A wave of 20-somethings in rain slickers poured out the door of Pension Prague City as we walked uphill, heading back to our tram stop. One young thing asked another, "Do you know a hangover cure?" A tall, bearded fellow who might have been their leader laughed, "No hangover cure. Just keep drinking."
Every time we ride the tram, the name "Zizkov" is announced along with the names of many stops. I got to wondering what this Zizkov was, and had googled it. Of course, there's the Zizkov Television Tower, counted among the world's ugliest structures, but there's a lot more to Zizkov.
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| We've had many good meals in the courtyard behind Lavicka Restaurant in Zizkov.
We didn't know it at the time, but Zizkov was our neighborhood when we stayed in Prague three years ago at the Hotel Golden City Garni. Itself just a step up from being a hostel, Hotel Golden City had a single rickety elevator that wouldn't hold two people and their luggage at the same time, rooms that looked like revamped communist-era classrooms, and front-desk receptionists who smiled and nodded pleasantly, but spoke not a word of English.
It takes spending more time in a city, and a bit of retrospective research, to learn about the very district where you once laid your head at night. Now we'd returned for dinner and exploration.
Grimy Zizkov has its share of work by the city's unofficial mural society, the rebellious graffiti artists who seem obsessed with covering every historic inch of the place with rude scrawls.
But the famous John Lennon Wall in the "Little Quarter" at the foot of Charles Bridge is a far different, street-art shrine to the assassinated Beatle. Just like the other walls of Prague, the Lennon Wall suffers the indignity of rogue graffiti gradually covering its gentler images, but since the 1960s, it has been the only place in Prague where graffiti is legal.
 The rest of Prague's problem graffiti is little more than swirls and tags displaying the sprayers' names, without much artistic merit. Officials have, within the last couple of years, cracked down on it, but the mindset of protest has always been so ingrained in Prague that suppression only makes it stronger.
But we were in Zizkov, not as art critics, but to sample the food from a restaurant claiming to be the oldest in the area and boasting an extensive collection of local craft beers--U Slovanske Lipy.
Unfortunately, that sort of reputation doesn't guarantee a great meal. Bill fared better by sticking with traditional Czech cooking: roast duck leg in wine sauce, with sweet red cabbage and bread dumplings. About half of one of those bread-laced slabs would suffice for most human beings. Four will feed a small family for several days.
I foolishly ordered salmon, which arrived perched drily atop an equally arid mountain of risotto. Note to self: Never again order salmon in Central Europe--except maybe the raw kind at Lavicka Restaurant.
But my real mission for the evening was to show Bill what might be the zaniest undertaking in barkeeping history.
Twelve years ago, American software consultant and business analyst Jason Adams decided to bring Hawaii to Prague by opening its first bona fide tiki bar. Called Tacky Tiki, it changed its name within three years, becoming today's snazzy Tiki Taky. At the same time, it exploded into over-the-top tiki-tude, an all-out homage to Don-the-Beachcomber decor.
One steps out of the light into a cave pulsing with flaming tiki heads, string lights, hula girl posters, what look like highly flammable grass fringes, beachy murals, and more umbrella drinks than you'd find on Oahu. Tiki Taky claims to have launched a trend, spreading "tiki culture" around the Czech Republic. It might no longer be the only such bar there, but it would be hard to find its equal.
Bill took one look and wanted out.
I was, as usual, agog, but went along with him.
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