The New Town, and our homespun Pub Crawl.

Our first mission for the day: explore Prague’s New Town.
Our second mission for the day: drink Czech beer.  
(Guess which was more fun!?)

In the morning we took the subway to Vysehrad, just south of New Town. This area used to be site to a palace, churches, and other medieval structures, but today it’s just a grassy knoll with a park, a large Gothic church, and some fortifications. There was not much to see here so after wandering around a bit, we moved right along.

Next on our walking tour were two Cubist Buildings, built between 1914 and 1916. Cubism in architecture was short-lived, and that’s probably a good thing. With all of Prague’s fantastic architecture, these dingy concrete buildings seemed plain and out of place.

Continuing north, we passed by Emmaus Monastery (1347) on our way to Charles Square (established as a cattle market in 1348), which is now a long green park with a walking path, and is in need of a little maintenance. At the end of the park was New Town Hall (not very new at all!), massive and it appeared to be in use, so maybe it’s still the town hall…? We then walked by the river to see the National Theater.  It was kind of too hard to see this huge structure close up, standing right next to it. This one’s better from afar. And this concluded our tour of New Town.

On the walk back to our apartment, we ran across an International Folklore Festival. There were booths selling crafts and food, and a stage was set up. It reminded me of Milwaukee, which has street festivals like this on every other block during the summer. Anticipating live entertainment, we grabbed seats in front of the stage, and I also bought a small beer from a nearby vendor. We waited and sweated in the sunshine, but no music appeared to be forthcoming, so we left. So much for the festival. I still had the beer and drank it while walking, which reminded me even more of Milwaukee.

In the evening, we planned to sample some Czech beers… they do a pretty good job with the beer here, and we really wouldn’t be very good travelers if we didn’t try am extensive sampling :^). We had a brochure from Red Umbrella Tours describing a Pub Tour of Old Town, and although I don’t usually like tour groups, this sounded more like a party than a tour. We decided to join up. At 6:15pm we stood at the base of the Astronomical Clock, looking for a red umbrella, which was how we were supposed to find the tour guide. But he was a no-show! Damn. But our hopes for a pub tour were not dashed yet. We consulted our guidebook and the internet and made up a DIY Pub Tour. Who needs a tour guide!?

First on our pub list was U Medvidku, a brewery dating back to the 15th century. We had some Budvar (the original Budweiser), which tasted nothing like the Budweiser at home… it was good! They had a very cool bar there constructed of copper brewery pieces, but the atmosphere was nothing special, so after our beers we moved on to U Zlateho Tygra. We had delicious beers at this place a couple days ago, but found it to be very unwelcoming upon entry. It hadn’t improved, and this time it was full. There was no room for us, so we quickly left and went to U Fleku instead. U Fleku is a pub and beer garden in the German style, totally done up for the tourists. We sat outside at a long picnic table and they brought us a tasty dark beer, which is made on the premises. As touristy as this place was, it was a lot of fun, with Bavarian music and a lively atmosphere. We even had shots of an apple-cinnamon liquor…the waiter was pretty insistent so we caved in. Killer! It had a nice aftertaste though.

When leaving U Fleku, we diverted from plan to visit a place called Absinthe Time on the same street. Here’s a tip for you: absinthe SUCKS. Do not waste your money! Although… the process of preparing the drink is pretty interesting. A spoon with a sugar cube is positioned on top of the glass with absinthe in it (there were many to choose from…we just pointed to one that sounded good). Water is dripped onto the sugar from a tall jar with spigots on a silver stand. When the sugar is dissolved…well, that is where the fun stops, because then it is time to drink the absinthe. The best I could do was wet my lips with the lethal stuff. Terrible! At least there was good live music to listen to while Steve finished his (and part of mine).  Then we were off to our final stop.

We lucked out and got seats at busy U Vejvodu, a huge pub serving Pilsner Urquell and local food specialties. The Pilsner Urquell is my favorite …so tasty. Steve ordered goulash and I put in a bizarre order of cheese and sauerkraut, choosing from the limited vegetarian options that were available.

After eating, we were too full for more beer, which was fine because we had had plenty already. Mission accomplished and Czech beers thoroughly sampled, we went back to our apartment for sleep.  A job well done.