Ok I’m just going to preface this post by saying that this will be LONG. A lot of times getting a cup of coffee was a good excuse to get out of the cold and warm up a bit. Also, coffee is good. Prague has a lot of coffee places, and, well…you know…
A Café
I kid you not, this place is called a café. This was my first cup of coffee in Prague, at 4:55am before a 5:10am train from Prague to Linz en route to Salzburg. I got a cappuccino with whatever Czech koruna I had on me (I had like $2 worth left over from the initial $20 I exchanged). It was a decent cup of coffee, nothing too special, but enough to get me up and running for the day. It was going to be a five hour trainride and I wanted to get some last-minute planning done on the train.
Costa Café
Yes, I am aware that Costa is a huge chain, but since I don’t have much experience with it, and they had good free wifi (which is more than I could say for our hotel at times), this was a good place to park for a bit and enjoy a macchiato. It was also next to an exchange place that gave decent rates. The macchiato was pretty good, they did the right milk to espresso ratio (equal parts milk to coffee).
Kavárna Slavia
The famous Grand Café Slavia is situated right on the river across the street from the National Theatre opened in 1881 (the same year as the theatre) and became a popular meeting place for both artists and intellectuals, including former president Václav Havel who was a frequent customer during his dissident years. If you find space, get a table by the riverside windows to enjoy beautiful views of the Prague Castle. Café Slavia is a very pleasant place to have coffee and or hot chocolate (I ended up having both since we came here twice). The coffee was pretty good…ended up getting an amaretto coffee. The hot chocolate came with a bit of ice cream, but the cocoa had an odd consistency. It was like drinking chocolate syrup. Stick to the coffee.
Café Trinity Not all cafés were good. Well, I suppose the coffee here was decent, but this was definitely a tourist trap disguised as a friendly café. First of all, they advertised wifi, which didn’t work, and the menu was outrageous. We’re talking 110Kc for an espresso. This is normally 28-35Kc. Aside from the fact that it was a tourist trap, the coffee was decent. I got a cappuccino, which came out promptly and tasted decent. The foam was decent and it held for quite a bit.
Kavárna Obecní dům
This café is one of the best looking cafés I’ve seen so far – still has that classic old-style European café look. I had the Viennese Iced Coffee here…it was decent – can’t really mess up coffee and ice cream I suppose. The thing about this café is mostly the atmosphere – live band, grand crystal chandeliers, high ceilings and well-worn plush velvet seats. This is a café you can spend an entire afternoon in reading the paper or studying. Definitely a good rainy-day place to hang out.
Café Rozmani
This place was a small café on the side of the road that we decided to check out purely for the sake of getting out of the cold. I had an egg liqueur coffee (didn’t know such a thing existed). It was an interesting consistency – the egg liqueur kind of sat at the bottom unless you stir it up. Probably not something I would order again.
Ok maybe that wasn’t that long…thanks for reading. I’m starting to look into the next trip…not sure where though. Maybe coffee crawl Mumbai =)
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