Three doors down the road from my new home in Stará Oleška, is Bar-Restaurace U Soni. It has been a real find and an absolute godsend since moving here. But if you go online, you will be hard-pushed to find any reference to it at all. It doesn’t have its own website. The building does not appear as a bar-restaurant on any online map.
The one reference I could find, gave the address incorrectly as Stará Oleška 76 when it it should be Stará Oleška 86. Putting the incorrect address into an online map will send you to the completely wrong location. To find the correct location, click on this link.
This blog post is therefore my small attempt to rectify the lack of information about Bar-Restaurace U Soni and give it a bit of publicity that it so richly deserves!
Let’s start with the beer. The one in the photograph on the left is the first on the list below – for my UK readers that is £0.74 for 0.5l, which is very slightly less than a pint. Even the most expensive offering is still less than £1.00 a pint!
As for the food – the photograph below was taken on either our first or second visit, a few days after arriving in the village, and shows both our meals. Total cost CZK 310 – £10.00. As you can see, each dish comes decorated with raw vegetables and fruit, a far healthier offering than in most Czech restaurants 🙂 And the portions are copious!
As my cooking facilities in the house are quite limited, until I get the kitchen refitted which will hopefully happen in July, I have become a regular at U Soni. As a reward for my patronage, I have recently twice been presented with a free dessert. Below is the second of these from two nights ago.
Ten months ago, I published a blog post entitled ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps‘, based on my experience at that time, of having lived as a cizinec / foreigner in the Czech Republic for nearly four and a half years. To my utter amazement, this post almost immediately went viral. It resulted in the blog getting 2040 visits on 20th February 2013, the day after it was published, and 1034 visits the following day. It took another three weeks before the daily visitor numbers returned to the more normal figure of around fifty.
I found the main reason for this sudden upsurge of visitor numbers in the social media buttons at the end of the post. The number of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ on Facebook rapidly rose from zero, to nearly one thousand, together with numerous ‘tweets’ on Twitter, and ‘shares’ on Google+. The post also got highly rated for some time, on the social news and entertainment website, ‘reddit‘.
Since visitor numbers to my blog returned to more normal levels in mid-March, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’ has still remained as one of the most popular landing pages for new visitors to the blog. This has coincided with a gradual rise in Facebook ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, to around 1,100.
Then, in the past ten days, ‘How to be Czech in 10 easy steps’, has suddenly gone viral once again. From my blog having 47 visitors on 4th December, it suddenly shot up to 641 visitors the next day, and peaked at 1301 on 7th December. Yesterday, the visitor total was still nearly ten times the normal figure at 422. Once again it has been thanks to publicity, via social media, of this particular post. Even whilst drafting this new post, the number of Facebook ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ it has received, broke through the 2100 barrier!
The original post also attracted 77 comments. I think I am right in saying that this is the largest number of comments on any of the 252 posts here on my blog. In view of the recent upsurge, I suspect there would have been more comments, except for the policy I adopted more than two years ago, of not allowing comments on posts that are more than three months old, in an attempt to help reduce the number of spam comments I have to delete every day. However, real comments are most welcome on this new post 🙂
I really enjoyed reading and replying to all the comments, the original post received. In particular, I appreciated the many English-speaking Czechs, who could recognise what I was describing and were able to laugh and smile about themselves. There were several commenters who thanked me for being positive, rather than negative, about Czech people and their culture. This was always my intention. As I’ve written previously on this blog, I enjoy living here. The main thing I take issue with are the absurdities of Czech bureaucracy, which I know many Czech people get frustrated with too! I have no time for foreigners who constantly complain about living in the Czech Republic. There is a simple answer to their problem – go back to your home country!
Inevitably, there were several additional suggestions as to things I should also have included in my original post. With my first point, ‘Drink beer’, I should really have also added ‘or Kofola’. Kofola is a communist era product that was a substitute for Coca-Cola or Pepsi, which has enjoyed a nostalgic resurgence in recent years. Point 8, ‘Get a dog’, should really have been extended to, ‘or a cat’. And as part of point 7, going out into ‘the nature’, the important autumnal activity of ‘mushrooming’, should certainly have been highlighted.
Inevitably, ever since writing the original post in February, I have been on the look out to observe further examples that confirm what I wrote. I have to say that they are rarely hard to find 🙂 This particularly applies to point 3 of my original blog post, ‘Dress Czech’.
As I wrote there, ‘In the Czech Republic, you will frequently see a mother and her daughter out walking together, with the daughter pushing a buggy containing her new-born infant. You will then often notice that there is a competition between mother and the new grandma, as to which one has the shorter hemline’.
Two weeks ago, Sybille & I paid our regular Saturday morning visit to the Farmers Market at Vítezné námestí. Afterwards, we stopped off at Bar-Restaurace U topolu, for lunch. Soon after we sat down in the Bar-Restaurant, a three-generation family group came in. There was a toddler in a buggy being pushed by the child’s mother who would have been in her late twenties/early thirties. Behind them came the mother’s parents – grandparents of the toddler. Whilst the mother was in jeans and trainers, the relatively new grandmother was wearing knee-high boots, black tights, and a skirt that finished several centimetres above her knees!
A few days later, we were in another of our favourite haunts, Restaurace Pod Juliskou, when another family group came in and sat on the table next to us, this time without a young child. There was the daughter, again either late twenties or early thirties, together with her parents. Whilst the daughter was wearing what I call the Czech female winter look – spray-on jeans tucked into knee-high boots, together with serious heels, her mother was in a thigh-high woollen mini-dress, teamed with black patent leather knee-high boots!
A week last Tuesday, I attended a follow-up appointment with my dermatologist at Vojenská nemocnice, the Military Hospital, for treatment of another basal cell carcinoma, the commonest and least dangerous form of skin cancer, from which I periodically suffer. In the good Czech fashion of beginning work early in the day, my appointment was for 08.00. I duly arrived at 07.55 to check-in, to be greeted by a receptionist in a short red top that revealed part of her midriff and a serious amount of cleavage. It was a look that her boyfriend or husband would have enjoyed whilst sharing a romantic evening dinner, but not what I really wanted to see at 08.00 in the morning, before having my face attacked with liquid nitrogen!
Also in the past week, whilst leaving the metro and heading towards the escalator, a lady walked straight into me because she was trying read a whole series of notes, whilst walking along at the same time. Point 9 of my original post applies!
Therefore, in view of the continued high level of interest in my observations of how to be Czech, I am working on expanding the original post into a book. I started on the project in August when I took a week of my annual leave and tried to use the time to write. I am hoping to resume writing when I try and take a few days off as my post-Christmas break. In the meantime, there might have to be slightly fewer posts here on my blog 🙂
Update January 2014
In total breach of copyright, Prásk! the online tabloid newspaper belonging to the TV Nova Group, have published an abbreviated and very badly translated version of the original post – a complete act of plagiarism.
One thing that I have increasingly realized living in Prague, is that most Czech people do not expect non-Czechs to necessarily be able to speak their language – many of them recognize what a difficult language it is to learn! But what Czech people do expect is that foreigners should understand, respect and follow their cultural manners and practices.
I have previously written a post entitled ‘Eating and drinking in a Czech Bar-Restaurant’, explaining what to expect in contrast to the UK and elsewhere. In this post, I’m going to expand and illustrate a practice I mentioned briefly in that previous post – something that is quite commonplace in many bar-restaurants throughout the Czech Republic.
When your first drinks order has been delivered to your table, the person doing so will produce a slip of paper, mark it accordingly, and leave it on your table. If you have only ordered normal 0.5 litre glasses of beer, then a simple mark will be placed at the bottom of the slip, one for each beer that has been ordered. If you order small 0.3 litre glasses of beer, then a cross for each one will be put there instead.
If after the drinks have arrived, you then also order food, then the cost of each dish is recorded on the top part of the slip. The slip in this first photo shows that we ordered one main dish for 137 Kc with a side dish for 35 Kc, together with a second main dish for 99 Kc with a side dish for 35 Kc. By the time I took this photo, I was on my second glass of beer. On this occasion, Sybille was drinking wine and was on her second glass, each of which cost 30 Kc.
At the end of the evening when you are ready to leave, saying “Zaplatim prosim” – “May I pay please”, will bring the waiter/waitress to the table to add up your tab. Below is ours from this occasion, duly totted up – the extra 45 Kc was a digestif slivovice. The total bill of 463 Kc translates to around £16.00, a reminder of how ridiculously cheap eating out can be here in the Prague suburbs. But don’t expect a printed receipt – this simple paper slip is all you’ll get!
“Do you like living in Prague?” This is a question I’m frequently asked by Czech people once they discover that I’m not a tourist but that I’ve actually chosen to live and work here. Many Czechs cannot understand why someone from Western Europe might actually want to come and permanently reside in their country.
The same question is also frequently posed by English-speaking visitors who join us for worship at St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church and by family and friends when they write or speak with me. So for my first post of 2011, I’m going to set out some of the reasons why I enjoy living particularly here in Prague and more widely in the Czech Republic. Some of these I’ve mentioned in previous posts so there are an inevitable number of links to things I’ve written previously in this blog.
Prague has the most wonderful public transport system consisting of buses, trams, the Metro and even a number of little ferries. Why is it wonderful? Because it is:
Incredibly cheap – Last week, Sybille and I went to renew our annual season tickets for the Prague public transport system. It cost each of us 4750 Kc – at current exchange rates, just over £160.00 / €193.00 / US$250.00. For this sum we can travel anywhere in Prague, at any time, for a whole year! The Church reimburses me for my season ticket – we just have to pay for Sybille’s.
Integrated – Each part of the system links to the other. At Dejvicka, the current terminal of the A/Green line of the Metro and the nearest Metro station to our flat, you walk out of the station and immediately in front of you is place where buses depart to take you out further into the suburbs or to the airport. The Dopravní podnik hravního mesta Prahy or dpp for short, have a wonderful website that speaks Czech, English and German. Put in the starting point of your journey and your destination, the time you either want to start or arrive and then click. Out comes a journey plan with times, where to transfer from one form of transport to another, etc.
Frequent – If you know where you are going and you are travelling on a weekday between 07.00 and 19.00, there is no real need to visit the dpp website. Once you reach your point of departure you will only need to wait a few minutes at the most. Even on Sunday mornings, there is a tram every twenty minutes which will take us from the Podbaba tram terminus near our flat, all the way to Dlouhá Trída, just around the corner from St. Clement’s Church.
Reliable – there is a timetable and nearly always, it is adhered to. Sometimes buses and trams do get delayed by other vehicular traffic, but usually only at peak periods. And when it snows, everything keeps running – it doesn’t grind to a halt as in Britain.
It isn’t just within the city of Prague. The Czech Republic, along with Slovakia, has the densest rail network of any country in the whole of Europe. One member of my congregation lives in Milovice, about 50 km from the centre of Prague. But in 45 minutes, he can travel by train into the city centre and then have a 10 minute walk to Church. I don’t exactly know what his rail fare is for the return journey but he assures me it is extremely reasonable.
Prague has an abundance of bar-restaurants. And provided you avoid the expensive tourist traps in the city centre, ‘eating out’ can be remarkably inexpensive. As I’ve written previously, some single people tell me that it is often cheaper for them to ‘eat out’ rather than buy food from the supermarket and cook for themselves.
The photo on the left is of U Topolu which, since it’s refurbishment in July 2010, has become our favourite local place to eat and drink. A main course here, even with a side dish, costs no more than 150 Kc / £5.00. The quality is excellent and portions are generous.
The further great attraction at U Topolu is the beer. As well as Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus, they have Kozel beer, directly from the tank. It is light, fresh and costs 26 Kc for half a litre. In British terms that is under £1.00 a pint! What more do I need to say?
Architecture and Buildings
As I’ve previously written, Prague suffered remarkably little structural damage during the Second World War. And whilst many historical buildings suffered years of neglect during the Communist era, since 1989, great effort has been put into restoration. What is really pleasing is how well restoration work has been done.
This photograph is of a building just around the corner from where my dentist has her surgery in the suburb of Vinohrady. It consists of residential flats on four floors with retail outlets on the ground floor level. But as you can see, all the intricate detail above the windows on each level has been lovingly restored, together with the ironwork that forms the railings to each balcony. Likewise, the render on the outside of the building has been repaired before being attractively painted.
These buildings are typical of those which form much of the inner suburbs of Prague. Yes – there are still ones like these that are crumbling. But increasingly they are a minority. And rather than wholesale demolition, buildings like these are being preserved and their interiors sympathetically modernised.
I could write and illustrate several blog posts about the architecture of Prague which I promise I will do during the coming months. But for the time being, just let me say that walking the streets of the centre of Prague, together with the inner city suburbs, is always a delight to the eyes.
Not too big but not too small
Prague only has a population of about 1.3 million people. Therefore, as cities go, it is relatively small meaning that the nearby countryside can be easily reached. Yet because it is the capital of the Czech Republic, (10.3 million population), it has all the assets and facilities of a capital city.
There are many more things that I could list as to why I like living here in Prague, but this post is probably long enough already. And yes – there are also a small number of things that I don’t like. But they are minor irritants compared to the joy of living in this delightful city.
Although Saint Clement’s Church is located in the centre of Prague, it does lie slightly away from the streets most frequented by visiting tourists. It is situated in Klimentská, the street taking its name from the Czech form of Saint Clement, Svatý Kliment. Klimentská is accessed from Revolucní, which runs from Námestí Republiky to the River Vltava. Whilst Námestí Republiky is bright and busy, particularly since the opening in October 2007 of the Palladium Shopping Centre, Revolucní has always struck me as being a little run down, with a number of empty premises at street level.
It was therefore a most pleasant surprise a couple of months ago, when alighting from the Number 8 tram at the Dlouhá Trída tram stop on Revolucní, to see that one of these vacant premises directly alongside the tram stop, had been transformed into a new Bar-Restaurant entitled U Slabé vule. A quick examination of their menu and price list displayed in the window convinced us to try it out for Sunday lunch after our service.
For their city centre location, prices at U Slabé vule are remarkably reasonable. 0.5l of Staropramen is 25 Kc (£0.90). Meal prices range from 120 – 150 Kc (£4.00 – £5.00) with generous portions very nicely presented. Their printed menu, in Czech, German and English, is most notable for the almost complete absence of ‘Czenglish‘.
The premises themselves are large, reaching through as far as the street parallel to Revolucní to the west. It is almost divided in two by the kitchen and bar with the whole of the section on the Revolucní side being ‘non-smoking’, a rare provision in the Czech Republic. What is more, they enforce it!!! In several other bar-restaurants we have frequented, whilst there is nominally a non-smoking area, as soon as a smoker lights up, rather than telling him/her to move, the waiter brings an ashtray. At U Slabé vule, the customer is told to move to the smoking area – Halelujah!
The last two Monday evenings, U Slabé vule has become the venue for a new activity in the life of St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church – Czech conversation classes led by my native English, Czech-speaking Churchwarden, Gerry Turner. Over a glass or two of various varieties of liquid refreshment and a simple nicely presented meal, a small group of us are trying to lose our inhibitions and converse in Czech. Will I be successful or will I have what the name U Slabé vule actually means which is – ‘The Weak Will‘!!
PS – As you will see from the photo above, vule should really have a kroužek (ring) above the ‘u’ which is meant to lengthen the vowel sound by 30%. As with many other diacritics, most web browsers can’t cope and would render it as ‘?’, hence I’ve had to leave it out.
