haunting – apparently more so at night. It can mark the start to a trip up the hill on the Funicular railway and to be honest, who wouldn’t want to travel on a train that’s got fun as part of it’s name?
The hill itself has been romanticised in the works of Milan Kundera such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being (which is about girls, right?). I didn’t find it too interesting though. It would probably be more pleasant on a sunny day on a romantic date with a partner but it didn’t really have much to hold my attention. I was particularly not fond of the lookout tower designed to be like the Eiffel Tower. I refused to go up it on the grounds that it was ugly and ruined the landscape.
Entertainment
Prague is a very English-friendly city. As I was travelling on my own, I decided to plan lots of evening entertainment to keep myself entertained after a long day of sightseeing and it was pretty easy to do so.
Being a cultured type, I obviously decided to go watch an opera. There are a few opera houses – I ended up going to the State Opera which is just off Wenceslas Square because they were showing an opera by Antonin Dvořák as I wanted to see something Czech.
The opera I saw was Rusalka which is based on the same myth as Disney’s The Little Mermaid. It was much easier to follow than when I watched La Traviata in Russia as there were both English subtitles and the performers were moving around. I enjoyed the performance and managed to get my ticket for £6 including booking fee by booking the cheapest available ticket in advance from the internet. There were lots of empty seats though so I don’t think you’d have a problem if you turned up on the day.
The following night I went to see a performance of Wonderful Circus by Lanterna Magika which is non-verbal performance art so that it can be understood by speakers of any language. This cost around £25 booking in advance but again, there were plenty of empty seats so buying when you are there could be considerably cheaper.
The performance was enjoyable enough although it seemed to be quite a lot of the same idea repeated with a poorly flowing narrative and little development. Obviously this is slightly limited due to the format of the performance, but to be honest I expected it to be better than it was.
One thing I noted about Czech theatre from these two performances is that they seem to like the use of video backgrounds where the characters move between video and real life. I don’t know if this is a trend throughout all performances but I thought it was unusual as I’ve not seen it anywhere else before.
On my final night, I went to the cinema. There’s a cinema which again is just off Wenceslas Square called Cinema Svetozor which specifically tells you on their website which films are ‘English Friendly’ due to either being spoken in English and subtitled in Czech or vice versa.
It cost £4 to go to the cinema which struck me as ludicrously cheap as you’d be paying at least twice that in England. I decided to try to watch a Czech film rather than something like Expendables 2, so I ended up watching The Greatest Wish which I actually found really moving and would recommend you try to check out if it is ever released in your country.
If I was to go again, I’d go and see some Black Light Theatre. The Lanterna had elements of it but a full show would be interesting to watch. That and I had no idea what it was until I got home and saw a bit on YouTube
Also, there seem to be a lot of casinos in Prague. I managed to find 3 before I’d found a metro station. So if you fancy returning home with no money, that’s also a possibility!
Conclusion
I liked Prague. I had a great time. I have been trying to work out if it’s because it’s an amazing city or because I was able to do exactly what I wanted to do. I think it was a little from column A and a little from column B. Being able to do exactly what I wanted in Skegness definitely wouldn’t have been as enjoyable. I therefore think it is a lovely city which I would recommend.
I was there for 5 nights which I think was just about long enough, although I did rush around quite a bit. If you’re not worried about seeing absolutely everything and just want to get the best bits, then 3-4 nights is probably adequate. If you want to completely take in the whole city at a nice relaxing pace, then I’d recommend a week.
There, done. Do you think there’s an opening for the next Bill Bryson then?