Alongside the better-known Pilsner Urquell and Budweiser brands, Gambrinus and Radegast are also popular brews. If in need of something stronger, try Becherovka, the Czech answer to schnapps. Can be toned down with tonic water, to form “Beton”.Hottest ticket in town: The Prague Spring Festival started last Friday and some of the star events (including two performances by the Berlin Philharmonic) are already sold out. The Czech version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, now in its 11th month, is still packing them in. And on 5 August the Rolling Stones are expected to play before a full house.The eating place: Not even the most fervent patriot would claim that Czech cuisine, with its staple of pork, dumplings and cabbage, is among the world’s finest International restaurants have mushroomed since 1989. At the moment, there are queues to get into La Provence, a newly opened basement French restaurant, tastefully decorated, affordably priced and very much the place to see and be seen.The meeting place: In the peak of the summer season it sometimes seems as though the whole world has decided to descend on the city’s landmark, Charles Bridge. To escape the throng, many locals choose to rendezvous in the suburbs.

For young couples, a popular spot remains Petrin Hill, a large expanse of greenery close to the centre, which boasts a scaled- down version (one fifth of the original) of the Eiffel Tower and a mock Gothic castle with a mirror maze.Publication of note: The post-1989 influx of would-be artists and writers spawned a number of new publications. The most highly rated is Trafika, an international English-language literary quarterly published by the owners of the Globe bookstore, a favourite among the expat literati. On the Czech front, Revolver Revue, which was an underground publication before the revolution, continues to publish the best of new Czech writing.Adrian Bridge. There is a lump of cheesy bread lying on the tiled floor of Pizza Hut, Borehamwood. A delivery boy sees it, hops over and rushes outside to mount his moped Behind the counter the telephone rings It never stops.

Someone dashes forward, kicks the cheesy lump under the counter and grabs the phone “Hello, Pizza Hut. Can I help you?” It’s 7pm, rush- hour in pizza units all over the country and time to forget melted things found underfoot. The priority is getting pizzas prepared, cooked, and out in nine minutes. A couple of paces back, Kip, a Kenyan university student, is standing by the stainless steel oven shoving frozen pizza bases into the fierce heat. The telephone orders come through on a tear-off paper slip: one Farmhouse (ham and mushroom) and one Hawaiian (ham and pineapple).

Kip knows he has 40 seconds to prepare the pizza, then six minutes to cook it.The sweat shines on his nose.
Pulled from the oven, the pizzas are sliced, shoved into a box and handed to the riders.They check the address on the map, pull their helmets down and run. Karen, manager of the unit, fronts the shop and juggles the never-ending phone orders “Can I help?” she asks Yes, she can. A large Farmhouse pizza, four garlic breads, one 1.5 litre bottle of 7-Up and a tub of ice cream, please “We’ll have it on your doorstep within 30 minutes. Or we’ll give you £1 off.”Delivering food to tired, lazy, demanding urbanites is a fast-growing business The first Pizza Hut delivery unit opened in 1988.