This is Part 2 of a series of collections of Czech tidbits. In Part 1, I highlighted Anglo-American University (AAU), WWII memorial plaques, and the Czech Mycological Society with their mushroom box. In this Part 2, I provide insights into Prague public transport, particularly for the mobile app, and I tell about my first driving experience (private transport) in Czechia.
PRAGUE PUBLIC TRANSPORT APP
Prague has an excellent public transport system, and it may be the best-value system in the world for what you get. There is an extensive metro system, along with tons of commuter trains, trams, and buses, and even ferries to cross the river in multiple spots. There’s also a funicular which is free for public transport pass holders. They additionally have cooperation with two bike sharing services to provide two free 15-minute bike rentals per day for pass holders. I currently hold a 3-month pass for which I paid $70, which amounts to about $0.78 per day. It’s just $0.47 per day if you get a year pass, which is presumably what most residents do. And get this: as a student or from 60-65 years it’s $0.16 per day. And from 65 years old, it’s completely free! What a bargain!! I get my money’s worth, for sure, and I enjoy taking a break from driving for months at a time. No car is needed here, and I wouldn’t want one. I calculated at some point that the effective daily cost for my low-value used Nissan Versa sedan is about $8.00, when you spread out the purchase price over the ownership period (minus its eventual resale price), and add in maintenance costs, taxes, registration, and gasoline. What a contrast, eh?
The entity that runs the system is called Pražská integrovaná doprava, or PID for short. This means Prague Integrated Transport in English. Not only do they provide transport services in Prague, but also in the surrounding Central Bohemia. There are almost 4,000 stations in their network! Several years ago, PID introduced a smart card system for accessing public transport with a paid pass, with the card called Lítačka. Now of course there’s a mobile app, and the app name is “PID Lítačka”. It’s an excellent app, and on Android it has impressively good ratings:
In general, Czechs are quite strong at creating functional and usable applications. This app certainly is developed very well. One can search for routes, with numerous helpful search refinement options:
There are various zones around Prague in Central Bohemia, and so if one goes outside of Prague proper, there is additional cost for the trip. But the app automatically shows the price only for the additional zone(s) if you already have a Prague ticket/pass. Plus, the app includes a rich near-realtime map of where the various transport stations and associated trains/trams/buses are at the moment. And as you’ve likely noticed, one can view all this in fluent English! Thank goodness, haha.
MY FIRST DRIVE IN CZECHIA
Until recently I had never actually driven in Czechia, which certainly isn’t shocking given everything I just described above, paired with the fact that there are also many good train and bus options to explore the rest of the country. However, I recently joined a Meetup group hike to the mountains near Liberec, a city about an hour by bus from Prague. During a break in the hike at a mountainside stream-fed pool complex (which is inexplicably free, by the way), I was eating a hot dog at an outdoor picnic table by the cafe (of course there’s a cafe, and of course the main attraction is the selection of lagers on tap) with some people I met during the many, many kilometers of the hike (my watch said I went 25 miles, or 40 kilometers total that day). A Russian woman had been in the area the day before, so she had camped the night before meeting us for the hike, instead of driving back to Prague and then catching the bus back again to Liberec. But she’s a relatively new driver, so she was nervous about driving all the way back to Prague that evening, especially since she was so tired from the camping and the hike. She told those of us sitting at the picnic table that she was going to ask the group (about 18 of us) if anyone would volunteer to drive her car back to Prague for her. I volunteered right away, both because I wanted to drive in Czechia for the first time, and because I figured that with 40 years of driving, I was likely by far the most experienced, haha. So I took her, along with a Ukrainian woman and a Polish guy in the backseat. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke: an American, a Russian, a Ukrainian, and a Pole drive into a petrol station… It’s little experiences like this one which are so unique and memorable when spending time in a foreign land. And anyway, as for my driving, well, it didn’t start out great when I accidentally drove into an area in the heart of Liberec downtown meant only for trams and buses — my passengers began panicking in a cacophony of profanity and dread, especially since right then a police car coincidentally came roaring down a nearby street with sirens blaring. But they weren’t there for me and my mistake, and I made a hasty and illegal backtrack to return to where cars were allowed. Hopefully there were no cameras, but I reckon the car’s owner will have to find me if she gets a ticket in the mail! 😜 After that little incident, all went well, except for the others’ insistence on blasting techno music for the next hour. The techno and I were both driving that day.
Today’s dad joke:
See the final sentence in the previous section.
Today’s music video:
For the past several years, probably even ten or more years, I listen almost exclusively to Bollywood dance tunes while doing computer work. I used to listen to heavy metal, and eventually I realized that it was a toxic combo, especially when performing stressful tasks. I had earlier enjoyed watching Bollywood movies with their extravagant, usually jarringly non sequitur dance scenes, and I recalled many catchy songs. So with a streaming service I began sampling various popular Indian music. I wanted something upbeat and driving where I couldn’t understand the lyrics, and Bollywood dance music definitely meets these requirements. My favorite Indian singer for many years has been Neha Kakkar. She has a huge repertoire of songs she’s performed on, both on her own and in support of others. Nowadays I don’t watch many Bollywood movies anymore, but many, if not most, of the tunes I enjoy originated from movie soundtracks. And Neha features on a remarkable number of these. In Bollywood movies it is typical that actors lip sync to the words actually sung by a professional artist, and this is case for the following example music video from a Bollywood film. Neha is singing, but this lady is definitely not Neha. I had never seen this video before today, but I know the audio well. The dance scene does give you an idea of the spectacle of it all. Oh yeah, and Indian dancers are arguably the best in the world! You don’t see Indians that often in sports, but maybe that’s because they’re so tired from all that powerful dancing!
Today’s Stoic quote:
“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
Major Meander 