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Local information
Vaclav Havel Airport, Ruzyne is located in ~45 minutes from the city center and around 30-40 minutes from the lab.
A cheap and convenient enough way to get from the airport to the lab is:
- Buy a single 90-minutes ticket from the ticket machine at the airport (32czk).
- Take 119 bus at the airport. Validate the ticket inside the bus.
- Bus will bring you to Nádraží Veleslavín.
- Go down to the metro (green line). In order to get to the lab go in the direction Depo Hostivař and get out at metro station *Dejvická.
- Take the escalator up, then the staircase to your right. You will alight at Šolínova street.
- Walk down along Šolínova street, then turn left into Technická street. Walk down to the very end of Technická street, to the building called Fakulta stavební.
Another similar route:
- Buy a single 90-minutes ticket from the ticket machine at the airport (32czk).
- Take 119 bus at the airport. Validate the ticket inside the bus.
- Bus will bring you to Nádraží Veleslavín.
- Walk to the tram stop and take either
- tram 20 going in the direction of Sídliště Barrandov or
- tram 26 going in the direction of Nádraží Hostivař.
- Get out at a stop called Thákurova. Turn left and walk down Thákurova street for about 3-5 minutes. The Fakulta stavební building will be on your left.
Alternatively you can order a taxi from a booth at the airport. The taxi should cost somewhere around 500-600czk. (ask at the booth for the exact price). Wait at the taxi booth until a driver comes and guides you to the car. Give the destination as Thákurova 7. It takes around 20-30 minutes to get from the aiport to the lab by taxi.
There's also probably like Uber or whatever.
The building we're in is the faculty of civil engineering building. It's the tallest building in this part of town, so you can't miss it. The sign above the entrance reads "Fakulta stavební." There are three entrance sliding doors, some of which might be closed (in which case there will be arrows pointing to the open door).
Front door is open on weekdays, but requires an employee or student card on weekends and holidays. After it you'll be challenged by a turnstile. It definitely requires an employee or student card, so you must be eager to get it. Ask Lucie for an employee card. People in charge of the turnstile generally don't speak English, so if you want to get in and don't have a card, it's usually easiest to contact someone who's already inside to come down and open the turnstile for you.
After entering turn right (towards wing A) and head to the elevators. The elevators are intelligent, which means you approach the numpad next to the doors, insert the number of the floor you want to go to (for us it's 12, so press 1-2) and wait for the screen to show either A, B, C, or D. This letter indicates which elevator you should go into.
Upon reaching the 12th floor look for rooms 1254 and 1252. They are in the corridor to the left of elevator A. That is: when facing elevator A, walk into the corridor on your left.
There are a few places to eat on campus:
Menza, technically called Menza Studentský dům, is a very Czech canteen. It is located nearby.
It serves cheap, relatively OK food with 3-6 different menus each day, soup, desert, and a salad bar. The meals tend towards Czech home cooking, with usually one vegetarian menu. Mensa features a large sit-down dining hall where free cafeteria-grade tea drinks are also available. It tends to be fairly busy around lunch time with many students and staff from all over Uni.
Menza accepts cash, card, stravenky, and eduPAY (see below). Students using eduPAY get discounts: students are offered a lower price for most foods. Staff get a one-per-day fixed value subsidy (I think around 30czk) on their monthly salary.
Most of the denizens of the lab will go there on most days. Others do everything to avoid it.
The Technical Menza, generally referred to by the local denizens as "The New Menza" is a canteen located at the distinctive Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics building that looks like it was left unwrapped from its plastic wrapping. It's about 5-10 minutes away from the lab.
Like the old Menza, they serve cheap, relatively OK food with 3-6 different menus to choose from each day, including at least one vegetarian meal. The quality of the food is slightly better than the old Menza (eg. they make their own pasta, so it tastes fresh). It also features a large sit-down hall with free water. Unfortunately, it tends to be really crowded.
Technical Menza accepts cash, card, stravenky, and eduPAY (see below). Students using eduPAY get discounts: students are offered a lower price for most foods. Staff get a one-per-day fixed value subsidy on their monthly salary.
BufFAT is a buffet on the ground floor of the Fakulta Stavebni building (left from the entrance). It serves a variety of lunch foods, sandwiches, and snacks. It's not really great for lunches, but many people use it to grab something quick to eat towards the evening.
BufFAT accepts cash, card and eduPAY. It also has an eduPAY card reader that tells you how much money you've got left.
BufFAT is closed in the summer.
There is one other canteen in the area which we very rarely visit, if someone finds out they serve something particularly enticing (like fried cheese). It's called Kongresové centrum, Akademická Restaurace and located nearby.
The kitchen has a microwave, a stove top, a fridge, an electric kettle, a sink, a table, some chairs, and some couches. There is also cutlery in one of the cupboards. You can use all of these to prepare your food and you can use the area in general.
In order to use the fridge you need a key. All of us share a key. Our key ring is hanging from a clothes hook in the lab on a blue leash. The key with the black plastic thingie opens the fridge. The keys can be taken freely, but please don't lose them and always put them back on the hook ASAP.
There are a few restaurants within a 15 minute radius where we sometimes have lunch or where we sometimes go after work. Check out the restaurant guide page or ask us for recommendations.
During your time on campus you are likely to come across the following two types of money-substitutes which we use to pay for food: stravenky and eduPAY cards.
Stravenky are meal tickets that used to be issued to employees by the employer in order to subsidize food. They were not only issued by CVUT, but many businesses in Prague. An employee pays 11czk/13czk for each meal ticket. Each meal ticket is worth 70czk/80czk. The meal tickets can be used to pay for food in many restaurants and some shops that accept them (you have to ask, usually). Many restaurants around university and in Prague in general accept stravenky. At CVUT, the stravenky have been replaced by a tax-free subsidy on the monthly salary.
Restaurants that accept or don't accept stravenky:
- Menza yes
- Grosseto Pizzeria Ristorante yes
- Mei Xin yes
- U Pětníka yes
Shops that accept stravenky:
- Albert yes
- Billa yes
- Tesco no
- Kaufland no
Stravenky don't seem to carry with them any social stigma (unlike say food stamps in the US). Very occasionally the combination of foreigner + stravenky confuses people though.
Student and employee ID cards have eduPAY chips on them which can be used to pay for meals on campus.
Students can refill their cards with cash when purchasing food (eg. at Mensa). Staff no longer have a fixed amount (1500czk by default) being topped up at the start of each month and taken off the employee's salary.
Prague has 3 metro lines, trams, buses, and ferries.
Tickets for single rides can be purchased at the Dejvická metro station from ticket machines, and also at almost any other metro station. Old ticket machines require coins, new ticket machines accept cards. Fare for a single ticket is 24czk for 30 minutes and 32czk for 90 minutes.
Single tickets should be validated upon entering a bus, tram, or ferry by putting it into the validating machine. In metro they are validated before entering the train platform.
Single tickets can also be bought with SMS, but you have to have a contract for this, not a prepaid plan.
They can also be bought on the PID Litacka app.
A monthly pass can be purchased at Hradčanská metro station from the Information Center as well as at any metro station from this list. A photo and a photo ID (passport) are necessary to get a Lítačka - a plastic transit card onto which tickets are put. The cost of having the card made is between 50 and 200czk (pricelist). It can also be ordered on-line at https://www.litacka.cz/ .
Monthly tickets cost 550czk, three months 1480czk, and one year 3650czk.
Lítačka can be reloaded online, if you dare navigate DPP's page (entirely in Czech). Here is a nice step-by-step tutorial. If you loaded your lítačka online, don't forget to go to a metro station and validate it by inserting the card in one of the red boxes beside the ticket machines. This starts your ticket period.
You can also reload Lítačka at Hradčanská Information Center or any center from the list. If you do this, your lítačka will already be validated.
Once you have a valid Lítačka, you don't need to insert it anywhere when traveling, only to have it with you.
You actually don't need a card anymore: you can have a virtual one in your phone in the Lítačka app.
The metro is deep - up to 52m underground. The escalators are long and move at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. You might notice that in some stations the ads are aligned with the downward slope of the escalators, making it hard to read without tilting the head. We are still unclear as to whether or not this is a revolutionary marketing technique.
Occasionally, when riding public transit you will encounter a ticket control.
Ticket controllers get onto trams in plain clothes and control tickets between stops. They approach people one by one, flash a PID badge from the palms of their hands and ask for tickets. At that point one shows them their ticket or lítačka. They check the validity and give one the ticket/lítačka back if everything is ok. Otherwise they issue a fine which can be paid on the spot (cheaper) or later at the PID offices.
Ticket controls sometimes happen in the metro. There a uniformed controller stops people when exiting the metro stop.
There are two main web-sites for apartments search:
The first one has English interface, the second does not. The sreality goes through real-estate agents, which means that you usually have to pay one-month rent fee to the agent. The bezrealitky works directly with owners.
Most of people who are temporarily in Prague found apartments through sreality.
Each house and flat has two numbers:
- popisné číslo (descriptive number): in red
- orientační číslo (reference number): in blue
They are often written separated by / on addresses. For instance, restaurant U Tupolu has the following address:
Jugoslávských partyzánů 943/32, 160 00 Praha 6-Bubeneč
The descriptive number is 943 and the reference number is 32.
It's possible to get a pre-paid at T-Mobile and O2 at Vítězné Náměstí. The price for a data-heavy pre-paid is around 300-500czk per month.
The CTU has a private deal with Vodafone. It does not require a contract anymore, and the deal is rather good. You can choose between different plans. Unlimited calls and text messages and 8 GB data is about 500 CZK. Ask Dana for more details.
- UniCredit at Vítězné Náměstí (speak some English)
Foreigners staying in the country for more than 30 days are required to register with the Foreign police (an arm of the Ministry of Interior) within 30 days from arrival for EU citizens according to this (and 3 working days of arrival for non-EU citizens according to this). Foreign police are located at Olšanská 2176/2 (tram 26 if going from the lab).
After entering the foreign police station, approach the panel in the middle of the room. The panel can be switched to English. Pick the first option: "Register a foreigner" (or something like that). You will get a number. There's a board which indicates which number is being served in which office. Wait for your number to be called. While waiting for the number to come up, fill out the form that can be found next to the panel. Present this form to the officer who processes you. If you have questions, there is a little information desk in the main room. This information desk is probably the only place where there is a chance someone will speak English.
Normally one needs to have: passport, rental contract, and insurance. Take job contract if you don't have an insurance card yet. If you cannot get a rental contract in time, a form called "Doklad o zajisteni" also suffices as a replacement.
The foreign police are apparently not allowed to use any languages other than Czech, so a visit there might be difficult in case of anything not going smoothly. It's usually best to ask Lucie to come with you and act as an interpreter. She is usually willing to go, but plan ahead to make sure she has time to come with you.
A visit can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours, but it's usually less than an hour, which mostly consists of waiting in line.
The common emergency number is 112. They should have English speaking people there.
You will need to register to a GP. It is still possible to see a GP without being registered but usually only for acute problems and many would not accept you.
Near the university, there is a great English-speaking practice: Young&co They are in high demand and you will be fully registered there only after a preliminary examination for which you typically wait for 2 to 4 months. They take the health insurance of the university VZP, so it is free. You can pay an additional 1500 czk per year to get more diverse timeslots for appointments among other advantages.
If you don't want to wait and are ready to pay for a private GP, you can try Unicare. If you have VZP, you will have to pay at least an additional 11900 czk per year.
University rules regarding COVID can be found here. For covid tests, the city of Prague created a website with all the testing centers, the waiting times, and the prices for self-payers. The minimal price for self-payers is 1756 czk.
If you have symptoms, contact your GP to get a prescription for a test. It will be free. If you do not have a GP and have symptoms, the hygiene station can also prescribe you a test. The covid hotline (dial 1221) should be able to help.
The most common place for people to get supplies on-line is probably Alza. It's an online store that focuses on electronics, but carries other items, including home supplies and hardware. The website has an automatically-translated English version that generally does the job. Once an ordered is place the buyer selects from a number of places where the order should be delivered. These are either the main Alza store in Holešovice, a number of smaller Alza locations, or an Alza box. The price of delivery depends on the location. The main store is free, Alza boxes and other stores are in the vicinity of 50čk. Alza boxes have the advanatge of being open 24/7. There is an Alza box close to Uni near Menza.
There is also a Czech on-line auction site called Aukro.
TODO
There is a pair of stores within walking distance from the Uni, side-by-side right next to each other. One is a hardware store, and the other is a kitchen supplies store. They are fairly well stocked and are good for everyday needs like pots and pans, knives, breadboxes, screws, lightbulbs, and spoons.
There are two Ikea locations in Prague: one at Černy Most and another at the Avion shopping centre in Zlícin. You can get to Černy Most by metro line B (from Uni: get on metro line A to Depo Hostivař at Dejvická, change to line B at Můstek.) You can get to Avion from Uni by bus 180 from Šolinova or Vitězné Naměstí.
You can also order in the Czech Ikea website (no English version available, though) and the furniture can be delivered to one's place starting from 300 CZK.
CTU offers free language courses for international students. The most important information can be found here. Although the courses are not for employees, if you write a mail to the organizer she would probably allow you to join. The courses take place in a building that is about just 5 min walk from our lab.