by Jan Barta
[Jan Barta is Chairman of Elephant Orchestra, a fast-growing media company focused on direct navigation and lead generation based in Prague. One the company’s domain products is Elephant Traffic, a direct navigation monetization solution.]
Andrew asked me if I could write a short guide to Prague with some tips what you can do here during DOMAINFest or if you decide to prolong your stay afterwards. Since Prague is my hometown, I obviously had to accept the guest post!
Arrival and Hotels
Once you arrive at Prague’s airport, Ruzyne, make sure you take the yellow AAA cabs, they seem to be the most honest and don’t rip off tourists as non-branded taxis do. The taxi ride to the center should cost 500-600 Kc, which is the local currency ($1=19 Kc). If you wish to take the public transport, there are buses from the Airport which will take you to the Dejvicka metro station. If you are staying at the Intercontinental, get off at the Staromestska metro stop, from where the hotel is a short walk. If you are arriving by train, you will most likely end up at the Main Train Station. Taxi from there to the Intercontinental should cost 150 Kc roughly.
At the time of writing, the Intercontinental is fully booked. So if you are looking for alternative hotels, these are my recommendations. For top of the market I recommend the Four Seasons or the Mandarin Oriental, the Kempinski and Radisson Alcron are nice too. For mid-range the Marriott, Hilton or Sheraton. A very nice hotel is also Hotel Josef or Budha Bar, which are sort of designer hotels. For the budget segment, there are tonnes of opportunities as well, just use Hotels.com (direct navigation!).
Sight-seeing
Prague is definitely the top city for sight-seeing in Europe along with Paris and Vienna, so there is lots to see due to our very rich history. I’ll only cover the utmost basics, more can be found in any tour guide. If you have 2-3 hours to spare and want to see the most, I recommend this walk: Start at the Municipal House (Obecni Dum), walk down Celetna Street towards the Old Town Square. Then carry on across the Charles Bridge and up the hill towards the Prague Castle. Other notable things to see: Vysehrad castle (the second Castle in Prague), the Old Jewish Quarter, National Theatre, National Museum, Rudolfinum Concert Hall etc. If you are bringing your kids, you might fancy a trip to the Prague zoo as well, which is very nice.
Restaurants
The Intercontinental itself has a pretty good restaurant on the top floor. Other restaurants I would recommend: The Allegro restaurant in the Four Seasons (Michelin star), Pravda, Barock, La Finestra, Aromi, La Vita e Bella, Samurai (Sushi), Cantina (Mexican) or the Taj Mahal (Indian). You might as well try Czech cuisine once you are here, try the restaurant Kolkovna.
Clubs
If you are looking for a more upmarket experience that draws a stylish crowd, your choice is Sasazu or Mecca, which generally get going around midnight. If you are looking for more alternative dance music, Roxy has great music, Radost FX is cool as well. If you are looking for something more mainstream, try Karlovy Lazne, which is a club with 4 floors with different music on each. If you like jazz, I recommend JazzDock or Agharta Jazz Club. If you’re looking for a gentleman’s club, Darling Cabaret is the largest (usually around 100-200 girls there).
Bars and Pubs
The Czech Republic is the beer nation of Europe (no other country in the world drinks as much of it per capita as we do) so you might as well check out some of the Czech Typical Pubs. The 3 most notorious are probably U Fleku, U Tygra or U Medvidku. If you’re looking at the top bars, I recommend the following – Tretter’s and Buggsy’s (both are sort of New York style bars), Bodeguita del Medio (Cuban, very lively), KU Bar and Silwer (they draw a more model/metrosexual crowd) or Bombay or Harley’s (both are usually pretty lively).
Open house
If you will still be in Prague on Friday I would cordially like to invite you to our Open house – a tour of the Elephant Orchestra/Elephant Traffic offices, which are located at Mezibranska 4 (right next to the National Museum) between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. We will be serving drinks and light snacks as well. If you are interested in coming please email Mateusz Drela (drela -at- elephant-orchestra.com).
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