Category: Central & Eastern Europe

The lights have come back on after decades behind the Iron Curtain. And good news– there’s beer!

Beer Culture, Prague Style

After arriving in Prague and having the rather dreadful experience of getting ripped off by a prick taxi driver and needing to be saved by the kindly porter at our elegant hotel, my husband and I were naturally wary of what Prague held in store for us. Also rather naturally, we were quite thirsty after the small misadventure and our train trip.

Castle District, Prague
The Sights of Prague (Pre-Pivo)

Though Prague can occasionally frustrate visitors looking for an experience that doesn’t leave you feeling like you’re merely visiting a new section of Epcot’s international village or a run-down suburb of Milwaukee, pretty much anything in Prague involving good Czech beer never lets you down.

And the one place to go in Prague for good Czech beer is the Golden Tiger, or U ZLATEHO TYGRA. (I believe this is truly translated as “At the Golden Tiger” but that’s a bit unwieldy for a bar name, particularly after several steins.) In fact, I’d put my money on the Golden Tiger’s being one of the best beer bars in the world. In terms of the convivial beer hallish variety of beer bars, the Golden Tiger is, thus far, the best I have ever visited and is an epicenter of “Beer Culture.” (More on that later.)

When you go into the Golden Tiger, even if you’re there right when the place opens at 3 p.m., there will already be old guys well into their first stein, shooting the breeze at their regular table. Indeed, some of these old guys may be poets and philosophers, which means that, now, after the Czech Republic’s Velvet Revolution, they may also be politicians. (The extraordinary Vaclav Havel has been known to frequent the Golden Tiger, among other Czech notables.)

As you enter, don’t be alarmed by the very focused man behind the counter who is wielding a knife and smacking it on the tops of the steins. He’s merely knocking the extra head off the top of the beer for your sipping pleasure. Sadly, as an experienced American beer drinker, I’m more accustomed to the popping of can flip-tops than the cheerful slaps of a cool beer head knife.

Some seats will be reserved, and the time the seats are reserved for will be marked on the reserved sign. You can sit in the place if it’s reserved until the time shown. If you get there at 3 p.m., however, you should be able to score a free, unreserved seat. The tables are long and large and meant for all to share, which means that, after a few steins, when the place gets even busier, you’ll get to meet some really cool Czech people, like we did.

A man will come with steins of beer, marvelous beer. And he’ll keep coming until you loudly and forcefully indicate that he should stop bringing you beer. None of this whispered, “Ahem, excuse me…” business.  If you act dainty in your request for no more beer, the beer man will just keep bringing you steins until you are happily boisterous enough to feign passing out while laughing very loudly. (I believe that the beer man does this ritual largely for his own amusement and I relished playing the role of very happy inebriated person so accurately.)    

The more steins are consumed, the louder things get. This is, of course, because everyone starts talking and laughing with everyone else, which is the true meaning of “Beer Culture.” Beer Culture as a concept was explained to us by two really nice Czech chicks. (We were lucky enough to sit with them at a shared table.) 

Here are a few of the Beer Culture commandments. (I think I learned many more, but there is an inverse relationship between quantity of beer consumed and quality of memories retained).   

  1. Beer should have some head on it; beer without a head is unacceptable, flat piss. This is the reason for the knife-wielding barman: to get the head perfect.
  2. Beer should be drunk only from quality glass steins, never from plastic.
  3. Beer should be fairly cold so as to be refreshing, never warm, and definitely not near freezing.
  4. Beer should be enjoyed only with other people present, preferably in places with shared tables like the Golden Tiger.
  5. Drinking beer in public establishments means you will get beer on tap, the best way to enjoy beer (versus beer in cans or bottles which can never truly have a proper head, see rule #1).
  6. Beer should be brought to you continually until you cannot stop laughing. The beer should be brought by an expert beer server who can professionally assess your level of drunkenness.
  7. Beer is best consumed with a plate of cold or hot sausages.

This is where my recollection of the commandments drops off a bit. Around this point in the evening, I do recall that some very muscular Czech men who were sitting next to us generously shared slices of smoked meat from an enormous platter. From what I can remember, the meat and sausage platter was very tasty, and indeed, a fine accompaniment to our great Czech beer, per the rules of Beer Culture.

Though the meat and the beer were excellent, they didn’t hold a candle to the good people of Prague, who were so generous to share one of their local drinking institutions with us. Chalk one up for Beer Culture.

Coordinates:
At the Golden Tiger/U ZLATEHO TYGRA is easy to find and is right in the town center. Just look for a line of old men gathering outside a pub-like shop front around 3 p.m. when the place opens.

Husova 228/17
110 00 Prague
1 STARE MISTO

Web: Though this site is in Czech, they have a nice map showing you where this temple to Beer Culture is located. http://www.uzlatehotygra.cz/uzlatehotygra.cz/Pivnice.html

Mitteleuropa Trains & Taxis

Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin
The End of the Tracks – Berlin

For the European leg of our round-the-world trip, I wanted to take my husband to see some of the great sights in Central and Eastern Europe. We were committed to doing as much as we could by train. Our trusty Eurail flexipass was a great purchase, and we definitely got our money’s worth.

Starting out in Budapest, we took the train to Vienna on an Austrian express train. The Austrians, like their German cousins, know trains. Fast, clean, and efficient. Other than a few industrial wasteland blips, this is a beautiful train trip, passing through some nice countryside.

From Vienna, we took the train to Krakow. Poland is where everything starts to fall apart on train trips in this part of the world. In its post-Communist boom, Poland has unfortunately invested in building shiny new airports rather than improving their antiquated train systems. This makes train journeys requiring any changes really confusing and nearly all trips really damn long. A nice Polish girl from Gdansk who worked in Krakow confessed that she didn’t see her family in Gdansk that often since the train trip took up to 16 hours if things didn’t work according to plan. She astutely pointed out that things involving Polish rail never work according to plan.  

I concur. Just plan on being stuck in the unpleasant, dark, coal-stained train station in Katowice for a while if you’re trying to train around this lovely, must-see region of Poland. At the Katowice station, you will be in good company as the Poles seem equally confused by the inaccurate departure boards and equally outraged when the random announcements requiring you to sprint across the station also turn out to be incorrect. I’ve done this trip twice, and this exact experience has happened to me twice. (Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.)

Furhermore, each time I have taken the trip to Krakow (once from Berlin, this last time from Vienna), I have traversed much of the countryside at night. Curiously, each time, I have seen hundreds of large unattended fires burning in the fields around the train tracks. I mean hundreds of fires. So many fires, in fact, that on the night train from Berlin, my normally calm college buddy became mildly alarmed. It looked like we were taking the train right into the set of some old spooky 1930’s black and white horror movie where the villagers burn monsters and witches.

When I inquired about what agricultural practice this may have been related to, my Polish interlocutors shrugged. Either the fires are not related to agricultural practices or their rationale is known only to those dwelling in the fields near the train tracks. (If anyone has a clue, please let me know.)  

Though all these cautionary tales may scare you off taking the train around Poland, you definitely want to get to Krakow somehow. If you do take the train, on arrival, you find yourself in a busy station in the midst of one of Europe’s busiest shopping malls. It’s supremely confusing. (Note: Somewhat counter-intuitively, even though you aren’t underground when you arrive, you go up to catch a taxi.) However, the nice folks at the tourist office in the train station are really helpful, offering you guidance on how to find taxis, how to get to your hotel, and where to eat their favorite kielbasa and pierogi.

After a few wonderful days in Krakow, we left for Prague very early in the morning. Because it was daylight and because there weren’t hundreds of unattended fires burning spookily beside the tracks, this was a more pleasant train trip than our journey to Krakow. Some Communist-era blight is definitely visible, but its an interesting juxtaposition with the lovely countryside.

On arrival in Prague, the station made sense, and we easily navigated the station’s signs pointing us to the taxi rank. These taxi signs are official. They are made of plastic, mounted in an illuminated box, with very substantial screws anchoring them to the train station ceiling. They look like any other official taxi sign you see in any other city in the world.

Except this is a taxi rank like no other. It is actually a queue of criminals in cars looking for their next mark. Which is you.

We entered the taxi, telling the thick-necked, mustachioed driver the name of our hotel while also showing him the address. The driver proffered a dirty map of Prague over his faux-leather jacketed shoulder, grunting “20 Euros.” As it had been a long time since I had traveled to Prague by train, I assumed I had arrived at the station on the outskirts of town and agreed to the fare.

Precisely two minutes later, after leaving the circular station exit, we arrived at our hotel, which was across the street from the Central Station. The driver cheerily demanded his 20 Euro fare for taking us approximately 50 feet.

My husband, quite understandably, went berserk. As I attempted to place myself between my raging Jesus-lookalike life partner and the shouting thuggish brute of a taxi driver, the kindly (and blessedly strapping) porter of our very nice hotel approached.

After a few words of fairly pointed delivery in Czech from the porter, the mustachioed taxi driver looked sheepishly at his feet, still growling slightly, but clearly broken. Though the man had tried to bilk us out of $30 in a failure that was both professional (taxi drivers should be experts at showing you their towns) and personal (any human should give honest directions to any other human), I felt bad for him as he had clearly been shamed by the porter’s words.

In spite of this minor tinge of pity, I was still fairly angry myself, so threw 5 Euros on the ground in front of the dejected taxi driver. (It probably sounds strange that I paid any money at all, but I like to remove ammo from any cheat’s complaint arsenal about Americans who don’t pay their way, etc.) My husband and I grabbed our suitcases and entered our hotel, leaving the driver to pick up his “hard-earned” cash and wheel briskly away.

On asking the porter what had transpired, he shook his head, shamefaced. In a confessional tone, the porter advised us that the majority of Prague’s taxi drivers are not reputable. He advised us that we should only take a taxi when it had been arranged by the hotel or by the establishment we were trying to leave. When I asked whether this was true of the official cabs, he accurately pointed out that it was an official cab that had just tried to cheat us.

Then, I asked him what he said to the taxi driver to get results so quickly. Apparently, the porter pointed out that, were the taxi driver ever lucky enough to visit America, the porter doubted that anyone in America would shame the nation by cheating its guests.  

Though I informed the porter that this might be an over-estimation of American hospitality and honesty, I had to admit that it was hard to envision such egregious abuse of tourists back in the States. I’ve had American cabs try to take me the long way to add a buck or two to the fare, but I’ve never had any other cab in the world try to charge me 20 Euros for 50 feet.

Though this incident constituted my husband’s first hour in Prague and was thus not a great first impression for him, we had a lovely time in the city and met some amazing Czech people in one of the world’s best beer bars, the illustrious Golden Tiger. On departure, we drove toward the station on the outskirts of Prague where a shiny German train would take us across some lovely countryside to Berlin. We left our hotel in a town car arranged by the kindly porter, of course.