So, Prague was fantastic! The city was beautiful, despite the fact that I think I saw about 2 hours of sun in the 5 days I was there. Clouds have been a theme of this trip so far. I have never been in a city with so much beautiful architecture. The churches were absolutely amazing and the city abounds with tons of statues and carvings, all of which are interesting and beautiful.
I left London very early Wednesday morning, as I had to catch a 2:50 a.m. bus in order to make it to the train which took me to the airport. The two busses and an express train later, I arrived at London's Gatwick airport. Slightly delirious, I made my way to through the terminal and got on my flight at 7 a.m. The flight was relatively painless. I took Easy Jet which is a service that offers flights within Europe for very cheap. The flight had first come, first serve seating but I still managed to get a window next to an empty seat.
A little less than two hours later I landed in Prague where I was met by two of my favorite gentlemen, Mr. Osman Nemli and Sir Vincent Moore. My friend Oz currently resides in Prague when not at school at Trinity and Vince was there visiting him (They make up two of my three roommates from this past semester!). We took a quick ride into the city to Oz's apartment and where I dropped off my stuff and said hello to his family.
Determined not to let my lack of sleep drag me down, we set off to what would be the first of many great bar/restaurant experiences of the trip. It was great to see Oz and Vince and they handled my travel delirium and sleep deprivation very well. We attended a small brewery where I filled my stomach up with some goulash and czech dumplings. It was there that I was acquainted with a theme in Czech food: gravy. There were about four or five stewing sized chunks of beef with about a gallon of quite rich gravy. Let's just say it was impossible to finish the entire bowl of gravy, though the meal was delicious. The dumplings, as they called them in Prague, were very different from any I'd had before. They were more like slices of very doughy bread with anything from raisins to bacon folded in. I enjoyed them, but like much of the food they were very heavy.
Since I do not usually remember things chronologically, I am going to try and organize this post thematically. In keeping with the previous paragraph, I will continue on with food and drink. I'd have to say the best meal I had here was at a place called the Cafe Louvre (named for the Museum in Paris. Don't ask me why). I really enjoyed the place. It has been a gathering place in Prague for some time and was frequented by such important people as Albert Einstein when he taught in Prague for a year and Franz Kafka (add this to the list of English major excitements!). As with most places in Prague, the food was cheap and delicious as was the beer. I enjoyed a dinner of roast beef with, to no one's surprise, a large amount of gravy (though it was a little better here than the restaurant of the first day). They had delicious desserts: one day I had a blueberry pie and the next a homemade ice cream rolled in hazelnuts. As an added bonus they had pool tables and one night Oz and I played a few rounds; sadly, I lost most of the games.
A note on Prague: they still allow smoking everywhere, and everyone seems to smoke. I found this slightly unfortunate. I had forgotten how nice it is to have a clean, crisp, smoke free environment to enjoy food in. Many of my clothes have been left smelling of smoke, though thankfully I was able to do some laundry at Oz's house.
Other foods I enjoyed included a smoked pork knee at one restaurant. Apparently the knee of pork and lamb is a traditional cut in Prague. It is quite a fatty piece of are of the animal but the smoke flavor was great and the portion was overwhelmingly large. It was great with the mustard and horseradish served alongside of it. I also had a type of dessert served at a street vendor called , which consisted of dough wrapped around a tube and cooked over heat source. It was sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and was quite good. Let me just mention that I also enjoyed a few meals at Oz's house which were quite delicious as well.
The beer here was fantastic. I had a bunch of different major brands: Pilsner (of course), Gambrinas, Staroprammen, and Kozul to name a few. I can't say there was a single one that was not great. The dark beers here were particularly good, not as heavy as most. Apparently the Czech Republic has the highest per capita beer consumption in the world. 157.9 Liters a year, per person. Wow. The prices were really good. It was about 30 of 40 Czeck Korunas per .5 liter which equals about $1.40-$2.00 in American Dollars. Way better than anywhere I've seen in the U.S. We visited some great bars, some sketchy ones. A lot of the ones on the main street have a connection with the strip clubs and we were offered more than once to go, though each time we declined. The men on the street are very persistent and one even followed me into a bathroom trying to sell me a ticket. Stand out bars included this place called Chapeaux Rouge. Thought smoky and quite large it had great personality and lots of fun people (We met Ed there, more on Ed later.) Oz and I also found this little place on the last day, though I am not sure what the name was (will consult my journal). It was tiny but really well decorated and very cozy. An ideal sort of bar.
We spent a good amount of time in museums and stuff. In the center of the city is a gorgeous natural history museum. It is quite old. I must say I have never seen so many rocks. The geography section was huge. While it was interesting, we helped pass the time by making a endless geography puns. Vince and Oz are two very funny men. They also had a history exhibit on the Czech Republic which was very interesting. In addition, we went to a modern art museum. It had a large collection, a ton of Czech artists. The contemporary stuff there is a little wild; it reminds me of a lot of stuff I have seen in the DEA museum in Beacon, New York. I also saw a Mucha exhibit which was really cool (see the absinthe poster on the wall of every freshman dorm room for an example of his work).
One of the largest places I went was the Prague Castle. Oz and I went after Vince had gone home because Vince had seen it earlier in the week. It was a really impressive grouping of buildings. The chapel was purely amazing. It was a great example of all the great architecture in the city all wrapped into one. Other great sites included the Charles Bridge which was adorned with a ton of sculptures and offered great views along the way. I also enjoyed this one famous church which has a clock tower on it. The clock represents a bunch of different astronomical times and has figures around it which appear and move around every hour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Astronomical_Clock). It was really cool. Supposedly, the clock maker's eyes were gouged out after he made it so that he couldn't ever replicate it anywhere else. Eek!
This was truly a great city for just wandering and finding little bars, restaurants, cafes, bookstores, and all that. The price was great and I sort of felt like I was in a novel the whole time. I guess fog, snow, all the architecture and even the trolley cars can do that. The city was very English friendly and Oz was a great tour guide; I hope he didn't resent that role too much.
A sort of related side note: Hooray for the inauguration! Oz and I watched it from this bar which seemed a little more catered to people from the U.K. and America. We figured that would be an easy place to ask to see it. It was very exciting to see the immense crowds (shout out to all of you who braved the cold to watch. I can only imagine what it was like). It was quite surreal to watch it from another country but it felt really good. I guess I sort of expected a little more excitement but the people in the bar were more interested in switching the t.v. back to the rugby game. Oh well. We did meet a guy named Ed from Los Angeles at a bar later on and he was very excited about it so that sort of made up for it.
Well, this is getting quite long. I plan to update again soon and I am sure I have forgotten some stuff so as I consult my journal and remember more things I will add them in. Thanks so much to the Nemlis for the hospitality! It was so great. And Oz was fantastic, many thanks to him. It was also so fun to have Vince there for part of the time. All in all, a very very fun visit. I loved it!
I look forward to Berlin! I am slightly overwhelmed at the moment. This is the first solo part of my traveling experience and I have to admit I am a bit intimidated. But, I am confident that a little rest will restore me and I will go at the city in the morning full force! More updates and maybe even pictures soon!
Hope all is well with everyone, everywhere.
What an interesting take on an old, old city. I enjoyed your descriptions of the food. It seems like again, the blind men and the elephant. You saw the restaurantws and bars, some of which may have been local color, some not, and then, museums, which are repositories not only of local items but items imported from abroad.
ReplyDeleteI have a close friend, Jozef Bajus, who is Slovakian. He used to teach at the university there and tells of when the Communists stopped everyone from teaching, then what happened when things chganged again. Prague was not always so frree.