Last year in October my Mum and I visited the Czech Republic for the first time, on what I had thought would be my last trip to an EU member state before Brexit, before yet another extension was added to the then deadline of 31 October. Autumn was a lovely time to visit, warm enough when the sun shone during the day to go out without a jumper, and the red-and-gold trees framing our photos at their brightest and boldest.
We were treated with friendliness and respect, even in Český Krumlov where Chinese was heard more often than Czech, a far cry from how I have been treated in Rome. Our holiday left us with happy memories, and here are some I’d like to share with you!
Unforgettable experiences
Finishing a pork knuckle the size of a pig’s shin in U Vejvodů, one of Pilsner Urquell’s pubs, a cavernous basement level affair with pretzels hung at each table and TV screens showing basketball and ice hockey games. It was daunting, but seeing the Czechs (mostly men) eat a knuckle each without sharing made us more determined. Plus we had fun carving the knuckle, which was served on a personal spit.
Exploring the Zlatá ulička in the Prague castle complex, which was built to accommodate the castle guards for free in return for their service to the crown. Franz Kafka and Nobel Prize laureate Jaroslav Seifert once lived there in one of the many low-ceilings cramped houses. The most striking houses were not those of the famous, but one house in which lived a fortune teller who was killed by the Nazis for predicting the fall of the Third Reich, and another house, that of an amateur filmmaker and collector, which was filled with film rolls as if he were the real Man In The High Castle.
Learning about Jewish culture and the history of the Czechoslovak Jews in the various synagogues, Old Jewish Cemetery and Ceremonial Hall that make up the Jewish Museum. I had considered giving the ‘museum’ a miss as the sun was out and it was shame to spend the day indoors, but I am glad that I did not. Only by purchasing the pricey ticket could I have admired what some say is the world’s largest collection of Judaic art, comprehended how many Jews died in the Shoah by reading the death rolls on the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue, and sniffed how smelly the Old-New Synagogue (Prague’s oldest) was.
Goggling at bright red and amber toadstools and hushing at the sound of a woodpecker at work in the woodland of the Český ráj, or ‘Bohemian paradise’.
Feeling uneasy in the cellar of the Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague, where the conspirators who carried out the assassination of Reinhardt Heydrich during the German occupation in WWII hid and were ultimately betrayed and killed. There was a door that swung sideways when you pushed it but then returned to its original position, like a pendulum. The effect was to block out the light, to give visitors to the cellar a hint of how claustrophobic and isolated the conspirators would have felt.
Ordering beer the Czech way, from a beer receipt that featured 108 beer icons, which the waiter ticked off per beer glass delivered, and drinking my first glass-full of beer foam, called a mlíko.
Standing in two of the most remarkable places I’ve ever been inside, despite having visited countless castles, palaces and grand houses: the Masquerade Hall and the Theatre in Český Krumlov castle. The walls of the Masquerade Hall were painted with trompe d’oeil figures to make the empty room seem as if it were filled with partygoers at a masquerade ball, and the theatre was the best preserved Baroque theatre in Europe. It still hosts operas using Baroque staging techniques and with the costumes of the era, though these operas have been modernised to be mercifully 2 hours rather than 7 hours long and no longer require the backstage crew to lock a prompter in a cell for the whole duration of the opera (they gave the prompter a chamberpot for when he needed to relieve himself and emptied it for him).
Smiling at the bears’ antics as they eat, doze, play, climb, and swim in the Český Krumlov castle bear moat. The brown bears there were larger and closer than the black bears that I saw earlier in the year in the riverbank enclosure in Bern, Switzerland.
Slurping on slippery succulent forest mushrooms in the kulajda (mushroom soup) in the Švejk tavern at the awkward time of 3pm that only tourists like us eat at. The tavern was empty except for my Mum and I and a group of men with a dog who were chattering away in Czech to the staff in the bar area next door. The kulajda was the best thing we ate during our 9-day trip and was followed by the first dessert that I had ever ordered off the mains section of a menu: a dish of homemade curd dumplings stuffed with whole plums and marzipan, served with roasted cinnamon breadcrumbs, sugar and marzipan that was as hearty and delicious as its name suggested.
Chewing my way through the most bitter cheese I had ever eaten, round disks of rubbery curd cheese from Olomouc, in the wood panelled dining area of the Hospoda Na Louži, where old advertising signs decorated the shelves and locals arrived later on at around 7:30pm, including a group of people here for a celebration over repeat glasses of beer and plates of sausages.
Tips on visiting the Czech Republic
Before you go
- Listen to Má vlast (‘my homeland’), a set of patriotic symphonies by Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. The music is as beautiful as Bohemia is, in a way that the novel The Castle, by Franz Kafka, is not; in fact, Prague Castle is nowhere as shady.
- Read HHhH, a novel by Laurent Binet that both tells of true events as a story and consciously explores the process of writing a historical novel.
- Watch the films Anthropoid and The Man with the Iron Heart (based on HHhH), about the assassination of Heydrich. If you’re wondering which is better, it’s Anthropoid, and for reasons why, read this review by Cinegasms and Broomsticks.
Transport
- Get a public transport pass in Prague. It allows you to ride the bus, metro and tram for the time period mentioned on the ticket, including the journey from the airport into Prague and to the ends of the metro lines. There are 24 hour, 48 hour and 72 hour passes, and the timing starts from the moment you validate your ticket. A 72 hour pass cost the equivalent of £21 for two people, more than half of what you would pay in London. I know many cities are walkable but there’s more to Prague than the bridge, castle and Old Town.
- When travelling from town/city to town/city, buy single tickets. No one buys return tickets; unlike the U.K. they don’t have complicated fares where a return is better value than two singles.
- The best website to use and look up bus times is the IDOS website. I did not travel by train so have no tips for trains. The long number after the bus icon, which looks like a bus number, is the bus number, at least in the last three digits. If there is a number (single or double digit) separated from the bus number by a space, that is the platform number. Platform in Czech is stanoviště.
- The tickets for the bus from Prague to Turnov (and back) you can buy from the bus driver. There is a small charge for luggage if the bus is likely to fill up and the driver has to open the luggage hold. Arrive 15 minutes before the bus departs.
- There are several bus companies that operate buses from Prague to Český Krumlov (and back), but Leo Express is the fastest option, getting you there in 2.5 hours. The bus is kept very clean (we watched the staff on our bus clean the same area of the bus multiple times). It seemed as if you got a complimentary packed lunch in a paper bag if you had a longer journey (the bus’ final destination is Salzburg). You have to buy tickets, which gives you a seat number, for Leo Express. Arrive 20 minutes before the bus departs.
- If you experience a 20 minute period when the Leo Express bus time that you intend to buy tickets for disappear as you are browsing, don’t panic. In my case, the tickets were being discounted and the system was being updated to reflect the new prices.
- Leo Express departs from bus stop no. 4 at Prague’s main train station, which you get to via the lifts, not the escalators. The escalators bring you to bus stops no. 1 to 3 just outside the station building, but the lifts bring you to the opposite side of the car road. In the early morning I had panicked as I couldn’t find the bus stop that had the timetable of my bus.
Accommodation
- If your ideal self-catering accommodation is one that has a toaster, ask about the toaster beforehand. If you come from the UK you might expect one, and in Seville (where I holidayed last Christmas) there was one, but none of the apartments we stayed in in the Czech Republic had a toaster.
Attractions
- Some tickets are valid for more than one day, but once you have visited one of the sites listed on your ticket, you cannot re-enter. Prague Castle Circuit A and B tickets are valid for 2 days; Circuit A tickets give you entry to two additional places, the “The Story of Prague Castle” and Rosenberg Palace. If you choose this ticket option, it may be better to see everything over two days instead of one. The Jewish Museum tickets are valid for 7 days. And the National Gallery tickets, which I did not buy, are valid for 10 days.
- Nový Svět is lined with parked cars and is not the romantic street that the guidebooks say it is. Go if you want to see where Tycho Brahe lived when he was the court astronomer, but otherwise if you want to stroll through romantic streets, go to the Sint-Anna district in Bruges.
- In the event of overcrowding on the Český Krumlov castle bridge and panorama platform, venture out of the castle proper and start up the hill to the castle gardens. Just as you depart on the left you will see a panorama of the town, without having to squeeze through the crowd to do so.
Eating out
- Keep calm, you can afford it. Having travelled earlier in the year to and around Switzerland and spent around the same amount of time there as I did in the Czech Republic, I can say that that holiday cost around double what the holiday in the Czech Republic cost (around £915 for two people, from my front door in the UK to the Czech Republic, all expenses included, and back home again). Even my friend Charles whom I was travelling with in Switzerland, who must stop for a coffee and cake break at teatime, the stubborn Englishman that he is, acknowledged that if we truly did that every day we’d run out of money for actual meals, where one simple dish like spaghetti bolognese will set you back the equivalent of £15. In the Czech Republic, two mains, two 0.3l beers, one dessert and two spirits cost under £30 (including tip).
Final observations
- Franz Kafka lived pretty much everywhere in Prague, making each of his residences not so special as, let’s say, the Brontë Parsonage in England.
- The escalators in Prague’s metro stations are double the length of the ones in London, and it was a little thrilling to ride on them. There are no queue-creating barriers, and the underground chambers and platform tunnels are clean, spacious and airy. Between Prague’s Soviet-era metro and London’s Tube that dates back to the late 19th century, I can imagine which one I’d prefer to use as an air raid shelter (though admittedly London’s Tube has been actually been used for this purpose).
- It is rare to see public recycling bins in the Czech Republic. But I hear that in many places, the refuse from recycling and non-recycling bins are all mixed together upon collection, so perhaps the Czechs just have a different way of recycling that don’t make the individual’s efforts seem a waste of their time?
- Unlike in western continental Europe, public toilets are not hard to find, but you do have to pay to use them. Outside tourist areas (for us, it was in Černý Most) it costs 8 korunas per person, but in tourist areas (in Prague and in Český Krumlov) it cost 10 korunas and in Josefov 20 korunas per person. Josefov may have been a Jewish ghetto in the past but now it is Prague’s luxury quarter.
- Both outgoing and return journeys that I bought ticket for on the Leo Express assigned me seats that were not next to one another. I don’t know why the system does this, perhaps to keep noise to a minimum as strangers are less likely to chat to one another? If the bus is not busy you can sit in seats that you were not assigned.
Where I stayed
Boutique Lofts – our best value accommodation in the Czech Republic, at the equivalent of £105.47 for 3 nights, with a large kitchen counter, fridge and freezer, and a reception from 09:00 to 21:00. There are imperfections but they are understandable considering the low price. Though a little washing up liquid and a sponge was provided, there was no drying cloth or kitchen roll. The shower head did not stand securely in its holder, there was also a small hole burnt into the white sofa, and the wifi signal for our room was non-existent; however the last issue was resolved by using the wifi of the room adjacent (after asking the reception). It is located in Karlín, a quiet area just outside the area featured on most tourist maps; two metro stops from náměstí Republiky, the distance is nothing with a public transport pass.
Pension Svatý Ján – our only bed and breakfast style accommodation in the Czech Republic. Our host was friendly and helpful, making us feel welcome and giving us tips and a leaflet on the Hruboskalsko area we were interested in. The location of the Pension almost within view of the Tourist Infocentrum meant that we could easily get maps and public transport info for the walk we planned to do on the day we arrived. It was next to a popular Vietnamese restaurant; after our walk we were hungry and it was the only restaurant in the town centre that seemed busy (i.e. that we would be happy to eat in). The breakfast at the pension was also tasty, with eggs, fruit, bread and sweet rolls as well as a hot dish you could order (I ordered párky, a frankfurter).
Republic Apartments – our most expensive accommodation in the Czech Republic, and the most stylish. The studio apartments are light and spacious, with a self-compiled guide on where to eat and what to do in and around náměstí Republiky, where it is situated. You can use the milk/tea/coffee in their communal fridge/galley, and there are at least 3 supermarkets nearby. The check in desk is in the common area that faces into one of the hostel dorms, which look quite nice. Our only negative remarks are that (1) in the Superior Studio that we stayed in for 5th night in the Czech Republic on our return from Turnov the cutlery was oily, and (2) in the standard Studio not only was there was no wardrobe/drawers/shelves to store our clothes, just a few hooks and hangers, but also there was not as much seating area to lay our clothes out on, so we lived out of our suitcase. The check in time of 14:00 with no possible earlier arrangements was a little inconvenient but to be expected from the information given at the time of booking. Our second night at Republic Apartments after a break in Český Krumlov had a pleasant surprise: we had accidentally left the tree branch that my Mum had used for a walking stick on the hike when leaving the first apartment, and when we came back from Český Krumlov we found that they had kept it!
Apartmány U zámku – situated just across the moat from Český Krumlov castle, this was the accommodation that had the most spectacular view. Our studio apartment was provided with breakfast in the fridge, a spacious bathroom, and a balcony with a view of the castle. Though fresh milk was not included in the breakfast provided, we were able to get more coffee cream from the storage room in the corridor, to have with the English teas that were available. Eggs, ham, tomatoes and bell peppers were provided, with which we made omelettes.
Arriving before the check in time of 2pm, we were told to leave our luggage in the corridor, and the cleaner would put it in the apartment after she had cleaned it. This had been made clear to us in our communications at the time of booking, several months before our arrival. However in the days leading up to our arrival I was told that I would be able to access the apartment by a code, so I had assumed that we would be able to use our code after the time of 10:30, when I had been told the code of the person who was supposed to be checking out that day would no longer work. Upon arrival in Český Krumlov therefore, instead of finding a place to store our luggage, we went to the apartment, thinking that we’d be able to drop off our luggage.
It turned out that the code changeover happens after the apartment has been cleaned, and that could be any time between 10:00 and 14:00. It was unsafe for us to leave our luggage the corridor as originally suggested, especially as we discovered that the main door to the apartment block was not locked during the daytime, only during the evening. Luckily, we found the cleaner and after putting her on the phone to speak with our host, the cleaner was able to put our luggage in our apartment – only she knew the code – before cleaning it. I appreciated our host’s effort to accommodate our needs, providing a service beyond what we should have expected.
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