PRAGUE GUIDE

When visiting Prague will find that the locals will be extremely interested in where you come from, regardless of whether it is Britain, Spain or Australia. Many of them are extremely knowledgeable about world affairs and will be incredibly interested to hear the opinions of someone from outside the country, although many are also quite insular and have not had much contact with the world outside the Czech Republic, or even their region within the country.

Although everyone is different, regardless of where you go in the world, there are some generalizations that can be made about the Czech people as a whole – although obviously there are a few that really do not conform to this mold! While some of the idiosyncrasies that the Czech people have are incredibly obvious, others will only manifest themselves after you have spent time amongst the people and got to know them.

Generally the Czech Republic is not a hugely religious country, despite the fact that it is adorned with huge numbers of historic churches and other religious artifacts, and the fact that it is close to a number of heavily Catholic nations. By looking back through the history of the Czech Republic, we can see exactly why this is so.

Since November 1989, there have been many changes for both the city and its people. Although the big optimism that followed the Velvet Revolution has totally faded away - not least as Czechs face up to life under capitalism, membership of the EU and NATO.

This is a short list of famous Czech personalities. This list includes people of the Czech nationality as well as people having some significant Czech ancestry or association with Czech culture.

The Roma only account for 0.3% of the population of the Czech Republic and are more commonly referred to as gypsies. They lead a somewhat closed and private lifestyle, away from the rest of society, and for this they are often the recipients of significant hostility from the rest of the population.

At first impression Czechs might seems a bit intimidating, service in shops or restaurants provided "without" smiles and passengers in metro or trams looks very quiet.

Praguers (and the Czechs in general) have a very sensitive, subtle sense of humour which is sometimes hard to recognise. It is a typical Czech characteristic influenced by the cultural tradition of Jaroslav Hašek, Jan Werich, Zdeněk Svěrák, Bolek Polívka and other main personalities of Czech culture. But generally Praguers are very friendly and polite people who are sometimes attached to the old-fashioned values.