Travel

Hockey, Prague style

/ Greg / Leave a comment

On a spectacular late August afternoon, in one of the world’s truly beautiful cities, I found myself among 1,000 crazy hockey fans taking in a HC Sparta pre-season match against JYP Jyväskylä from Finland.   Although I’ve given up as a diehard fan of NHL hockey (losing your team will do that to you), the enjoyment of the sport itself is deep in my Canadian DNA.  An opportunity to see my first game on the larger ice surface in another hockey-mad country was just too good a chance to pass up.

What do diehard Czech hockey fans look like?  Probably something like these good folk waiting to head into the arena:

HC Sparta diehard fans

Not only were there passionate HC Sparta fans, but a group of people traveled from Jyväskylä, Finland to watch their team, JYP play…. and they did that for a pre-season game.  They even shelled out for a private box for the game.  Looks like they had a good time:

JYP Jyväskylä fans Continue reading →

Falling in love with the Charles Bridge

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I have always felt an affection toward bridges.  My guess is that it started when I was just old enough to walk and my Mom would take me to a bridge close to our house so I could watch cars pass on the highway below.  It’s no wonder that one of my first stops in Prague (once I got over a wee bit of jet lag) was the Charles Bridge.

When I think of Prague, “romantic” is the first word that enters my head.  Nowhere was this more tangible that along the length of one of the most famous bridges in the world.  One look and it’s pretty easy to tell why:

Charles Bridge

A chilly, damp late August night only added to the mystique of this bridge to me.  The views at anytime are stunning, but looking out toward Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral as the lights just start to come on is a special kind of magic:

View from Charles Bridge

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Pilgrimage to Plzen

/ Greg / 4 Comments

You won’t see a description for a day trip to Plzen in your Frommers guide to the Czech Republic, and that’s a bloody shame.  For the beer lover, I would argue it’s almost a necessary visit.  This quaint city gave birth to beautiful thing in 1842: a beer that has stood the test of time – pilsner.

For me, the day trip to Plzen this was a true pilgrimage.  There was no way I was coming to the Czech Republic without visiting where my favourite style of beer was created.   Only a short 90 minute train ride from Prague, the Pilsner Urquell brewery is located just outside of the city centre.  When you arrive, you are greeted by the original gates of the brewery:

Gate at Pilsner Urquell

On our way into the brewery we got to see a morning delivery loading up.  Each day, the brewery delivers beer to bars in the city by horse, keeping alive a long-standing tradition.  I momentarily thought about taking the reins and making away with a few kegs of the good stuff:

Pilsner Urquell delivery into town Continue reading →

Gluten free eating in Prague

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Goulash.  Dumplings.  Beer (oh, the beer!).  Rich sauces thickened with bread.   I loved my first experiences with Czech cuisine.  But it’s not the most approachable for visitors with a limited grasp of the Czech language who suffer from Celiac disease.

As I planned this trip with my wife who needs to eat a strict gluten free diet, we honed in on a couple of places to ensure she got a taste of authentic Czech food rather than spending two weeks watching me chow down in restaurants while she ate a salad.  In the heart of Prague, we ate at two great places with dedicated gluten-free menus

Švejk Restaurant U Karla

Not to be confused with other Švejk restaurants around Prague, this one at Křemencova 7 has a separate gluten free menu.  In fact, when you order from that menu, your food arrives at the table with little gluten free flags.  This is a great place with a pub feel and we enjoyed the food the two times we visited.

One of the truly great dishes: beer cheese, wrapped in bacon served with a braided bun (similar to a pretzel).  This was amazing gluten free pub food.  I’ve sampled a lot of gluten free bread products and very, very few I’d order unless I needed to.  This one was mind blowing!  I would have had no idea it was gluten free:

Gluten free beer cheese and pretzel

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My first European soccer (err, football) match

/ Greg / 16 Comments

I can’t even begin to explain how excited I was to get to see my first European football match in Prague.  Bad scheduling luck on past trips kept me from seeing PSG in Paris or Inter or AC Milan in Italy.  I’ve also had a whole host of missed opportunities in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands.  This trip finally delivered.  My first match was AC Sparta Praha playing FC Baník Ostrava.

Best. Cultural. Experience. Ever!  Can you tell how excited I am from the picture below?

AC Sparta Praha match

I’ve been to my share of sporting events and each and every one holds a special place in my heart.  The only Nordiques game I got to with my Dad, my first Monday Night Football game, sitting in the upper deck for a San Francisco Giants game watching boats out in the bay, a Canada-USA world championship hockey game – all awesome!   And all surpassed by this soccer game in Prague.  Why?

Heavily armed riot police in the subway station and on the walk to the stadium?  Oh yes!  I didn’t get photos of it, but a supporters website sure did.  And people think it’s rough going to a Philadelphia Eagles game…

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Home is where my feet are

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I’m first writing this from the evening train between Vienna and Prague (I think we’re getting close to Pardubice but don’t quote me on that). The swaying of the train, some good music in my ears, and the glow of small Czech towns passing by the window outside gets me to thinking pretty easily.

This trip has been a bit of a revelation for me. As I sit on the train, I feel like I’m returning to something in Prague.  It’s quickly become home on this trip. Staying in an apartment has helped. Cooking a few meals has too. But it’s more than that. After visits to seventeen countries and with my passion to travel being fully explored as often as I can, I’ve grown in a way that feels suddenly tangible on this trip.

After a particularly nomadic few years, a singer/songwriter I listened to about ten years ago entitled her album “Home is where my feet are”.  She explained that for her, happiness in her life came down to living to that mantra.  Simple and profound, I adopted it as a personal challenge and a rallying cry to which to aspire in senses both literal and metaphorical.

I know I’ll remember this trip for a lot of the experiences and moments – my first European soccer match, a whirlwind thirty hour stopover in Vienna, tasting unfiltered and unpasteurized pilsner where it was first brewed, kissing my wife on the Charles Bridge, sampling all varieties of Czech food….  All of those memories and many, many more I’ll cherish forever.  But what I’ll remember most from these two weeks is the sudden realization I had as I sat in a jet-lagged stupor in our Prague apartment on the first day of this trip. With every chance to feel foreign and out of place, I felt resolutely and entirely comfortable. For the eleven days so far, that feeling hasn’t wavered.   Indeed, home is where my feet are.  And from where I stand, I’m pretty proud of that.

More to come in the weeks ahead on what has been an outstanding trip.

San Juan’s fortifications

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Early one morning of our stay, I headed out toward Castillo San Felipe del Morro for some fresh air and to see the fortification without the hordes of other tourists.  This fort was built in the late 1500s to guard San Juan Bay.  It was a perfect morning for exploring this area – not a cloud in the sky and the heat of the day ahead hadn’t yet arrived.  One of the first striking features is the lighthouse, a recent addition to the fort in the early 1900s

Castillo San Felipe del Morro

Walking away from the fort, you next encounter the Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery.  This cemetery, dating back to the early 1860s is perched high above the Atlantic Ocean.  There are about a thousand graves located here:

Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery

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This year’s big trip

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I’ve been fortunate over the past few years to visit a number of interesting places. Many of those have been short stay, primarily work-related trips.  But by tacking on a day or two of vacation I’ve been able to see some interesting things and have some wonderful experiences that I cherish.  With that said, there’s nothing that compares to a “big trip”.  For us, that’s usually a once a year thing when our work and vacation schedules can be aligned for a two week escape.  Last year it was a four country tour of Scandinavia, the year before had us wandering around Switzerland and down to Milan.  This year our big trip is a two week jaunt to the Czech Republic with an ambitious 40 hour side trip to Vienna thrown in because we’ll be “in the neighbourhood”.

The Czech Republic has been high on our must visit list for a while.  We’ve rented an apartment in Prague for two weeks and will be exploring the city at a leisurely pace.  What’s on our itinerary?  A couple of day trips –  one to Terezín to learn about its horrific history during WWII, another one (perhaps more of a pilgrimage for me) to Plzeň, the birthplace of pilsner beer.  An AC Sparta Praha soccer match gets us to our first game after all our previous trips failed to align with European soccer schedules.  There’s a night at the opera, some castles, a few museums, and a lot of leisurely exploring, hanging out in parks and cafes, and drinking in what will be spectacularly beautiful surroundings.

Our last couple of big trips were less about food and drink than normal.  This one will be very different.  I’m excited to try some traditional Czech cuisine – in particular, pork knee, roast goose, goulash, dumplings and the pungent domestic cheese, Olomoucké tvarůžky.    As a beer lover, my travel map is littered with pins for hopeful visits to many tankovna pubs so I can sample the finest Czech beer at its unpasteurized and unfiltered best.  In Vienna I hope to try some of the world’s best coffee, have a piece (or 3) of sachertorte, and spend an evening at a heuriger on the outskirts of the city sampling the young, fresh white wines produced on the hills of the Danube.

Here’s to this year’s big trip which can’t get here fast enough!