It’s two p.m. and, I finally found my café, the Tynska Literarni Kavarna on little Tynska Street behind the Church of Tyn, the most picturesque of all spiraled structures in Prague.
There are two Tynska streets, a shop owner informed me as I went round and round on the other Tynska. But I was close, and in my book close counts.
Yesterday’s close did not count in the eyes of three tag-a-longs. As Coach Hall and I turned the semi-correct left and fully-wrong right, our byzantine quest became Kafkaesque. And then the rain fell. And the snickers became guffaws. When we found U Medvidku, a restaurant/bar dating from 1466, it was closed. Little did they know how touchy the subject was for one tour leader. This was not merely a one-hour lost-in-Prague walk. I had waited a whole year for the chance to luxuriate in the top floor micro-brewery featuring the redoubtable Oldgott yeast beer as described in the two-page August 6th Sunday travel section of the L.A. Times. I clipped out this story called “The Ultimate Beer Tour” and taped it to the wall of our living room. (My kids can attest to it.) Bohemia is the Pilsner Capital of the World, and not being a big fan of this soft-water lager style, I reveled in the thought that new brewers were tinkering with the tried-and-true formula. Fortunately, the clouds cleared, U Medkidku would be open in 15 minutes, and we happened upon the most historic café in Prague, the Café Louvre, where Einstein and Kafka and Churchill hung out(but not at the same time)—if that’s what people, in fact, did in the old days--hung out. Bryant ordered the Havana Hot Chocolate, and a chocolate cake—no nuts, don’t worry. Arwin had a cappuccino and ice cream and Coach Hall had likewise a cappuccino featuring the consistently tasty Segafreda coffee beans. I forget what Ryan and I had.
Rejuvenated, we set forth again for the holy grail of brews and were not disappointed. We found Aaron and David loitering inside and we each had one beer. It’s the only beer anyone has had on the whole trip. The quest does not always reward—the gold at the end of the rainbow, the fish at the end of the lure, the . . . hmm, I’m not too good with metaphors. But the heart that beats that rapido beat as one approaches the destination of destinations is worth it. And sometimes, just sometimes, an even more glorious end supercedes the high anticipation. Through the low-slung vaulted ceiling we walked, then sat at long wooden benches, and talked to the brewer, and watched him work his wort. We sipped and tasted and marveled at the sweet foretaste and bitter hop kick. Who cares about a smoothly balanced beer when you have one that gallops down your throat in the kind of royal style those Clydesdales only dream about? Wow. Maybe I can write in metaphors. And the conversation moved from the intellectually deep analysis of the movie Jackass all the way to a brilliant exegesis of Borat. What range we conversationists possess. It will be an afternoon we all will long remember.
And so today I’m traversing solo until 4 p. m. Meeting many at U Fleck U. Earlier I toured the mesmerizing New Kafka Museum, and now I’m eating cheese and bread at this literary hide-away. To paraphrase the N.Y. Times—it’s steps away from the tourists at Old Town Square, but in some ways centuries away. I'd like to tell you more about Franz Kafka, but now it’s onto the Muzeum of Cubizm.
Truly, but wryly,
The Literary Vagabond
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