[Czech Republic] Tourism Thread

[Nightwolf]

Czech Republic looks nice, I like the castles on the first page a lot.

[TheFlyPL]

HI Everybody!

I want to visit Praha. Where is the best place to leave a car in the east part of a city. I will go by road n11 or n10 and I'm looking for a place where I can easy leave a car and go to city center by metro.

[Norkey]

You mean D11 / R10 roads? Cerny Most. Metro station is just on the second side of the main road.
http://www.mapy.cz/#x=133430624@y=136026848@z=15@mm=FP

[Bobek_Azbest]

Your best bet is to use P+R parking lot (that is if it's not full, which can be a problem especially around Černý Most). The parking costs CZK 10,- for the whole day and you can buy special (and cheaper) tickets for public transport - a return transfer ticket (2x75 minutes, validated on both ends, CZK 40,-) or a one day ticket (valid for the whole day until the P+R car park is closed, which is around 1.00am, CZK 80,-). If you don't manage to get your car before the car park is closed, you will be charged CZK 100,-, which is still a very decent price for parking in Prague for the whole day.

Some more info on P+R (with a link to the locations and current occupancy - in Czech only). A map can be found here.

Unless you're arriving early in the morning (around 8:00am the Černý Most and Rajská Zahrada P+Rs are already occupied), I'd reccomend Letňany.

Edit: Or you can simply use one of the shopping centers' car park. But P+Rs are fenced and as I stated, the tickets are cheaper - to match the travel options given by the special P+R tickets, you would need two CZK 26,- tickets or CZK 100,- for the whole day.

[Tom_Green]

Okay it will not be my first trip. I made a road trip in April. Here are the pics. click


As you can see i drive a Fiat punto from 1998. Do i really need to park in the garage of my hotel? They want 500CZK per night for the car. That`s too much. For that money we could stay a day longer in Prague.

[historyworks]

Frankly I don't think you have much choice Tom. Only leave your car in a more insecure location further out and hope it's still there when you come back. And you won't get a night in a Prague hotel for only 500CZK anyway. Let the car enjoy its holiday too! Or better don't bring it - it's not worth trying to drive in Prague and the public transport is so good.

[Tom_Green]

Originally Posted by historyworks

Frankly I don't think you have much choice Tom. Only leave your car in a more insecure location further out and hope it's still there when you come back. And you won't get a night in a Prague hotel for only 500CZK anyway. Let the car enjoy its holiday too! Or better don't bring it - it's not worth trying to drive in Prague and the public transport is so good.

3 days x 500CZK. That`s half of what i pay for 3 nights in the city.

[Karasek]

Originally Posted by Tom_Green

Okay it will not be my first trip. I made a road trip in April. Here are the pics. click


As you can see i drive a Fiat punto from 1998. Do i really need to park in the garage of my hotel? They want 500CZK per night for the car. That`s too much. For that money we could stay a day longer in Prague.

500CZK is a lot. I'm quite often in Prague (but don't stay overnight), usually park close to the center (often for free, hehe) and never had a problem... and I drive a new A4 Avant! I never felt insecure. Poland is much worse IMHO.

PS: don't follow the tourists in Prague. Just stroll down the next small alley to the left or right and you're almost always alone and will find beautiful places which no travel guide mentions.

[Bobek_Azbest]

As I stated, the hotel you mentioned is inside the paid parking zone - it's not even a question of money (CZK 30,-/hour in green zones, CZK 40,-/hour in orange zones), there's no way you can park there for longer period of time (>2 hours in orange zones, >6 hours in green zones - quite far away from your hotel), unless you rent a garage or a parking permit from your hotel (I suppose you can then park in a resident-only blue zone):
"Garáž 500 CZK/noc; Zapůjčení parkovací karty 250 CZK/den."
= garage (obviously), parking card

Or you can leave your car somewhere in the outskirts - the parking is generally free there. Or you could use one of the P+R car parks, which are usually located nearby metro stations, fenced, parking costs CZK 10,- for the whole day(!), you can get a special (a bit cheaper) tickets for the public transport in the ticket machines there, and if you "forget" and leave your car there overnight, you will be charged extra CZK 100,-, which seems as a very good price for a whole day to me.

I've written kind of a "P+R guide" just yesterday, it's in the Tourism thread.

[Norkey]

Celebrating Svatojánské Navalis

Gondolas were launched on the Vltava river as part of Musica Navalis, a celebration of the 280-year anniversary of the canonisation of St John of Nepomuk.

short video
http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/video/detail.php?id=112151

Nice. they should use the gondolas on the Vltava all year long..

[NietoDelJaguar]

Originally Posted by Tom_Green

Hi,

let`s say it`s 90% sure that i will go to Prague in June for 2 or 3 days starting on the 20th.

I will travel by car because Prague is a stopover on my way to Poland.

How much do i have to pay to use the highway?

I will stay in the Residence Tabor. Is this hotel and it´s location okay?

Enjoy your trip Tom, one of the most enchanting cities of Europe, I want to return!!!

[:jax:]

Originally Posted by historyworks

OK guys, just looking at north-east side of Prague (exploring all options!), what do you think of Karlin and Zizkov areas?

Žižkov comes highly recommended, it remains my favourite city district, and always the place I recommend Prague tourists to stay (different parts of Žižkov for different people, but usually not so far from the stadion).

For a long time it also was a very Czech neighbourhood, few foreigners ventured there, but that has changed the last decade or so. It could be seen as the entertainment district, most of the good pubs in Prague are in Žižkov, but it isn't hard to find more quiet areas within the district.

Like Žižkov Karlín is a former working-class district, but otherwise they are very different. Žižkov is a former village swallowed up by Prague early last century, while Karlín is a floodplain where they constructed worker's houses according to progressive ideas of the late 19th century, with very high living standard to the time. During communism Karlín became partially derelict with a lot of pointless industry that didn't survive the regime change. The biggest change however was the 2002 flood that flooded the entire district. This gave some enterprising entrepeneurs the opportunity to buy up large chunks of the district and turning it into Prague's business center.

Some of these architectural developments have been successful, others less so. As before the flood Karlín is very family friendly with next with very little traffic, good communications, trams as well as metro, and quite pretty. It is a little dull though. As a foot (or bicycle) tourist the most obvious difference between Karlín and Žižkov is that the former is very flat while Žižkov is hilly. Some of the major developments in Prague now are in the Žižkov districts, particularly what is going to happen with the Žižkov Goods Station.

[historyworks]

Thanks :jax:. As it turns out we went in the end for the accommodation we could best find. So from next week we will be living in Vinohrady. I just hope there are still plenty of Czechs and good Czech food there, not crowded out by "foreign" influences! (and I will try to not be a foreign influence myself LOL!)

[:jax:]

I am exiled to (the cheaper parts of) Vinohrady myself. Žižkov used to have much cheaper rent than Vinohrady, but not anymore. Vinohrady is very pretty in spring and now in summer as well, so it is not by any means a bad choice. If you are interested we could meet over a beer one day.

It would be hypocritical of me to deplore foreign influences, being one myself (I come from Oslo), on the whole I would say that foreigners have been good to Prague with just a few exceptions like Hotel Hilton. What ills have befallen Prague lately you can blame the Czechs, or unavoidable consequences of joining the European economy, many great customs simply weren't profitable and have disappeared. Prague is very much a tourist town, and it is hard to love masses of tourists however good they are for the economy, but it isn't really a hardship. They have driven the prices up and the quality down in some places, but have helped many more places survive. The more entrepid tourists who have made it to my part of town have all been pleasant company.

[historyworks]

Originally Posted by :jax:

I am exiled to (the cheaper parts of) Vinohrady myself. Žižkov used to have much cheaper rent than Vinohrady, but not anymore. Vinohrady is very pretty in spring and now in summer as well, so it is not by any means a bad choice. If you are interested we could meet over a beer one day.

Would love to :jax: Will PM you when I'm over the jetlag! Anybody else from CZ or CE forums who is in Prague and wants to meet over pivo PM me

[Reichenberger]

historyworks: Remind, if you take a journey to our small T3 paradise!

[WladYslaW]

I couldn't find any map of Brno with historical places on the Internet. Is this map at all? Could you help me?

Děkujeme vám!

[Czech Norris]

Originally Posted by WladYslaW

I couldn't find any map of Brno with historical places on the Internet. Is this map at all? Could you help me?

Děkujeme vám!

Depends how old map would u like to have. There is an external map for Google Earth which u can download here. It consists of 2 maps, first one (the bigger one) is military map from 1878 the second one is from 1919(not really historical one)
There is also historical map of whole Czech Republic on mapy.cz. Just click on "další mapy " and then "Historická 1836-52". It is not so detailed like previous two maps but it is older and you can still see the fortification of Brno, which is pretty cool

Nemáte zač!

[Kappa21]

THAT HAS TO BE THE COOLEST NAME ON SSC!!!!
NO FEAR....CZECH NORRIS IS HERE

[Czech Norris]

I found another website with historical maps, this time also from 18th century...

Originally Posted by Kappa21

THAT HAS TO BE THE COOLEST NAME ON SSC!!!!
NO FEAR....CZECH NORRIS IS HERE

Thanks, my friends call me also sometimes CzechGyver