Only the 2 tram ends at Červený Vrch, and boy does it end there early, before 9 p.m., meaning that anyone wanting to escape the red peak—and most will wish to escape it sooner than later—afterhours will have to head back toward the middles of the lines on the 20 or 26. For those who find this neck of the sticks partyable, the 51 runs all night, conveniently stopping at naměstís Karlovo, I.P. Pavlova, and Míru. Spending a wild Wednesday at Červený Vrch takes a bit of work, though.

They’re discouraging, those first sights to greet passengers when their tram makes a right off the road and does a semicircle before opening its doors to release its cargo to Červený Vrch. There’s a car dealership, then a gas station; a block up and opposite, there’s a gas station, then a dealership. This far out on Evropská, only chumps walk across four lanes of traffic and two sets of tram tracks.

Ain’t nothing doing at Červený Vrch, nothing obvious in the dark, anyway, so a person’s gotta cross those tracks and traffic lanes and walk up a block, to Veleslavínská. Red Rock advertises a ton of shit—the restaurant-pizzeria claims to be a music pub with karaoke and video projections—but delivers only a few yawning workers and a dying fire in the pizza oven at 10:30 p.m. “We going gambling?” one staffer asks another. “Let’s go,” the other guy says, which is the cue to pay up (22 Kč Staropramen, 35 Kč Becherovka; empty promises free), and then it’s back out into the quiet and the cold.

Walk the other way, two blocks down Evropská, to the Sidliště Červený Vrch tram stop, and the Red Hill Pub—everything’s a red geological feature, on accounta the whole Červený Vrch deal, get it?—promises nothing. But the bar stuck to the back of a pizzeria with a sketchy (and locked) nightclub-disco in the basement delivers 17 Kč Staropramen, some fucked-up décor, and a drunken crowd happy to make chitchat with unfamiliars. Ladies and gentlemen: the heart of Červený Vrch; the night tram leaves every 30 minutes.

For previous END OF THE LINEs click here, no,  here! 

Previously publish in November 2006 Provokator print magazine

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