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Prague- Czech my head

12:28 / 22.04.03

I'm going for a long weekend in Prague on Thursday with my girlfriend. I'm open to any suggestions of places to visit. I'm your meat-puppet. The only thing on my list that there is no question about is visiting Jan Svankmajer's Gambra gallery.

14:24 / 22.04.03

My advice would be don't make plans, just go for a wander and stop in many pubs for a beer (pivo) and use of toilets (pee... well that isn't czech for going to the toilet but you get the idea)
Don't be scared of scary Rs (pronounced something like rrrgsh)
The Charles Bridge is great
Wenslas square is inescapable
Oldsquar is pretty
You can go looking for the golem in the old new synagogue
hopefully the tube network should no longer be flooded from last Autumn's floods, but you never know
The Akropolis (a bar/restaurant/club) is a pretty fun and is close to a television transmitter which has babies crawling all over it...

14:33 / 22.04.03

There's a club on the Old Town Square which advertises itself at the oldest club in Prague. It's in a cellar festooned with rubber bats and stuff and plays hilarious Euro-rock all night, but it is free to get into (although the beer's a bit expensive compared to more outlying places) and good for a giggle for half an hour.

Wander over the Charles Bridge to Mala Strana, the lesser quarter, and check out the John Lennon graffiti wall hidden in the old alleys. The castle's good fun, even just to go and hang around the courtyards - the guards are dressed in gear straight out of the Wicked Witch of the West's army scenes, which were designed by the costume designer from the movie Amadeus.

If you can, check out a black light theatre - they run every night in various places and it only takes a couple of hours.

The Kafka exhibition off the Old Town Square isn't dead exciting but it's okay.

Watch out for dodgy money changers - better to use the banks, as I recall.

Back on the Old Town Square there's a shop that cells dead cheap classical music CDs and art prints - usually advertising exhibitions or concerts that look very nice on your wall, and cost less than a quid.

The tram service is wonderfully efficient - and there's a night service that runs until dawn about every half hour or so.

Head into some of the non-official drinking dens - some of them are quite close to the centre and they're just big rooms, usually cellars, that sell beer at about 30p a go.

You'll buy at least one marionnette, but shop around first - the quality is variable and the prices higher the closer you get to the main tourist junctions such as the Charles Bridge or the Old Town Square.

Wenceslas Square is pretty shabby and there's not much there unless you want a McDonald's, an expensive drink or a prostitute, but for some reason everyone seems to use it as a focal point.

Take a tour of the Jewish Cemetery - it's a very sobering experience, as is a lot of the Ghetto.

More as I think of it.

16:18 / 22.04.03

If you have time for a day outside the city, try getting to Kutna Hora.

http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/silver_p/kutna.html

The bone church is an interesting experience (tiny though it is), and the countryside in the area is beautiful.

I'd really advise going out to the fortress in the south of the city as well. If you spend all your time around Old Town and that area; you'll be missing out on much of the culture and charm of the city. (Though the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter are both fantastic and certainly worth a day or two).

The Akropolis does fairly rock, that's true.

For good food (and it's a hard thing to come by in Prague - be careful of the meat, it's often left on the kerb for hours prior to being dragged into the restaraunt - whole new vistas of food poisoning) - head to Radost FX. It's not very Czech, but it's open late (another hard thing to come accross in Prague, wandering the streets with nowhere to eat is kinda sobering), easy to get to, and the cashew nut pasta thing is bloody tasty.
http://www.worldsbestbars.com/city/Prague/RadostFX.asp

http://prague.tv/ is a good site ran by folk in Prague.
The guy who does TimeOut Prague lives there as well, so it's usually worth a look, and is updated quite frequently,.

17:23 / 22.04.03

I was just there two weeks ago. I enjoyed The Akropolis as well. I was told the television transmitter with the babies was actually built during the Communist years to be a radio blocking device to shield the city from Western propaganda. It never worked and they switched governments. Either way it's a magnificent take. You can go to the top and get an excellent view of the city from there.

If you're into clubs, there is a place in Praha 1 called "Le Clan" that is quite sketchy. There is a secret door that leads down a set of stairs to "the blue room", where big Czech dudes do coke in curtained booths. The toilet bowls have coke mirrors on the top. Supposedly there is another room even deeper in the bowels of the building where some Eyes Wide Shut type action goes on.

My favorite pub was a place called Marquis De Sade that was an old brothel converted into a drinking establishment. It has an alternative video store built into it as well.

Also, try to meet The Devil on the Charles Bridge. He is an old man who wears a visor with demon horns and coke bottle glasses. He paints exactly the same bizarre watercolors of himself all day long and barely sells anything. Some say he's schizophrenic, but the other artists and merchants on the bridge contribute a portion of their daily earnings to him.

Tourist wise: Try the Museum of Communism. It's ironically inside a casino next to a McDonald's.

17:29 / 22.04.03

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. The Akropolis and the Castle sound very interesting, as does everything else. Thanks for the advice about the meat as well. Not sure about the marionette thing though, Do I need a puppet when I am a puppet? Of meat. Keep the ideas coming...

07:45 / 23.04.03

casemaker

The babies on the bloody TV Tower!
Scared me shitless. Wandering around off my face and I look up to see these little silloheutted Jawas with glowing red eyes clinging to the side of teh damned thing!

It took a minute or two before my mate commented on them as well.
Cue massive sigh of relief "You see them too? Thank the gods!"

08:16 / 23.04.03

What are you talking about there's nothing on Wenceslaus square?!? That's where you can get hot kiebassa from the street vendors or, if you prefer, fried cheese in a bun! MMMmm...

I can't remember the name of the place, but if you head near I think the Mustek metro stop, at the bottom of Wenceslaus Square, and make a right by a clothing/shoe shop called Mango, there's a nice little pub right next to it that has a great legend about the barman's wife having whored around and now she protects other couples so the women don't suffer the same fate as she... it's a bit touristy but loads of Czechs go there - if only I could remember the name!

I lived in Prague for a month but for some reason I'm completely blanking on cool things to see and do. I'll get back to you!

08:20 / 23.04.03

They're not just babies.

They're GIANT babies!!!

09:17 / 23.04.03

I'd have to second that. There really isn't anything on Wenceslaus square. You'd get much better fried cheese away from the city centre, around Zhizkov (I'm spelling that arse-ways) or somewhere.

.

10:45 / 23.04.03

I loved Prague.

Food and beer

Very cheap indeed. A beer costs between 15- 30 Kc, and a plate of some roast meat with dumplings, gravy, whipped cream and jam (forget what it's called, but is one of the local dishes, and tastes nicer that it sounds) is about 40 Kc. Considering you get 45 Kc to the pound, that's cheap as chips, or even cheaper than chips if you're used to expensive London chips. That said, I went there expecting everywhere to sell lovely beer. In fact, Pilsner Urquell and Staropramen are probably served in only half the bars, with seven (equally scummy) varieties of Krusovice served in the other. As for Budvar, I don't think I encountered a single bar that sold it on tap. In terms of Krusovice, I recall the nicest one being a dark cloudy one, whereas the pilsner wasn't too hot. Or try Krusovice Imperial if you're lucky enough to find it.

As for native food, well, it's not the city's strongest point, unless you like heavy meaty dishes. If you're really into the food side of things, I recommend a trip to Circle Line, a restuarant just down hill from the castle. It's native but modern Czech food in the poshest restaurant they have (like London's Nobu or Sketch or equivalent), stupidly expensive for Prague, but after conversion it works out at around a fair £25- £30 per person.

14:19 / 27.04.03

Well, I'm back. Had a great time, wandering around, visiting many bars (though not the Akropolis, sadly), shook The Devil's hand, saw the castle and environs, popped into the Gambra gallery (which is basically a tiny house filled with surrealist pictures), drank, ate, basically absorbed the place. Didn't buy any marionettes though, sadly. Thanks for your advice, everyone!