Kempinski Hybernska Prague Hotel
An Eddie Global dispatch from Czech Republic.
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Prague Castle at dawn
Why this is the first thing I do every time I land in Czech Republic.
Read MorePilsner Urquell cellars, Plzeň
A closer look at one of Czech Republic's most rewarding experiences.
Read MorePrague gets all the postcards, and I understand why: a castle on a hill, a river doubled back on itself, a bridge lined with blackened saints. But the Czech Republic is bigger than its capital's silhouette. It's the Bohemian countryside dotted with chateaux gone slightly to seed, the industrial soul of Brno, the spa towns of Karlovy Vary where the nineteenth century never quite checked out. I've drunk pilsner in Plzeň at the source, in a pub cellar cut into rock, served by a man who treated the pour like a small ceremony because, in a real sense, it was one. This is a country that survived empires and ideologies by getting very good at outlasting them quietly, glass in hand.
Chapter One
Prague's castle district before the crowds
I climb to Prague Castle before eight, when the cobbles are still wet from cleaning and the changing of the guard hasn't drawn its crowd. From the ramparts the city unrolls in terracotta and copper-green, spires needling up through morning haze, the Vltava cutting through like a decision already made. Inside St. Vitus Cathedral the stained glass by Alfons Mucha throws violet and gold onto stone that has stood since the fourteenth century. By midday the district fills with tour flags and selfie sticks, but that first hour belongs to the city as it actually is: severe, luminous, entirely unbothered by how photogenic it has become.
“The Czech Republic is proof that a small, land-locked country can still produce something the entire world decided to copy.”
Chapter Two
The pilsner did not come from nowhere
In 1842, brewers in Plzeň, frustrated with inconsistent ale, hired a Bavarian brewmaster and invented what the world now drinks by the billions of liters as pilsner. I toured the original Pilsner Urquell cellars, tunneled deep and cold beneath the town, where beer still ages in oak barrels the old way for those who want to taste the difference. Beyond Plzeň, Czech beer culture runs deep and unpretentious: pubs charge by the glass on a running tab, foam is taken seriously as a craft, and per capita consumption here outpaces every other country on earth, a statistic Czechs mention with quiet, permanent pride.
The Short List
Do not miss in Czech Republic
At a glance
Czech Republic in numbers
- Capital
- Prague
- Language
- Czech
- Currency
- Czech koruna (CZK)
- Best time
- May, June, or September
Did you know
The Czech Republic drinks more beer per capita than any other country in the world, a title it has held for decades.