Red Corner: Czech Restaurant Scene Improving

by Neil Woodburn on

Czech cuisine is practically an oxymoron. Two years of living in Prague taught me that the Czechs care more for the liquid portion of their meals than the solid part. In fact, the reality that something as basic as fried cheese proved to be my favorite Czech dish after two years really says a lot about food preparation in this country.

Times change, however. Over the course of the last decade a handful of restaurants have emerged on the Czech scene that are starting to give the local food a good name. This month’s Budget Travel reviews some of the better ones that are also nicely affordable.

I was amused to see a vegetarian restaurant listed amongst those spotlighted. In the mid-90s the only place serving fresh vegetarian food was a Hari Krishna restaurant which I found myself frequenting quite often. The Czechs, on the other hand, are a carnivorous lot and stayed mostly away.

Today, Budget Travel recommends a couple of French restaurants, some Asian food, a handful of Czech establishments, a burger place, and a beer pub. There is no mention of fried cheese anywhere in the article.

Czech Beer Baths

by Erik Olsen on

In the Czech Republic “It’s
Miller Time” has taken on a bubbly new meaning.

A family brewery in the country has started a new spa
concept in the company’s beer cellar; a concept that includes not just drinking the sudsy stuff, but bathing in
it.

Yes, this very well may be the stuff of foamy dreams for legions of fraternity men: soaking in beer as
you drink it, and being massaged by attractive East European women…all that’s needed is a plasma screen
showing Gladiator.

The idea is the brainchild of the Chodovar Family brewery in Chodova Plana who say that the
concept will appeal (and you must admit it, there truly is appeal here) to men who are put off by ‘posh’ traditional
spas. So what’s a beer bath going to cost you? Looks like the cost for a weekend package will be in the $150-200
range.

One for the Road: Traveler's Tales Prague

by Erik Olsen on

We haven’t done a ton of One for the Roads since Kelly
left, but I’m going to try to get one done every once in a while. I’ve got a whole bunch of books on my reading list,
or which I am currently into, but most of them are somehow related to work (i.e. a book on genetics that I’m reading)
or are just plain fun (I picked up Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You the other day on a whim and now am plowing through
it). Anyway, I also just got my hands on a new book out from the good folks at Travel’s Tales. Called Travelers’ Tales Prague
and the Czech Republic : True Stories, the book is edited by David Farley and
Jessie Sholl and contains stories by a menagerie of well-known and lesser-known writers.  the names include 
Myla Goldberg, Helen Epstein, Jan Morris, and Francine Prose, among others. I’m psyched to read it, if just because a
couple of good friends of mine just moved to Prague and because I’ve been there a few times myself. So check this one
out if you’re a Czech republic fan.

Bratislava Parties – WP Video

by Erik Olsen on

It’s
such a satisfying thing (as a video producer) to see so much more fine video making its way to the Web. Remember the
days when any documentary video you saw tended to be repurposed stuff from Television? Now, we’re seeing so much more
quality story-telling coming out from major news outlets. I love it.

And so I offer here a link to a really
fine video piece done by
the Washington Post on Bratislava. That wonderful nature of video is that you get such a rich experience learning
bout a place and the things happening there. No secret that pictures are worth a thousand words. And in the case of
this video, where we learn about the waves of Europeans heading to Bratislava because of cheap airfares. The informed
(where such matter are concerned) also get to learn about European stag parties, which are a major draw to this booming
East European city.

Red Corner: Prague’s Ill-fated Stalin Statue

by Neil Woodburn on

For the past week, Red Corner has covered the fate of communist statues since communism itself fell more than 15 years ago. We’d like to conclude this series with a final post about the remains of a notoriously hideous monument which are nearly invisible today, yet unknowingly gazed upon by thousands of tourists on a daily basis.

Prague is the most visited capital of the former Warsaw Pact, yet very few of the millions of tourists who trek across its famous Charles Bridge have any idea what it is they are looking at when they gaze north from the bridge and spy an enormous empty plinth, nearly overgrown with foliage, that sits atop a nearby hill.

This is where the world’s largest Stalin statue once stood.

The fifty meter tall monument, ugly and hated by so many, dominated the Prague skyline-but only for seven years. The unlucky builders finished the statue in 1955 just before de-Stalinization and watched curiously as authorities then dynamited it out of existence in 1962. Only the massive stone plinth remained behind as though it were the star of some Ozymandias poem.

Like poisoned soil, nothing sprouted from the plinth until communism itself died. Then, a weird succession of items followed; a massive lips-and-tongue Rolling Stones banner, a 35 foot statue of singer Michael Jackson, a billboard for a local politician, and ultimately the winner of a design-something-for-the-plinth contest-an enormous metronome.

For a while, the city’s first rock and roll club operated in a bomb shelter beneath the plinth but it was eventually shut down by authorities. It is now apparently used to grow mushrooms.

In the beautiful city of Prague, so overwhelming in its fine architecture, little thought is given to this overgrown plinth and the evil monument it once supported-one so very horrible that the sculptor who designed it killed himself a few days before it was unveiled. Tourists pass by oblivious and continue on their merry way. Oh my, how beautiful this town is!