Prague - Practical Notes
Prague Notes
Trip: September 2010
Transportation
· Adults over 70 travel free on public transportation, but to do so requires bringing a passport size photo plus proof of age (e.g., passport) to the main transit office at the Museum metro station, and paying a fee (in 2010, 30 Kc.)
· If buying an unlimited transit pass, buy only one day, as there is no savings for longer periods.
· Prague is sufficiently small that most important sites of interest can be reached on foot.
Restaurants, Pubs & Bars
TRIED
· Café Slavia (Národni 1012/1, Staré Mésto) – famous literary café, it’s closing over a leasing dispute considered a national disaster. Mentioned and written about by Kafka, Rilke, and many others. Now restored and re-opened.
· U Medvidku (near Národni triad metro station) – One of Prague’s oldest beer halls but with one of Prague’s newest microbreweries.
· Luka Lu (Ujezd 33, Mala Srana) – Serbian-Croatian food and wine, with gypsy music (sometimes), moderate.
· David Restaurant (Tržiště 21, Mala Strana) – venison, stripped bass. Very expensive, but at lunch there is a fixed 3-course meal at very reasonable price. At lunch it was very quiet.
· Olympia – (corner of Vítězná and Borovského Streets in Újezd, near Legil bridge) – well-run, reasonable brewpub.
UNTRIED
· SEE New York Times clipping (Dec. 6, 2009) or its Travel Web site, on pubs with a rotating beer selection
· Café Imperial (corner of Na porici and Havlickova Street, edge of Staré Mésto) – interior is an art nouveau masterpiece, and a very popular place – reservation is likely necessary.
· Novomestsky Pivovar (Vodickova 20 , Nové Město) – Best lager beer in Prague, with excellent pub food to go with it.
· Pivovarsky klub (Krizikova 17) – a beer boutique and pub with hearty meat dishes
· Jan Paukert (Narodni trida 17) – a classic Czech deli with chlebicek (open-faced traditional sandwiches), great lunch stop.
· Mysak (Vodickova 31) – Wonderful pastry shop founded in 1911 – try the karamelovy pohar (ice cream topped with caramel, chocolate and walnuts).
· Erhartova Cukrarna (Milady Horakove 56, Holesovice district) – A 1937-vintage confectionary with terrific apple tarts.
· Zly Casy Synku (Cestmirova 5) – a pub with rotating selection of Czech beers and hearty Czech pork dishes. Take No. 11 tram out to Namesti bratri Synku
· Vino di Vino (Vezenska 3, Old Town) – a wine bar with excellent Piedmontese cooking
· Perpetuum (Na hutich 9, Dejvice) – a modest neighborhood restaurant featuring Czech food with French and Italian flourishes, specializes in duck and goose.
· Café Savoy (Viezna 5) – a famous pre-War café, renovated several times, an Art Noveau jewel srving traditional food (meal-size soups, for example) at reasonable prices.
· Modra Reka (Manesova 13, Vinohrady) – excellent home cooking, moderately priced.
· Lokal (Dlouda 33, Old Town) – Inexpensive, highly recommended, a classic Czech pub, only better, everything made from scratch, try the smoked meats.
· Valleta (Mexická 7, Vršovice) – creative menus built around seasonal ingredients, reasonably priced.
· Bredovský dvur (Politickych vězňu 13, Wenceslas Square area) – very fresh, unpasteurized version of Pilsner Urquell, with pub food, excellent value.
Favorite Museums
Large Museums
· St Agnes Convent – Fabulous collection of Medieval Moravian and Bohemian sculpture and painting. A branch of the National Gallery
· Trade Union Building – superb, enormous collection of 20th century painting, Czech and the great painters of Europe, as well as glass and furniture, architectural models, etc.
Small Museums
· Sternberg Palace – excellent general painting collection, with a tranquil private garden, with sculptures and tables for taking lunch.
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Places, buildings, streets, etc., below already seen or experienced are shown in italics.
Neighborhoods and Streets to Walk
· Tynska Street – along the north side of Tyn Church in the heart of Old Town.
o Seek out Tynska literarni (Týnská 6) – a literary café and bookstore in a wonderful old building with a delightful patio.
o Divinis (Týnská 23) – best wine bar in Prague, per Condé Nast Traveler, with Italian food
· Streets around the Spanish Synagogue (Spanelska Synagoga) in the Jewish Quarter house cutting-edge boutiques.
· Jiriho z Podebrad, a square between the Vinohrady and Zizkov neighborhoods, with fin-de-siècle architecture
· Letna Park – northside of the city (Hradcany), with a big beer garden, some interesting buildings, and a terrific place to see the city at sunset
· Josefov / Jewish Quarter – good material in a Condé Nast Traveler article, Nov. 2006, p. 334, 349
o Pařížská is the main street of Josefov, filled with restaurants and boutiques
· Explore the leafy streets behind the Castle, considered by residents to be the “true” heart of the city and not as frequented by tourists.
Museums & Galleries – Off-the-beaten Track
· Dox Center for Contemporary Art (Osadni 34 – just opened in Fall 2008
· Kastner Artworks (Kamenicka 22, Holesovice) - single room gallery with interesting work
· SEE New York Times article IJuly 19, 2009) on up and coming cutting edge galleries
· Meet Factory (Ke Sklarne 15, Smichov) – a vast industrial building turned into artists’ studios
· Kampa Museum (Kampa Island, just south of the Charles Bridge) – contemporary Central European art
· Museum of Czech Cubism, (House of the Black Madonna, Ovocny Trh 19, Old Town) = rare collection of Czech paintings, sculptures, furniture explain Czech cubism in a Cubist building
· Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Veletrzni Palac, Dukelskych Hrdinu 37, Hoesovice) – The museum, itself a 1928 Functionalist building contains exhibits on Czech architecture and design of the 1920’s and 1930’s, but especially magnificent is its collection of European modern painting (Picasso, Braque, Cezanne, and many others).
· Josef Sudek Gallery, a separate location and part of the Museum of Decorative Arts (Úvoz 24, Hradčany) – Wednesday – Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., devoted to The Czech Republic’s greatest photographer – unfortunately, this does not focus on showing Sudek’s photographs, but rather has a changing exhibit schedule.
Miscellaneous Activities & Events
· Umelecke Sklenartvi Jiracka-Coufal (U Milosrdnych 14, Old Town) – an “artisanal glassworks, often overlooked, with fine old examples of ancient stained glass windows from the great churches, and a view of the master craftsman who make them.
Churches & Miscellaneous Places
· Basilica of St. George – after St. Vitus, the largest surviving church in the castle complex, beautifully Romanesque
· Convent of St. Agnes (U milosrdných, Josefov) – now part of the National Gallery, housing medieval Czech art, built by the Cistercians, and showing French medieval influence. The medieval art holdings are superb.
· National Conservatory and its various interior gardens (Mala Strana).
· Historic cemeteries – SEE New York Times article of June 23, 1996 or Web site
· Vyšehrad (has a metro stop):
o Tabor Gate (on faintly sinister Na Bučance street)
o Church of SS. Peter and Paul
o Rotunda of St. Martin (a Romanesque jewel)
o Cemetery: burial place of Dvořák, Smetana, Karel Čapek, Jan Neruda)
o Vyšehrad Castle
· Restored gardens and parks:
o Prince’s Gardens:
§ Ledebour (Mala Strana)
§ Small Palffy (Mala Strana) = next to Ledebour and included in the combined ticket.
o Garden on the Ramparts [Zahrada Na Valech] (Mala Strana) – on the southern ridge of Prague castle, along with Garden of Paradise and Garden on the Bastion
o Royal Gardens (Hradcany)
o Vrtba Garden (Mala Strana) – small, very formal, with terrace with beautiful view over Mala Strana (for best time of day, go late, in autumn, just before closing.)
o Wallenstein Garden (Letenske, northeast from Malastranska Square, Mala Strana)
o Letenske Park (Hradcany)
o Petrin Park – always open
o Gardens surrounding Church of SS Peter and Paul (Vysehrad)
Modernist Architecture
· SEE New York Times article, May 2, 2004 or Web site.
Excursions – Further Afield
· Terezin concentration camp memorial
· Kutna Hora – a medieval silver-mining town about an hour east
o St. Barbara’s – inside: beautiful murals; outside – outsidzed flying buttresses
o Italian Court – royal seat and the royal mint
· Karlstein Castle – houses the Holy Roman Empire’s crown jewels, built on a high cliff
o Chapel of the Holy Cross – gilt and jewel-encrusted murals, usually not accessible to tourists not in a special tour group, but try to see
o Pruhonice Gardens (10 miles southeast of Prague) – take bus marked Pruhonice from Metro Station Opatov (Line C) – operated by the Czech Botanical Gardens, the finest arboretum in the Czech Republic
o Dobříš (27 miles southwest of Prague) – beautiful castle and Versailles-style gardens
· Zelezny Brod – town has a just-opened museum devoted to the art glass of Jaroslava Brychtova and her husband Stanislav Libensky (recommended by a glass artist friend).
Miscellaneous Notes
· There is a combined ticket for all synagogues and museums in the Jewish Quarter, including the old cemetery.
· The Prague Post, a weekly, has concert listings (also at praguepost.cz)
· Check kiosks – many concerts are advertised in flyers posted to the kiosks
· The Prague City Tourist Office (several locations) has a reasonably good calendar of cultural events
· Tickets for concerts and opera performances (Estates Theater, National Theater) are usually available shortly before the date of performance, and prices are affordable.