Golden Prague, Expat life, tips and reviews

Czech is said to be one of the most difficult European languages to learn, only Finnish and Hungarian are deemed to be more difficult.

Nevertheless, knowing a few words in Czech will convert you from a tourist into a guest in the eyes of the people here. I have put together a little list to help you, pronunciation in brackets, so lets learn Czech!

Three things before we start, in Czech the stress is always on the first syllable, accents simply “prolong” the sound and things are always spoken as they are read, at least no exemptions there! (simplified advice but it will get you there)

Saying “hello” to people:

Doesn’t matter if you enter a shop, restaurant or if you simply meet somebody in the street, make eye contact and say:

Dobrý den (Dobree den) literally “Good Day” but also the more formal version of “hello”.

If you want to be a bit more sophisticated you can also adapt your greeting for the time of the day:

Dobre rano (Dobreh rahno) “Good Morning”

Dobrý večer (Dobree vetcher) “Good Evening”

Dobrou noc (Dobroh nots) “Good Night”, often used before retiring to bed, in the sense of “Sleep well”

Two words that you will hear all the time:

Prosím (proseem) “Please” It doesn’t matter if you order a beer or ask for the way, or simply sign in a shop what item you like to buy, adding Prosím (proseem) “Please” to the end of your sentence will make people much friendlier towards you. Czech people are very polite and appreciate when others are the same.

Promiňte (promin^yehteh) “Sorry” In the sense of excuse me/ pardon me

You can use it if you want to pass somewhere, like in a full tram, when you want to reach the exit or on other occasions when somebody blocks your way.

To round it up a bit, here some words to say Good-bye and Thank you in Czech:

Na shledanou (Na shlaydanoh) means “Good-bye” and is said also when you leave a shop or restaurant, just look at the people around you and throw a “Na shledanou” into the air and everybody will think: Wow! What a polite foreigner;-)

Děkuji (Dyekuyi) stands for “Thank you”. Whenever you receive something, like your food in the restaurant or the change on the supermarket till it is common to say “Děkuji”

More to come, stay tuned and subscribe to my blog

Edit: Ivanhoe From Ohio with Love made the following comment/ correction:

” Good Morning should be Dobre rano and Good Night should be Dobrou noc.” For the moment I will leave both versions in the post until further research, but I guess he is right!

Thank You! SY

2.Edit: As suspected, Ivanhoe  From Ohio with Love was right and the original post has been corrected. My apologies to everybody for the confusion! SY

Karlin has recovered well from THE FLOOD in 2002, in fact it is becoming quickly “the place” to go for a quiet meal or a bit of bar-hopping.

A real insider tip for all Prague visitors and residents who are fed up with the over-abundant tourists traps in the centre. One of our favourite places is Cafe Karlin (http://cafekarlin.cz ), a friendly pub restaurant with beautifully restored brick vaults and serving a superb hermelin cheese to accompany our “pivo”. The staff speaks English (handy if your Czech is not up to scratch –yet But this is only one place of many.

Wandering up and down the main street in Karlin plus exploring the side streets and court yards makes us every time recognize how fortunate we are to live in such a beautiful city! One of our plans for the near future is to make a “safari dinner” in Karlin, taking every course in another pub/ restaurant, yummy!

But Karlin has also other attractions, for example beautiful historical buildings such as Invalidovna, a large Baroque-style complex designed by the architect Dientzenhofer. Karlin is nestled between the Vltava (Moldau for German speakers and music geeks) river and the hills of Ziskov – a hidden gem worth to explore.

Prague doesn’t hit you with the Christmas hectic into the face, it kind of gets you used to it slowly, slowly…

I lived in places, where suddenly, over night, everybody put up their Christmas decorations and merchandise, normally around mid September, hit me in the face, kind of. Prague is different, also here. Since beginning of October Stollen and other sweets typical for Advent and Christmas started to apear peu-a-peu in the shops, then since beginning of November the first real Christmas decorations have appeared, today I noticed the first Christmas markets on the streets –including the mulled wine. Makes a pleasant change to most other European cities where Christmas starts right after Easter has finished!

Reason to visit or not to visit Prague

At the first moment it seems funny to start a blog about a travel destination with reasons why NOT to travel there, but imh opinion the wrong person traveling to the right place is as bad as the right person traveling to the wrong place if you get my intention So here my main

Reason not to travel to Prague

You are coming with a stag/hen party and, no matter the results, are determined to enjoy yourself ingesting large amounts of booze and dancing “sparsely dressed” in the streets, typically spending a weekend in the city.

For the, luckily, uninitiated: A stag-/ hen party or weekend (UK, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand) is an initiation/ passage rite also known as “bachelor party” (United States, South Africa), bull’s party (South Africa) or buck’s party/ night (Australia). It consists in a party, sometimes days long!, held for a groom before his wedding. The main goals are to enjoy his last opportunity to engage in activities his new wife would certainly not approve of, or merely to spend time bonding with his male friends/ relatives. Favorite activities include getting drunken, gambling, visiting a strip club or another “erotic” venue and a lot of silly jokes like tying the prospective groom naked to a lantern post.

Sometimes you can also find more educated versions that include visiting cultural events and/ or going on a sporting trip, like renting a sailing boat, together. These, rare cases as they are, are welcome in Prague.

So why not to travel to Prague if you are planning a stag party of the first kind? Because you are not wanted! You will encounter a lot of signs in the local bars/ restaurants “Strictly no stag parties” People here are pretty much fed up with drunken foreigners that ruin Prague’s’ reputation as a cultural capital of Europe. In the same “class” of unwanted foreigners fall also those that mainly travel for the cheap beer/ booze.

So why travel to Prague?

Prague is known since centuries as the “Golden City”, was 2000 one of the “European Cities/Capitals of Culture”, is home to symphony orchestras, birthplace of people like Franz Kafka, the historic center of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites and it has more galleries and museums you can hope to explore in a lifetime (ok the last point might be a bit “over stretched” but you get the idea Prague is a gem to discover and I feel very fortunate to live here! And yes, it has also great food and beer Oh, and before I forget it, Prague has also the largest castle in Europe, so enough reasons to come and visit the golden city!

Watch this space, as they say, for more info about things to do and see in Prague or -even better- subscribe to this blog !for free!