a drinking tour of Cesky Krumlov

Cesky Krumlov

Any visit to Czech Republic isn’t complete without a visit to Cesky Krumlov. I’ve certainly mentioned this before and have gone over more of the cultural affairs. Before, as I knew it as some sort of sleepy touristic town, this past weekend I’ve discovered that it’s also not a bad place to party and that it can potentially go on all night long. For my friend’s birthday, I decided to make the trek again, naturally using the Student Agency bus, which is the cheapest, quickest and most direct route to town, and it also has individual televisions and free coffee.

We stayed at a place that’s just on the edge of town, Hostel 99, next to an old bridge that must have served to protect the location some time ago. Hostel 99 comes complete with its own restaurant and bar and a deck with a fireplace and a killer view. However, there’s a caveat to that deck: the neighbors below are known for calling the cops after 10—a norm all across the Czech Republic it would seem. The sign further advised, “Down the street is a little town called Cesky Krumlov, there are a lot of bars that stay open all night long there.”  

It was a strange thing for me to read, as I had already had my vision of Cesky Krumlov, which was only further modulated by our recent visit to Hallstatt, where everything shut down after 7:00. But Czechs are heartier partiers than Austrians, there’s no doubt about that.

The Drinkathon Begins

We began at the Eggenberg brewery restaurant, which is naturally right behind a Catholic Monastery, now the remnants of an old Crusader Order. The monastery construction was started in the 15th century, with the last phase completed in the 17th century. The Communists abolished the monastery and it was in disrepair until about a decade ago, when it was restored and now used as a museum and for conventions.

The Crusader Monastery

The Eggenberg brewery makes a decent enough local brew. It’s not too creamy, not too bitter, but neither is it so outstanding. It is however, the mainstay beer of the town. While the brewery restaurant also doesn’t have that outstanding of food, the interior is a great hall with a nice medieval feel to it. Here we racked up beers 1-7.

Inside the restaurant

Live Music

Next stop was Cikanska Jizba, or the Gypsy Bar in English. It’s a small tunnel of a bar, with a busy wait staff and a four-piece gypsy band squeeze around a table, with a guitar, an accordion, a violin, and a bass. This was perhaps the highlight of my evening, given my own love of live music. They prattled on for several hours as we drank up more Eggenbergs and I had a pretty tasty pizza. Not only do they serve pizza, but also other meals from the Roma kitchen. Beer count: 8-12.

heading to the gypsy bar

Billiards

Then we went to Barrel Bar, which resembled something of an underground cave. I mean, the top part was a bar, complete with a large post of John Travolta from Pulp Fiction, but then you go down some steps and you’re in a cave with a pool table. We crossed a bridge and turned right to get there, and it was located next to one of my favorite restaurants to eat game meat, Rozmberska basta. At this point I was about 13 beers in, so it seemed like a good place to nap against a wall while everyone else played billiards. One other guy we were with already had his power nap at the brewery, so he was racking up everyone’s cash. A few rounds were on him.

time to rack up the money

Dancing

We ended the night with only a few of us still standing. We went to a dance club behind the Egon Schiele museum, City Lounge. It was a dance club just as memorable as the name makes it sound, a place you could probably find in any city anywhere in the world, where you can expect to pay double price for your cocktails and meet lots of bros with popped collars.

the packed dance club

I remember the place as empty but my friend says it was full of people dancing. Yet, looking back at my pictures, my memory seems to serve better. I think they were empty probably because they had run out of beer and it was four or five in the morning. Any place that doesn’t have beer won’t keep my attention long, so at this point I went and made it back to the hostel. 

Cesky Krumlov is also a great day time and family place, and you can keep reading about it here.

we are cocktail legion

An anonymous drink

Anonymous is many things. He’s a writer. He's possibly Shakespeare. He’s an artist. He’s that public masturbator that lives down the street. He’s an internet activist group. He is that guy who got arrested for revealing the identities of a ring of rapists.

Anonymous is also a coffee shop in Prague.

And a bar.

The coffee shop, near IP Pavlova, is one of the more uncomfortable places to sit with a computer, since all the seats are made of wood pallets and are about as comfortable as an introvert doing an unprepared stand-up comedy routine. Thus kind of defeating the theme of borrowing from an internet hacktivist group when you can't comfortably sit around on the computer. They do serve some pretty great brew though. The bar and the coffee shop are owned by the same people, and it shows in the standards and service of the staff.

But I’m not writing about the coffee shop. I’m writing about the bar.

We decided randomly with a friend to go for cocktails. I’ve been having trouble lately finding “classy” places to hang out that are still somewhat edgy, since mostly I just choose dive bar locations with questionable toilets. Toilets that either aren’t there, or that when the door opens, there’s not much else but for the entire bar to cheer you on. When I was prompted last year by a friend to go to a lounge, because he was there with his girlfriend, I couldn’t think of an appropriate place. “Nope, this one smells of beer, this one of vomit, this one of vinegar.” It’s a hard knock life, my friends.

Anonymous Bar at Michalska 12 then made the list of possible places to take out-of-towners who aren’t in for a rough night of drinking cheap beer. Cheap beer in Prague, mind you, is still better than expensive beer in 99% of the countries of the world. And ironically, that expensive beer is usually cheap Czech beer. Anonymous fit the higher class standard of being a cocktail bar and my standard of being a slight bit unusual.

The place is certainly classy, and weirdly extreme on good customer service. I almost felt offended, as I’ve been living in Prague for so long that I’ve come to see bad customer service as polite. All of these “hellos” and “good evenings” while passing the service staff almost seemed excessive, as though they were mocking us. But fine. They are legion. What am I to do?

Hideout of the Legion

The interior is a bit of a cross between what I imagine Kanye West’s house to look like and the set of the Nine Inch Nail’s Perfect Drug video. In fact, I think this was their primary motivation in design. The furniture were huge red lush old fashion arm chairs and couches, the ambiance dark with some soft electronic music going and on the wall a large sort of graffiti art interpretation of the Guy Fawkes mask. The music was nothing aggressive, just on the background, drifting along so you don’t have to raise your voice for conversation. The menu was full of weirdly named cocktails, the fun stuff of any cocktail bar. I got the 100% leather, which was a basic Manhattan with a shot of absinthe. My wife got a drink served in a syringe, and people at other tables had drinks served with toy guns, kaleidoscopes, and any assortment of novelties.    

The staff, as I said, is exceedingly friendly and quite knowledgeable on cocktails. My friend was bent on trying to stump the waiter, shooting out names like Witches Left Tit and the Vespa from the James Bond book, not the movie one, and the waiter was on top of the game. The drinks were expertly crafted and presented, with the waiter donning a Guy Fawkes mask as he serves the drink to carry on the namesake of the bar.

Getting our drinks

The place isn’t cheap by Prague standards though. The cheapest legit drink on the list is 175 crowns, or roughly 7 USD. Which, in the US that’s really cheap for an amazingly mixed drink. In Prague, well, that’s about 7 great beers. It’s a sacrifice to heavy drinkers like myself, but a worthy sacrifice. Now if only I could convince them to host an accordionist singer-songwriter like myself and pay him in free cocktails...   

In winter, it's highly advised to book seats. Call at +420 608 069. 

the course of krymska

Krymska Ulice

Over the past few years, Krymska has sprung from being on the border of Prague civilization, from being a hipster central, from being on the border of everything, from being hipster central, and so on. These days, it's back to being the center of it's own little mustachioed polka-dotted world, just after suffering a five year lull which caused the famous Shakespeare and Sons bookstore to close up shop (a decision they're probably regretting now). There really isn't much there for eating, shopping or other non-beverage activities, but the place is beginning to blossom - though from how most people talk, it has already blossomed and the underground appeal has gone on over to the Letna district.

Krymska is in an almost ideal spot for a cool underground neighborhood. It lies in the middle of the Vinohrady district, which itself is on the graveyard of a medieval winery, where as late as the mid-1800s the land was all covered with grapes. The grapes have since been cut everywhere except in the nearby Grebovka Park - aka Havlickovy Park - and have been replaced with most neo-Renaissance, art nouveau and modernist structures jammed together as close as possible. During the Communist years, it was known as a bourgeois, anti-Red hangout area, which is slightly ironic since now it's a bit of an anti-Capitalist area. 

Grebovka Park (Havlickovy Park)

The Krymska district can basically be defined as the area around the tram stop of that name, down Francouska to the Ruska tram stop, then diagonally over to Grebovka Park, up to Donska and back up to the Krymska tram stop. Since it's on the face of a steep hill, it has some excellent views down Donska and Krymska, and within its not broad streets with no parking, there are some 20 bars. Not all the bars have markings on their doors, and some resemble more of a hippy's failed state of a living room, but they are there. Three of those bars are live music venues featuring mostly local acts, two are culturally interesting First Republic type places, there's an art house movie theater bar, a couple places are pseudo-dance clubs, and one bar doubles over as a vegan restaurant with great beer. So as you can see, there's no shortage of a good time revolving around fierce amounts of beer.

The Czech Inn at Krymska

Krymska is an especially great district if you're looking to avoid tourist trap bars, as the beer here rarely exceeds two euros and each place is a bit unique and none of them very clean, as they're all quite dive bar type places, though lacking the foosball and beer pong tables that typical American dive bars would have. At the top of the area is the Czech Inn (+420 267 267 612) hostel, which is in a perfect situation both for the more hip night life and for the touristic places that line tram line 22. It is also the owner of one of those live music venues slash dance clubs, the Basement Bar. One of the best non-smoking bars and live music venues (unfortunately, smoking is allowed in the live music basement section) Cafe v Lese is here too, near the bottom of the district.

During summer days, the district empties out and hits Grebovka park, with one of the better views of non-central Prague, and which has a beer garden and a wine garden, where the wine is made at the local winery, and you literally sip your glasses over the ancestors of your present drink. During winter days, most of the area is silent throughout the day, as regular cafes are pretty rare in the area. It usually picks up at dusk and carries well on into the night, with some of the bars staying open until the morning on the weekends - though this is always weird, since sometimes there is just simply nothing open after midnight, and if it is, it's usually just clouds of smoke and foul odors. This problem of regularity you don't have in the touristic districts, so you are taking a chance here, but if Krymska isn't a good place to end up, at least it's always a good place to start out.

Down Krymska Street during the Korzo Krymska

We live in the Krymska area, so as we were coming home from the African Food Festival, we ran into the Korzo Krysmka, the annual street festival celebrating all things Krymska. All the shops in the area - even the closed ones that haven't seen the light of day since the days of the First Republic - had decided to open their doors and have a big street party that day, inviting local bands and DJs to strike up the entertainment (curiously they didn't invite the best local artist, the Underground Man, but whatever). Mostly there were DJs who would play with a saxophonist or flutist, as that seems to be the party trend in the Czech capital these days - "Look, I can drop a bass beat four on the floor thud and have a guy play Kenny G over it, cool!" I suppose it's better than the Pink Floyd that a lot of the live music scenes here offer, but that all is for another blog. There were a couple of people who weren't no talent hacks, including a band that made Czech folk music into something dance-able and exciting. There were also a few places where hippy guitarists were strumming out their Jack Johnson vibes amidst clouds of patchouli and marijuana.

Most of the festival seemed bizarre and random - random especially since we didn't even know a festival was happening in our neighborhood until the day it happened! Though that was, to tell the truth, most of the excitement of it and of living in this area (Grebovka Park is constantly having a festival it seems). We dropped our stuff off at our house, then started with eating some Mexican tostadas dished out by the nearby Las Adelitas, who had a van parked outside of the Czech Inn. As we sat, a dog chose us to play fetch with, as he very excitedly kept bringing us a stick back and I kept kicking it away. Occasionally he'd bring the stick to someone else, who would ignore him, and so he'd bring it back over to me. 

The Korzo Krymska wrapping up

When the wife tired of me playing with the dog, we went down Krymska street itself, which was filled with masses upon masses of people, found some beer, and waded on down the street. Each of the bars and former bars or possibly still places that were bars but just weren't apparently open bars now had their doors open, taking in visitors, offering beer and weed, beaded jewelry, African novelties sold by Africans, and coffee and pancakes. After my beer ran dry, we went in to Incider Bar, a bar that only serves cider - imagine that! - and waited in line for some thirty minutes. The line was long as it was and some lady was trying to get the very precise flavor of cider and making the order very complicated and in English, which was causing quite the backup. Come on lady, if you're at a festival, the goal of the day is quick and fast so everyone can drink and the bar can sell quantity! Equally bad is when people are ordering cocktails of the Starbucks order at busy clubs, but I won't get into that. Just when you're at a bar or festival, think about what you're going to order and think about the line you're going to create. That's all I ask!

After we got the cider, we went on searching for live music. The aforementioned folk music had gone, and there, again, was only some hack DJ. Look man, you have no turntables, I know you just prepared all this stuff in advance, which isn't an overly hard thing to do given today's automatic beat matching technology. But again, that's what seems to be popular in Prague, and as such, we couldn't find anything really apparent and entertaining. We ended up at the vegan bar, Plevel, having our last call at 10, and then seeing the streets had been emptied out - no noise in Prague after 10 folks! - we went on home.

beware the african

Outside the Uptown

The weekly couchsurfing meeting was held at a place called Simply U Kravaty, now called the Uptown. The first time I had gone was with my wife and a couchsurfer friend, Maia, just to check out the scene and possibly meet some other expats or open Czechs. Making friends in Prague is like making friends anywhere else, except where the locals are fairly disinterested and are quite active already. Which is understandable, but it also means that you have to get out there and make something of yourself in order to meet more people. To go out on a limb, so to speak. At Maia's push, we decided to start with the couchsurfing meetings.

When the place was Simply U Kravaty, it was kind of a cool place. Located just below Riegrovy Sady, a bit out of the way from any main place, it had an underground, dive bar vibe to it. That night, there was live music played by couchsurfing hippie types - a long haired guitarist and a violinist, both sitting on a stage on the side, playing mostly "traveler's music", Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, that sort of American free spirit "gypsy" music. The beer was good and cheap, I think the bar had chosen Kozel as their standard, which means there was nothing over 30 crowns. Perfect for the type of crowd and the low-key location.

After coming back from one trip to the bathroom, we realized an easy way to meet people. When I came back, one guy had started talking with the two girls. If my presence - and the fact that I was married to one of the girls - didn't scare him off, then that would mean he was an all right guy. If I did manage to scare him off, then it meant he was only talking to my wife for a reason that I would automatically trump and not respect. In this manner, we met a Jordanian nuclear physicist - watch out Israel! - and a Polish guy who had lived in Czech for three years and still couldn't speak it. Considering how much more difficult and impossible to pronounce Polish is and how close of languages they are, it was a bit of a surprise. The night ended, Facebooks exchanged, and that was that.

That was the last day that bar was open though. Soon, it was restyled as the Uptown - already a name that invokes stale, warehouse-like bars common throughout American downtowns and "uptowns". The walls were painted a bright, pale color and an exposed ventilation pipe was hung up on the ceiling, as though that were the original ceiling work and it had just been uncovered. The stage was removed and the tables replaced. Of course, the place looked cleaner, but it also looked like any other "modern" uninteresting place that seems to be now the mainstay in Prague, only a simple step removed from Potrefena Husa, a Czech chain that can be compared somewhat to Rock Bottom Brewery in the States.
They at least had a clever marketing scheme - the inauguration of the place would also be the next couchsurfer meeting and they would provide the first drink for free for each visitor. That was something positive, but after that, the beer had been subject to a price creep and no longer fit the traveler's budget that is needed for a couchsurfing meeting. Or at best, it could only serve as a starting point and not an all-nighter place, especially lacking the live music element that livened the place up previously.

The night was going on, the crowd building and now people were forced to stand and mingle, since there wasn't enough seats for everyone - a good thing for a couchsurfing meeting, since when people stand up, they're naturally more open to talking with strangers. While I was with a friend talking, standing near the entrance, a small, thin African walked in. He was clearly African in all respects - dark skinned, carrying a bow, large wood carved African tribal masks and other wood carved instruments. He came up to me and started talking to me with a thick accent - musical almost and nearly impossible to understand.

Finally, I understood, "2,000 crowns." He was showing his bow and masks. Neither my friend nor I were impressed. But then he pulled out what appeared to be a plate which could apparently transform into a basket with the simple move of a lever. Now here was something interesting - especially since I was a bit tipsy at this point - but he was still going on about 2,000 crowns, which was about one hundred dollars.

"I'll give you 1,500," my friend offered.

The African refused.

My friend walked. That negotiation was dead. But the African was much more persistent with me, despite my bored, dead-in-the-eyes look. I hate to lose my ground when people have come into my territory - a habit that's really becoming a vice in Prague - so I stood there refusing repeatedly, telling him I wasn't interested.

"How much would you pay?" he asked repeatedly.

"I'm not interested."

"But how much would you pay?"

This tactic went on for about 5 minutes. I should have downed my beer and went off for a refill, giving me a good excuse to get out of the corner that I was in. But it was my corner! He then started dropping his price and finally he came down to 1,000 crowns. Well, that sounds like a good deal! From 2,000 crowns to 1,000 crowns, I was saving 1,000 crowns!

- on something I would otherwise not have bought. So the reality was I lost 1,000 crowns for a decorative plate slash basket, that now holds two apples and some fake coffee.

My new Africa basket with fake coffee

keep smiling

The Lucerna

For my inaugural blog on the Czech Republic - which has been admittedly late in the coming - I've decided to cover a particular event about something close to my heart which takes place in one of my favorite beer halls of the city. The bar in question is the Lucerna, where I have brought many a guest to scarf down the deliciously bodied Plzensky Prazdroj beer while taking in the ambiance of an Art Nouveau cafe - or as referred to in the local marketing parlance, which sounds more mysterious and almost Star Wars-like, "in the style of the First Republic" - complete with brass beer taps, marble floors, modernist light fixtures, and green curtains. Perhaps, there's no better way to describe the place than borrow the words of the bar itself from the corporate webpage: "Lantern cafe is an architectural gem, comfortable stylish cafe which offers a peaceful release of the film and after seeing the film and is a very pleasant place for friendly or small workshops." Now, I don’t really want to know what kind of “peaceful release” they’re talking about, but I’ll settle for that nice tap beer.

To get to the Lucerna, like getting anywhere in Prague, is a bit tricky. Off of Vaclav Namesti, one must find Vodickova street, which is marked by a hot dog stand and a women's only H&M. Then go down Vodickova towards the river and you'll see a sign that says "Lucerna". This is tragically referring to the whole shopping center, as every store and bar there is called "Lucerna" - there's also a Lucerna there that is quite a nice live music venue with big acts and a yet surprisingly intimate space and serving equally surprisingly affordable beer. Walk deep inside the shopping center until you come across a statue of an upside-down horse with an upside-up man sitting on it, hanging from the ceiling - nobody pretends Czech public art makes sense, but at least it's better than American corporate art. At the hanging statue, there's a grand staircase, go up that and hang a left and you're there.

At Lucerna, don't bother with food, just go straight for the drink, as most of the food is bland and pre-made and they don't even act as though it isn't. If you order a sandwich, with full pomp and circumstance they'll serve it to you in a plastic box. Paninis here are at least microwaved and served on a porcelain plate, so stick to that or cakes if you're hungry. Do drink beer, coffee or tea, of which the latter two have quite a large selection. The beer on tap is the ever-so-creamy and delicious Plzensky Prazdroj, a brew put out by the same company as Pilsner Urquell and that tastes like a mix between said famous and cream soda. I like it and it seems to get me tipsy quite fast. 

The Africa event at the Lucerna

As the cafe itself is also connected to the art house movie theatre, Lucerna Kino, it tends to host a lot of related cultural events. When I was there last to watch a film in the Georgian Film Festival, they were hosting an altogether different event - if only the Georgian film festival could have hosted an event complete with Georgian art and singing! There was a line of pictures of scenes from Africa, complete with the usual starving children that you see - since no one is really concerned with anything else regarding Africa. There were also a lot of tables set up with presumably free glasses of wine. And then, since the pictures of Africa always go along with it, there were many a white person milling about, talking about aid effort and how tragic whatever situation that was going on "over there" was. "A real tragedy. Ah, can I get you another glass of wine? The real tragedy would be if you didn't get quite drunk enough so as to -"

I was there, waiting to watch an entirely different movie about an entirely different impoverished part of the world, which is the part of this blog that is close to my heart. That week, unbeknownst to the majority of Prague, the Georgian Film Festival was going on. That night, like the year before, the Georgian film Keep Smiling (2012), written and directed by Rusudan Chkhonia, was playing. Keep Smiling is a pretty accurate portrayal of the condition that Georgian women live in, displayed using an all-too-corrupt beauty and talent contest about Georgian mothers that seeks to select which would be the next "Georgian Mother" to guide the nation. The movie is a full five stars in my book: excellent subject matter, excellent performances and great direction. Additionally, the movie didn't ever linger too long on anything and the viewer never finds a need to glance at their watch - which pretty much keeps every Tarkovsky film off of my five star list.

Overly dramatic trailer for Keep Smiling (it's a dark comedy, not a high drama, as the trailer music suggests):

Keep Smiling full movie with English subs: