I'll take a short break to the Machine learning series so that I could share with you my other big passion - passion for drinking good coffee at interesting places. From my personal experience I know how difficult it is to find nice (more local) spots to enjoy good coffee, food and time if you're new in a city. Lately I realized that I'm getting very well informed about such places in Prague, so I thought that it would be great to share my knowledge with you.
There are really many great coffee quarters in Prague, but Karlin is probably the Queen of them. It's very close to the city center (just few minutes by tram or metro) and it's really worth the detour. To not overwhelm you, I'll recommend you three great places in there.
The first place I want to share with you is the typical "nice place" for coffee (and breakfast etc.). It's called Můj šálek kávy which means My cup of coffee. It's located near metro station Křižíkova on Křižíkova street, so it takes just about 15 minutes to get there from Wenceslav square. I can really attest that they have really great coffee, cakes and also really welcoming stuff (which is like half of the experience in every coffee place), because about a year ago I used to live just around the corner. In summer you can use their amazing "terrace", which is actually just chairs on the pathway, but that makes it actually even more casual, nice and simple ;). And in winter you'll just have to be content with the also amazing interior - don't forget to check it! The only drawback is that as it's very popular it also gets quite crowded so you might have a little bit difficulties to get a seat there.. If so, don't give up right away, it's worth waiting a while I assure you.
It's really, really nice inside...
Bud outside too! And this just looks great, I wan't to be there...
The next two places are open only over the summer so don't miss the opportunity to go there. First of them is a very casual place near the Vltava river which is called Přístav 1860. You can get there by tram - station Karlinske namesti and then you just oncer turn left and then walk until you hit the river. From there it is just about a hundred meters to the right.
And then you get to enjoy good coffee, or local beer or anything you like. (Just don't count much on food, they don't have much of it there.) And if you're lucky there might be DJ's playing some nice stuff, so you can just relax watching people, river and the sky.
You can even work over here. This is a place called Pracovna (~workroom), it's a table with wifi and electricity, and it's all within the trees so you get to do your work while enjoying outside, how cool! And don't worry, it's a bit to the side, so you don't have to work right in the middle of the "party".
And they have those very cool concrete tables (just don't sit on them in too much fancy clothes, they're kind of rough).
The last place I want you to discover is also my new discovery. The Kasárna Karlín is quite new as it opened just about a month ago, but it's also quite old at the same time, as the place is an open-space surrounded by old military barracks from mid 19th century. The buildings were really used by the military up to year 2000, and since then (as always with such a buildings) nobody knew what to do with it. Just lately it was lend to one cultural group that opened it to the public. They opened there a minimalist coffee bar (again, not much to eat there, except for some evening grilling) and they keep it quite busy. There were already several concerts and also there is a summer cinema (I think it might even be quite often English friendly, so if you wish, just check with the website).
I nearly forgot... They have the biggest sandboxes in Europe ;)
There is some really nice art too...
Images for Pristav, Muj Salek Kavy and first two for Kasarna are taken from their websites.
