The Czech Republic

Prague was a gorgeous city. Gorgeous and very tourist-friendly. The Czechs clearly have gone out of their way to make it a tourist destination and we had added luck with our choice of residences.

We stayed at Arcadia Residence on the edge of downtown Prague near the river tram that ran downtown. It was about four or five stops from the Charles Bridge in Prague (one of the main tourist destinations). The manager, a man named Max, was easily the best person one could know in Prague.

Max set us up with maps, lists of things to see, and offered various train tickets to purchase from within the comfortable confines of the Arcadia Residence itself. The Residence also offered comforts such as a huge breakfast delivered to the door and delightful rooms. Max also recommended various wonderful restaurants and charted out which train lines to take to get to our specific sightseeing goals.

Truthfully, Max had such a strong positive impact that I can't imagine returning to Prague without booking a place at the Arcadia Residence. He was that good.

That reminds me... I should send a thank you card. But I digress.

Prague was gorgeous, clean, affordable, safe, and cold. The city has a reputation for pickpockets, but they're apparently more active in the summer months and not so much in the cold autumn months. We had no problems with crime of any sort. Most people seemed multi-lingual (including English, thank goodness) so we were able to negotiate meals and souvenirs without any trouble.

We saw fantastic clock towers, the Jewish quarter that gave rise to the Golem legend, the castle, the cathedral, and various other sights.

The food was pretty meat-and-potatoes, for the most part. Hearty and pretty good.

For The most part, the Czechs pride themselves on their beer. Urquell Pilsner is the big beer that gets pushed on folks everywhere we went. As pilsners go, it's not bad. It's certainly miles better than the Bud or Miller "beers" sold in the U.S., but pilsner isn't really my favorite.

To pay proper homage to the Czech beer, we did a day trip to the city of Pilsn (where pilsner gets its name) and toured the brewery there. And that's where we found the good stuff. As part of the tour, we were led deep into the catacombs of the brewery where they opened oak barrels and poured us unfiltered, unpasteurized, pilsner.

And that, my friends, was good stuff.

The Pilsn tour beer set the standard for beer on our tour until we hit Bamburg later, but I'm jumping ahead a bit.

The Czechs were fairly polite and nice enough, if a bit reserved from the standpoint of an American. The one thing that got to me was the heat. Every room was set to 80+ (Fahrenheit) inside and if you had outdoor seating, you were under a heat lamp that put you in danger of having your clothes lit on fire. It was kind of crazy.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't particularly warm outside, but it wasn't that cold. Honestly, I felt colder in Germany a few days later and the Germans didn't go crazy with heat lamps set to "bbq", so I found the Czechs a bit odd in that respect.

All said, the Czech Republic was a lovely country and quite nice I'd go back again in a heartbeat.

Especially now that I know Max can direct me to bars that sell the unfiltered pilsner on-tap...