Czech out my Trdlo

Like most tourists in Prague, we spent the majority of our trip in Old Town, a place where time (at least for the buildings) has stood still and has somehow managed to skip being obliterated by two world wars. Well, perhaps not entirely, apparently the Americans destroyed a few buildings mistaking Prague for Dresden… we were never well known for our geography. But I digress. In the main square there are cathedrals and buildings from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries as well as an old clock tower with a very famous astronomical clock. This is not unusual for Prague as nearly every building in Old Town dates back to a time so inconceivable to an American that the exact date makes no difference.

For the sake of tourists, these buildings are well preserved and easily accessible at the expense of the locals. For example, some time ago the city tore out the once concrete town square and replaced it with a very nice dark brick that goes well with both the Town Hall and Gothic Cathedral and is a very cool touch for making the area look its age. The drawback to this is of course the square is completely inaccessible for handicapped people. If you are in a wheel chair or otherwise have a difficult time on uneven surfaces you can forget about Prague. For tourists that’s not a big deal but for locals of course it can be a touchy subject.

Our adventures started here, our hotel being right on the outskirts of Old Town. Having come in so late at night, we actually did not see any of these older buildings and we had no idea what to expect when we woke up in the morning. We only got about five hours of sleep but at 7am we were too anxious to lay in bed any longer so we got up and started our day. We stepped out of our hotel and headed west in the direction of Old Town square and after walking about one block we found ourselves in Bohemian wonderland. Through a narrow street we saw an enormous white building with a very red roof. After getting closer it became apparent that it was not the only cool building. We got to Namesti Republicky station and surrounding us were absolutely ginormous buildings. Keep in mind, Prague was completely foreign to us and we had no idea what to expect, so this was a bit of a surprise that we were completely surrounded by very well kept buildings older than America.

Old Town is a tourist’s dream, it is impossible to take a bad picture of it from any direction and has a Paris feel but with a far more manageable size. Cars are fairly infrequent and the sound of horses (carting around buggies of tourists with bored locals at the helm) fills most of the smaller streets.

While the sightseeing can’t be beat, it comes with a very big catch: every other shop and restaurant is a complete ripoff selling nothing but crap. In Pavel’s words (a local working for the EU in Old Town), “it’s embarrassing”. And he is right, it absolutely is embarrassing the amount of crap being sold in the touristy districts of Prague… and the majority of it isn’t even Czech. Every other store is a brightly lit tourist shop blaring techno music and selling the exact same thing: babushka dolls, “Czech me out” shirts, and chandeliers. I don’t have a clue who goes to Prague looking for those three things (actually I do and I blame the Russians) but apparently a lot leave with them because these stores are absolutely everywhere. It is too bad as well because Julianne and I really wanted to buy a piece of Prague but there was literally nothing that felt even a little bit authentic, not even at the markets! We were completely blown away by this and left empty handed.

Our experience with Old Town quickly picked up when we met a few acquaintances and friends of friends - well one friend in particular, Laura, who lived in Prague for a year. Laura put us in touch with Krystof, who made us reservations at a ridiculously awesome restaurant that I would love to mimic back in Seattle. I will get into that a bit later. Another acquaintance of Julianne’s via Laura, Marie, happened to be arriving to Prague that same day. So we met up with both her and her boyfriend Pavel (of the EU). Julianne set both plans up completely separate from each other so the night started off a bit rocky. We met Marie and Pavel and spent 45 minutes trying to figure out what to do when Krystof showed up with a reservation for three. But apparently reservations aren’t as strict in the Czech Republic as they are in the States because we walked into the restaurant two people heavy and not a single staff member seemed to care.

The restaurant he took us to was called Lokal, and it was a bar that more or less made fun of the old communist restaurants complete with the newspapers, an enormous beer tank, and a certain communist feel and character that was at the same time smirky and ‘taking the piss’ as they say here in England. The food was exactly what we were looking for at exactly the price we were looking for and of course we would have never found it on our own. Even if we did find it we could have never gone there because it was a very popular place and you needed reservations.

The food was awesomely Czech and with a bit of guidance from Kristof we ordered some fairly authentic dishes. As appetizers we had two different kinds of sausage. One of them was reminiscent of Scottish black pudding (so far as I could tell anyway) where they actually boil the blood and mix it with the meat to create a very dark and soft sausage. The other was a more typical sausage of lighter color without the blood. They were both brilliant. For the entrees, we all ordered something and from Marie’s recommendation passed the plates around the table family style so we could each try them. I don’t remember the names of the plates we ordered, but they were in no particular order: fried cheese with potatoes and tartar sauce, steak tartare with special toast that we rubbed garlic onto, steak with some of the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had, sausages with mustard and horseradish, and roast pork neck with potato and a truck load of sauerkraut. With our meal we of course had beer, and a ton of it. Beers came in half litre mugs and between us Pavel, Kristof and I drank 16 beers and a few shots of becherovka. We split up the bill and it ended up only being 615Kc for Julianne and me (about 20 GBP) which put us in a great mood.

After the food, naturally, we all went to drink more beer. Not sure where to go, Julianne and I recommended The Beer Museum which we heard was pretty cool from some folks from North Carolina we met earlier at the Monastery. Pavel and Kristof of course laughed at us noticing the obviously tourist name but by complete chance we walked right by it and it was in fact pretty cool. Here we a had a few more beers and completely sensible conversation about European and American economics, culture, etc despite having drunk a little over 3.5 litres of beer. We were even joined, well interrupted really, by a guy from Texas who was in Prague on business, and also by the drunkest man I have ever seen in my life who could apparently understand English but not speak it. Or perhaps he was speaking English just so drunk that I could not understand a word of it. A little while later I realized I had drunk 4.5 litres of beer that day and I needed to go home and recover and I think everyone else felt the same.

All in all, Old Town was great, but once we met up with Kristof, Pavel, and Marie it got fun. Like always, it just takes a few locals to change a tourist district into a great time and safely lead you off the beaten path and that’s exactly what they did. I hope we can return the favour some day!