For decades, cheap flights, nightclubs and booze have made Prague one of Europe’s hen party capitals. City officials have spoken out about tourists’ drunken behavior but Prague remains popular with men dressing as Smurfs and drinking 50-koruna (£1.70) pilsner.
I arrive on the train in the German city of Dresden, just north of the Czech border, shortly before the new night train route opens. On March 25, the European Sleeper train between Brussels and Berlin runs towards Prague, arriving at Prague’s main central station, Hlavní Nádraží, at 10.56.
I’m here to find the best things to do in the Czech Republic’s capital and the surrounding countryside, away from the city center attractions.
I’m staying at Miss Sophie’s hotel in the City Centre, just a five-minute walk from the station (large rooms, exposed pipes, staff who don’t mind me taking a socially unacceptable amount of boiled sweets from reception). I take the tram to the Kunsthalle Praha art gallery to meet Ivana Goossen, the director of the white-walled exhibition complex, which opened in 2022 and resembles a dreamy library today. In this city full of flowing beer and great museums, I had heard that the Kunsthalle represented a more contemporary side of Prague culture.
READ, a book-themed exhibition by Berlin artists Elmgreen & Dragset, has taken up most of the gallery and will remain open until April 22. A statue of a chimpanzee stands on a pile of hardcover books. Visitors examine an exhibit of progressive books banned in Florida. A man sitting alone at a long table is calmly writing in a notebook. “What he’s doing is essentially an art performance,” Goossen says.
People are realizing that Prague is not just about old architecture
The Kunsthalle was converted from a 1930s electrical substation by local entrepreneurs Petr and Pavlína Pudil. Goossen says that after the 1989 Velvet Revolution, privately owned arts institutions emerged slowly at first.
“There was a maturation process,” he says. “Some practices are normal in the western world where you see the culture being specifically promoted [with private investment in public art spaces], wasn’t that typical. “This is changing and people are realizing that Prague is not just about old architecture.”
The Kunsthalle had approximately 110,000 visitors in its first year and attracted more locals than tourists. “We are in the old centre, next to the steps of Prague Castle,” says Ivana, “but we show that there is contemporary culture here.”
Holešovice, north of the centre, is one of Prague’s more gentrified areas and is home to the DOX Center for Contemporary Art. I admire her moody nude sculptures before lunch at the newly opened Slice Slice Baby restaurant (recommended by one of Goossen’s colleagues as “the best slice of pizza in town”). The pizza is excellent: co-owner Kateřina Jakusová tells me that the tomatoes are imported from Puglia.
The southern end of the Smíchov district, a 30-minute tram ride south, is popular with artists but does not yet have trendy pizzerias. A large parrot gnaws on a wooden door in the atrium cafe at MeetFactory, now a nonprofit artist space. The Shape of Water-like sculptures here are wonderful, but I can’t get properly drawn deeper into the artistic intrigue until I enter the gallery across the railroad tracks. The Musoleum opened in 2022 to showcase the works of Prague-born sculptor David Černý, who is also the founder of MeetFactory. He is known for his work Miminka, strange bulbous baby sculptures seen crawling on the city’s Žižkov Television Tower.
Car-sized gun sculptures hang from the ceiling, and intermittent gunfire makes me jump every minute. A sculpture of a vintage car with human legs is overseen by a Černý self-portrait in garish orange and blue. But these wildly strange works are not for children or prudes: One floor is dominated by huge, distinctive, animated sculptures of human body parts: Cronenberg, via Razzle magazine.
Car-sized gun sculptures hang from the ceiling, and the occasional gunshots startle me.
The next day, I head an hour and a half north to the more family-friendly Jiří Pačinek glass factory. In the “glass garden”, spectacular glass octopus sculptures emerge from the soil. Inside, Pačinek, his 23-year-old son Jan, and several workers wielding metal rods try to pull molten glass from red-hot furnaces and spin bulbs so they solidify like vases.
The region has been known for its quality glasswork for centuries and is still home to many glassworks. Pačinek hands out bowls of pork stew. “The local hunter gave us the pig in exchange for some glass,” he says. “That’s the way things go sometimes in the villages here.”
The Pačineks export their glass pieces around the world, and tourists can try their hand at making glass souvenirs. The factory made “crystal” sculptures for the 2022 movie Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. But despite this success, Jan says, quality Czech glasswork is under threat.
He nodded toward a pair of workers who were gently twisting strands of molten glass around a vase. “These guys are about 50 years old; Young people do not want to make glass anymore. “It’s a tradition in this region, but people want to work with computers.”
Pačinek puts his arm on his son’s shoulder. They describe how a large local glass factory closed after 230 years due to rising energy costs. Pačinek’s gas furnaces must be operated continuously at temperatures reaching 1,340C.
“I’m not afraid,” he says. “The future will be small family businesses, because when we see this problem with energy prices, it becomes something that can only happen to people who love this business. “I think it’s perfect.”
Relating to: Rail route of the month: Prague to Vienna along the Franz Josef railway
Jan shows me a glass gorilla head her father made, followed by a group of pieces inspired by the shape of the Covid-19 virus, made during quarantine. I’m trying to spin glass and I’m just managing an ugly glass globule. He tore it apart. “Don’t worry, we can melt the glass again.” I return to Prague with a signed beer glass that his father made earlier.
On the train home, admiring the smoothly crafted pint glass, I remember gallery director Goossen telling me: “Our joke was that the British didn’t think they were going to Prague because they started drinking on the plane on the way here and started drinking.” “I won’t wake up until the plane returns.”
I won’t so easily forget the friendly glass blowers, the parrot gnawing on the door, or the huge faceless babies.
Train travel from London to Brussels was provided by european star (From £39) in all directions. Travel from Brussels to Prague was provided by: Omioapp allows travelers to: compare different transport methods simultaneous. Accommodation in Prague was provided by Miss Sophie’s. Town center (Doubles from €70, includes breakfast when booking directly with the hotel) Czech Tourism. Prague Visitor Card Provided by Czech Tourism. European sleeper train Runs between Brussels Midi and Prague Hlavní Nádraží From 25 March 2024 (one-way couchette from €79)