My family and I made a trip to Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic in March of 2009 and I have finally learned my lesson about traveling to the Czech Republic. In four trips inside the Czech Republic in the last 10 months I have been strong armed by Police Officers who are obviously on the take and willing to go to almost any length to subsidize their salaries. This last experience convinced me that while the Czech Republic is a beautiful part of the world the risk of encountering a policeman who isn't satisfied with a few thousand Krones and who wants some serious cash to allow you out of the country is just too great considering that beautiful areas of Germany, Austria and Poland are just as close as the Czech Republic is and there is not, in my experience, the chance of being robbed by the local authorities.
Our hotel was located on the Promenade along the river in Karlovy Vary. We knew that parking would be a problem so we arranged for a reserved spot through the hotel. When we tried the directions that we were given we found that a crane had been set up in the one street that we needed to traverse to reach our parking lot and was forced to look for another route. After 2 hours of endless circling and running into dead end streets and pedestrian areas we found a police station and went in to ask directions. Two very nice officers told us to follow them in their squad car and they would show us the way. We did this and found our spot in about 10 minutes.
The next morning when we left the parking lot I forgot to get our navigator out of the trunk so I pulled into an open parking spot in the street and went to retrieve the GPS. Thats when the bad police showed up. Keep in mind that we were only about 25 feet from the parking lot we had been escorted to only the day before by policeman and on the same street. The cops that showed up the next day were a different breed. When they saw that our car had USA Army Europe plates on it you could see the dollar signs in their eyes! They immediately informed us that we were parked in an illegal parking spot. When I pointed to the sign that indicated that the parking spot was perfectly legitimate they discussed this among themselves and then informed me that it was fine for me to park there but that it was illegal for me to be driving on the street we were on. Of course it is impossible to prove a negative so I could not point to a sign indicating that we were on a legal street because no such sign exists, only signs that indicate that it is illegal to drive on a street. This made no difference to these cops. They insisted that I pay them 2000 Krone on the spot. When I told them I had no Krones and only Euros they told me I could pay them 1000 Krone. This was a new experience for me because generally speaking you can't haggle over prices when you have broken the law. Of course I had to reject this counter offer on the same grounds that I rejected their first proposal, namely that I did not have any Krones on me and only Euros. They then informed me that they would, just this once, accept 500 Krones. Again I commended them on their generous offer of 75% off the original fine but I still only had Euros in my pocket and could not pay them a cent in Krones. They didn't like this and once again entered into a heated discussion among themselves. When they broke out of the huddle they told me to follow them and, assuming that we were going to the police station where we had found our escorts the previous day I was more than happy to comply. We didn't go to the station like I had thought we would. We went to a Thai massage parlor. I know that sounds like something from the Sopranos but it is the truth. When the male office and I entered the massage parlor it was obvious that they were used to doing business with him and somehow knew exactly how many Euros I needed to exchange to regain possession of my passport. When I tried to hand the money to the officer inside the massage parlor you would have thought I was trying to get him to take a dead cat from my hand. Only when we were once again outside did he agree to take the money and leave us to find our way out of Karlovy Vary, down the very streets that we were only minutes before prohibited from driving on but were now apparently the proud owners of a 500 krone day pass to drive the streets of Karlovy Vary, a toll stamp that we very eagerly declined to use for more time than it took for us to point ourselves in the direction of the German border and put the greedy, corrupt Karlovy Vary police in our
