Prague

Czech cooking is hearty, meat-focused and built around sauces, dumplings and potatoes. Traditional meals often center on pork, beef or duck, served with bread or potato dumplings and cabbage. Soups, pickled sausages and fried cheese are common pub staples, and the food is designed to go with beer.

Lunch has long been the main meal of the day, and many restaurants offer a lighter set lunch on weekdays. Pubs are the everyday social heart of eating out, and beer is usually poured fresh and served quickly. In tourist areas prices and quality vary widely, so walking a few streets away from the main squares usually pays off.

Sweet items include fruit dumplings, pancakes, and pastries such as koláče. Street snacks like sausages and trdelník are widespread, although trdelník is more a tourist treat than a traditional Prague dish.

Settlement in the Prague area stretches back to prehistoric times, and the Slavic Premyslid dynasty established fortified sites on the hills above the Vltava in the 9th century. Prague Castle became the seat of Bohemian rulers, and the city grew as a trading center on the river.

The city's golden age came in the 14th century under Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. He founded Charles University in 1348, laid out the New Town, and sponsored the building of St. Vitus Cathedral and the stone bridge that now bears his name. Later centuries brought the Hussite movement, Habsburg rule, the Defenestrations of Prague, and a Baroque rebuilding after the Thirty Years' War.

In 1918 Prague became the capital of newly independent Czechoslovakia. The city endured Nazi occupation in World War II, then decades of communist rule, including the Prague Spring reforms of 1968 that were crushed by a Warsaw Pact invasion. The Velvet Revolution of 1989 ended one-party rule, and since 1993 Prague has been the capital of the Czech Republic.

Czechs tend to be reserved at first but friendly and dry-humored once conversation starts. A quiet, polite tone is appreciated in public spaces such as trams and restaurants. A simple greeting in Czech, such as dobrý den, is noticed and welcomed.

When entering a home, it is customary to remove your shoes. In pubs and restaurants it is normal to share a table with strangers if space is tight, and you should ask before sitting. Tipping of around ten percent or rounding up is common in restaurants, and it is usually given to the server when paying rather than left on the table.

On public transport, validate your ticket if the system requires it and give up seats to older or less mobile passengers. Prague has a rich tradition of classical music, theater, black-light theater and puppetry, and dressing neatly for the opera or concerts is customary though not strict.