Here is a fun fact about the Czech Republic: The Czechs drink more beer per capita than any other nation on Earth, about 138 liters per capita per year. This metric includes babies, children, women and seniors. I suppose if you account for all these non-beer drinkers, the count is probably closer to 500 liters per year per beer drinker.
One of the best ways to visit a country is by touring it by bicycle, which is exactly what we did for a whole week. Everything zips by too fast by car, not to mention that you’re unlikely to be taking side roads where life is lived, in the front and back yards of people’s homes and in the ciry parks. Walking is a good alternative, too, however one would need a lot of time to cover the distances. Cycling is a perfect blend, where one can see so much at cycling speeds, and stop on a whim anywhere to taste what suddenly smells good, or visit a 1,000-year old castle that seemingly appears out of nowhere around the next bend in the road.
At one such stop at the only bar in a village we were traversing, we went inside and asked for a small beer. In the Czech Republic, a small beer is usually 300 ml, a normal beer is 500 ml, and a large beer is one liter. It is prudent to stick to the small beer if you plan to continue cycling, more or less sober. The beer in this country is not fermented as it is most everywhere else, it is thus full of healthy probiotics, so were told more than once. A mid-day, cold beer is not only more refreshing than water it is arguably healthier! At this refreshment stop, the barkeep scolded us, I might say he shamed us into ordering a normal sized beer. In broken English, he tsk’ed, “you can’t order a small beer” three times and that ended the negotiation. The pilsners here are arguably the best in the world and the Czechs are proud of their beer drinking prowess. I have concluded that the small beers are for children as even the women drink the larger sized beers.
Interestingly, they have something called a “schnit” which is a beer served in a glass where the top half is all foam, and the bottom half is all liquid. Supposedly, it is the warmup beer to get you started on a night of drinking with friends. The bars and pubs that have the most clients tend to have the best tasting beer as the suppliers deliver fresh beer every two days, in tanks, in order to restock the joint before they run out. It seems that the connoisseurs can taste when a beer was delivered more than a couple of days ago.
Still on the subject of beer, I had the most delicious cherry-infused beer while in Prague. I think I have figured out how the Czechs get its youth and its women to become so enamored with beer. It is offered in many flavours and while I thoroughly enjoyed the cherry, another person may get hooked on the pineapple!
We had chosen to cycle the smaller villages of the Czech Republic by reserving a cabin on a bike-and-boat cruise along various rivers, namely the Vltava, and the Elbe. There are so many advantages to this style of cycling. The biggest one, I believe, is that I only had to unpack my carry-on once for the entire week, unlike when cycling from village to village and hotel to hotel. The riverboat had about 45 cabins and we snagged the last one seven months before sailing, so it seems that this style of touring is very popular.
The rivers are always very calm as their flow is controlled by a series of dozens of locks – getting seasick is impossible, even if you are prone to it. There is no word, “riversick,” and to be sure I never once felt the boat rock. Sometimes we would head out in the morning for our daily ride and the boat would depart soon afterwards. We would meet up with it at the end of our ride. On a couple of days, we would cycle a loop, return to the boat in mid-afternoon, and then sail for a few hours along the mostly quiet river with everyone aboard, while having drinks and snacks on the sundeck.
I have never traveled to a city that has more clock towers or more museums than Prague. The stones that the clock towers were constructed from have all turned black with time. At first, they adirtyed dirty to me, almost ugly. But with time, they grew on me, and now have a kind of charm being blackened. The most famous of all is the Prague astronomical clock, or Prague orloj. Built in 1410, it is the oldest astronomical clock that is still running, in the entire world. It has two clock faces and between them we can read the local time, the day of the week, the month of the year, in which zodiac the sun is passing through, the time of both sunrise and sunset, and the phase of the moon.
There are two figurines on each side of the two clocks. Every hour on the hour, the two pairs of them adjacent to the clock on top do a little show, which has been taking place for over 600 years! The four figures flanking the clock are set in motion on the hour, and represent four things that were despised at the time of the clock's making. From left to right, the first is Vanity, represented by a figure admiring himself in a mirror. Next, the miser holding a bag of gold represents greed or usury. Across the clock stands Death, a skeleton that strikes the time upon the hour. Finally, there is a Turkish figure representing lust and earthly pleasures. On the hour, the skeleton rings the bell and immediately all other figures shake their heads side to side, signifying their unreadiness "to go."
Unfailingly, most in the crowd of the 200-250 tourists who gather every hour for the display begin clapping and even shouting when the "show" ends. I remain uncertain what prompts so many people to applause a clock, albeit a very special one.
As for the museums, I can only guess that when there are so many tourists flocking to your town, why not open yet another museum. Most are dedicated to the arts, but I counted three beer museums, a sex museum, and of course a museum of illusions, which we selected and had a fabulous time Inside. It was too hard to choose between the over 100 art and Czech history museums, so the one illusions museum won out. The only hour of rain that fell during our Czech visit, fell during our museum visit. Or maybe that was just an illusion!?
Here's hoping that illusions surround you, too, from time to time.
Barry
Wonderful postcard, I need a beer now!
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