Honza Is My Man in Prague

My friend and fellow tour guide, Honza Vihan, has been part of our tour program and the co-author of our Rick Steves’ Prague guidebook for well over a decade. Honza is brilliant (he’s a scholar at the local university), and I’m proud to have him working with our tour groups in Eastern Europe and in his hometown of Prague. Honza was our local expert and fixer for our latest TV production in Prague. He arranged for all the permissions and was great to have as my sidekick on camera.

 

Art Nouveau painter Alfons Mucha is the scribe of the Czech soul, and his magnum opus is a series of 20 huge canvases called the Slav Epic — now beautifully displayed in Prague’s museum of modern art. Inspired by this mystical work, Honza and I got caught up in the struggles and the ultimate triumph of the Czech nation.

 

The Czechs love their beer, their food, and their convivial beer halls. Here, Honza contemplates mixing huge doses of all three. With Honza’s help as we filmed our Prague TV show, we learned how the standard in a pub here is that they keep bringing the beer until you say definitively “Stop!” And, for many, Czech beer is the best in Europe.

 

One day as we were filming in Prague, it occurred to me that I was working with a guy who looked very much like an iconic American rock star. I asked Honza to pose and then showed him the album cover. Now I wish I’d asked him to take his shirt off. Do you see the resemblance?