PraguePraha

Prague begins on a hill above a bend in the Vltava. In the late 9th century the Přemyslid dynasty built a fortified settlement where the castle stands today, and a second stronghold followed on the opposite cliff at Vyšehrad. Merchants settled on the flat east bank, where trade routes crossed the river at a ford, and that market settlement grew into the Old Town. By the 12th century the first stone bridge, Judith Bridge, linked the two banks, and Prague was a real town with churches, a Jewish community and German merchants.

The city's high point came in the 14th century under Charles IV, king of Bohemia and, from 1355, Holy Roman Emperor. He made Prague his capital, founded the first university in central Europe in 1348, laid out the New Town the same year on a planned grid with wide streets, and began St Vitus Cathedral and the stone bridge that now carries his name. In 1357 the foundation stone of Charles Bridge was laid. Under his reign the city roughly doubled in size, and much of what tourists call medieval Prague is his.

The next centuries were turbulent. Jan Hus, a preacher and university rector, was burned at the stake in 1415 in Constance, and his followers, the Hussites, fought several wars. In 1419 a crowd threw councillors from the New Town Hall windows, the First Defenestration of Prague. In 1618 Protestant nobles threw two imperial officials from a window in the castle, the Second Defenestration, and the Thirty Years' War began. After the Bohemian defeat at White Mountain in 1620, Prague fell under Habsburg rule and was re-Catholicised; the baroque churches and palaces of Malá Strana date from that period.

In 1784 the four separate towns, Old Town, Lesser Town, New Town and Hradčany, were merged into one city. In the 19th century Czech national identity revived, and Prague became its centre: the National Theatre, the National Museum and the Municipal House were built as statements of that identity. Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 with Prague as the capital, and the first republic was a prosperous, democratic state until 1938.

Today's Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, an EU and Schengen member with its own currency, the koruna. For a visitor, the useful lesson from this history is that the city has layers. The castle is early medieval and Gothic, the Old Town is medieval, Malá Strana is baroque, and the New Town is a 14th-century plan filled in during the 19th century. You read those layers most easily by walking from one cluster to the next, and the four clusters in this guide follow them.

Prague is easier to read than it looks on a map. The Vltava river flows north and bends through the centre, and the two banks feel like two different cities. On the west bank a steep hill carries Prague Castle and the district of Hradčany, and below it Malá Strana, the Lesser Town, spreads down to the river. On the east bank the Old Town sits on flat ground around the Old Town Square, with the Jewish Quarter, Josefov, immediately to the north, and the New Town wrapping around both to the south and east.

Charles Bridge joins the Old Town to Malá Strana. That link is the reason the bridge is so crowded, and it is also the axis of the classic walk: from the Old Town Square west along Karlova street to the bridge, over the river, and up through Malá Strana to the castle. The walk takes about 45 minutes without stops and longer with the crowd. Do it in the other direction, from the castle down to the bridge, and the whole thing is downhill.

Four walkable clusters cover a first visit. The castle and Hradčany form the hill cluster, best in the morning. The bridge and Malá Strana form the second, with Kampa Island and the lanes below the castle. The Old Town cluster includes the square, the clock, Celetná street and Josefov. The New Town cluster is Wenceslas Square and the streets around it, a boulevard of shops and hotels rather than sights. Each is a half-day or less on foot, and the clusters are 10 to 20 minutes apart.

The metro has three lines, A (green), B (yellow) and C (red), and a fourth, D, is being built. You will use the metro less than you expect: the sights are in the old core, and a tram or a taxi covers most gaps. The useful stations are Můstek and Muzeum for Wenceslas Square, Staroměstská for the Old Town and Josefov, Malostranská for the castle side, and Hlavní nádraží for the main station. Tram 22 is the sightseeing line; it runs past the castle and is a known pickpocket spot.

Beyond the centre, Vinohrady has cafés and wine bars, Žižkov has the pub streets and the TV tower, Holešovice and Letná have modern art and a beer garden, and Vyšehrad has a quiet fort. A second visit works well in these districts, which have fewer tourists and lower prices.

Prague Castle is not one building but a walled complex of palaces, churches and courtyards that has been added to for eleven centuries. The core sights are St Vitus Cathedral, a Gothic cathedral begun in 1344 and finished only in 1929, the Old Royal Palace with its Vladislav Hall, St George's Basilica, the oldest surviving church in the castle, and Golden Lane, a row of tiny houses where craftsmen and guards lived. The grounds are free to walk in and open early; the interiors need a circuit ticket.

The practical plan is simple. Buy the ticket online or at the information office, arrive at opening on a weekday, and start with the cathedral before the tour groups fill it. The changing of the guard at noon in the first courtyard is free and brief. Allow three to four hours for the full circuit, and bring a layer: the hilltop is windy even in summer. Take tram 22 or a taxi up and walk down, which saves the steep climb and gives you the best views of the city.

Below the castle, Malá Strana was rebuilt in the baroque style after a fire in 1541 and again after the Thirty Years' War. Its lanes lead to palace gardens, the Church of St Nicholas, a huge baroque church with a painted dome, and Lesser Town Square. Nerudova street runs uphill from the square to the castle, lined with house signs, and is the traditional walk up. The area is quieter than the Old Town in the evening, with wine bars and small restaurants, though the main road has tram noise.

Kampa Island is the calm stop. It is a strip of land separated from Malá Strana by the Čertovka, a narrow mill channel, and it has lawns, a playground and a modern art museum. A few minutes away on Velkopřevorské square, the Lennon Wall is covered with graffiti and messages, a tradition that began in the 1980s. It is a photo stop rather than a destination; the crowd is thickest in the afternoon.

The lunch plan for this side is to eat in Malá Strana rather than on the castle hill, where prices are high. A weekday lunch set menu in a pub away from Charles Bridge is the best value, and this is the reason the three-day plan holds a lunch table at 13:00 after the castle. Afterwards, an air-conditioned café or a hotel rest from 14:30 to 17:00 avoids the worst of the afternoon crowd.

The Old Town Square is the centre of the east bank and the busiest place in the city. It is ringed by Gothic and baroque buildings: the Týn Church with its two dark spires, the pink Kinský Palace, the Old Town Hall, and the Jan Hus memorial in the middle. The Old Town Hall carries the astronomical clock, installed in 1410 and one of the oldest working clocks of its kind in the world. Every hour during the day, a procession of figures, including the twelve apostles, moves through two windows above the dial. The show lasts under a minute, and the crowd is thick from mid-morning.

The tourist trick for the clock is timing: watch from the edge of the square at 08:00, or after 20:00, when the crowd is a fraction of the midday size. For a view, climb the tower; the lift and the stairs both work, and the queue is shorter early. Restaurants on the square itself charge two to three times as much as a pub on a side street, so eat a few minutes away, on Dlouhá street or near Havel's Market.

North of the square, Josefov is the old Jewish quarter. Jews lived in Prague from the 10th century, and by the 16th century the ghetto was one of the largest in Europe, home to Rabbi Loew and Kafka's family in later years. At the end of the 19th century most of the ghetto was cleared and rebuilt with the grand streets you see today, but six synagogues, the Old Jewish Cemetery and the Ceremonial Hall survived. The Jewish Museum runs the sites on a combined ticket, and the museum is closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays.

The Old Jewish Cemetery is the most powerful place. From the 15th to the 18th century burials were layered in the same small plot, so that gravestones now stand crowded together on the earth over about twelve layers, with roughly twelve thousand visible stones. The Pinkas Synagogue nearby carries the names of tens of thousands of Bohemian and Moravian Jewish victims of the Holocaust painted on its walls. Allow two to three hours, and treat it as a quiet, serious visit rather than a photo stop.

Between the two, the streets are a dense mix of shops, cafés and antique dealers. Celetná street runs from the square to the Powder Tower, a Gothic gate tower, and beside it the Municipal House, an Art Nouveau concert hall and café, is a good place for a coffee. Do not change money in the booths around the square, and watch your bag in the crowd at the hour. If a street seller offers a discount ticket, ignore them and buy at the door.

The Czech Republic has one of the highest beer-drinking rates per person in the world, and a pub is where the city eats and talks. The reason is history: Czech brewers invented the pale lager in Plzeň in 1842, and the style spread across the world as Pilsner. In Prague the standard order is a half-litre of lager, and it costs about CZK 55 to 95 in a normal pub, less than a coffee. The best pints come from a tank beer (tankové), which is unpasteurised beer kept in a cold tank and served fresh, and a busy pub with fast turnover serves the best.

The pub table follows a routine. You sit, the waiter brings a beer without asking, and they keep bringing them until you say stop or put a beer mat over the glass. Each beer is marked on a slip, and you pay the total at the end. This is friendly, and it is also how the bill grows; check it. Order 'jedno pivo' for one beer, 'ještě jedno' for another, and 'stačí' when you have had enough. A tip of about ten percent, said aloud when you pay, is normal.

Czech food is hearty. The classic dishes are svíčková, beef sirloin in a creamy root-vegetable sauce with bread dumplings and cranberry; goulash with dumplings; roast duck with red cabbage; and smažený sýr, breaded fried cheese with tartare sauce, which is the vegetarian standby. Pork knuckle, potato pancakes and pickled sausage are pub snacks. For dessert, fruit dumplings and apple strudel are the standards. Vegetarian and vegan options are limited on traditional menus, and many soups use meat stock, so ask.

The best value meal in the city is the weekday lunch set menu, the polední menu, served from about 11:00 to 14:00 in pubs and restaurants. A soup and a main dish cost about CZK 170 to 280, and the portions are large. Dinner in a pub is CZK 300 to 550 a head with a beer. For a break, Café Louvre on Národní street is a grand old café with strudel and coffee, and Havel's Market has fruit and a picnic. Avoid the trdelník stands: the rolled pastry is a tourist snack, not a Czech tradition.

For late-night food, pubs stop serving around 22:00 to 23:00, so look for street sausage stands on Wenceslas Square, 24-hour kebab shops, or hotel snack bars after midnight. Options thin out fast after midnight, so eat properly before you go out. If you want a beer without the tourist price, walk ten minutes from the square: Žižkov, Vinohrady and Letná Park all have locals' pubs and a beer garden with a view.

The last century is why Prague's story has more weight than its postcards suggest. Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 as a democratic republic, and for twenty years it was among the most industrialised and prosperous states in Europe. In September 1938 the Munich Agreement handed the border regions to Nazi Germany, and in March 1939 German troops occupied the rest of Bohemia. Prague became the seat of a protectorate. The occupation was brutal: universities were closed, resistance fighters were executed, and most of the Jewish community of Bohemia and Moravia, tens of thousands of people, was deported to camps such as Terezín and killed.

In May 1945 Prague rose against the occupiers and was liberated by the Red Army. Democracy did not last: in February 1948 the Communist Party took power in a coup, and the country became part of the Soviet bloc. For four decades the state controlled property, travel and the press. Political trials in the 1950s sent thousands to prison. In 1968 a reform movement led by Alexander Dubček promised socialism with a human face, and the brief liberalisation is called the Prague Spring. In August, Warsaw Pact tanks entered the city, and the reforms were reversed in a period called normalisation.

The end came in November 1989. On 17 November, police attacked a student march on Národní street, and within days hundreds of thousands gathered on Wenceslas Square. Václav Havel, the playwright and dissident, led the Civic Forum, and after a general strike the Communist Party gave up power without bloodshed: the Velvet Revolution. Havel became president in December. In 1993 the country split peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and in 2004 the Czech Republic joined the EU.

You can trace this history on foot. Wenceslas Square holds the statue of St Wenceslas and the National Museum, whose facade still has marks from 1968 (check the details on site). A short walk away the Museum of Communism shows objects and films from the period. At the foot of Petřín Hill, a memorial to the victims of communism, a line of bronze figures, stands as a quiet marker. The Jewish Museum's Pinkas Synagogue carries the names of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. A half-day trip to Terezín shows the fortress and the ghetto.

For a visitor, the effect is to make the city feel lived in rather than staged. The pubs, the trams and the pastel apartment blocks all date from a time when few people came, and the tourist crowds of the last thirty years are the newest layer. That is the reason to leave the main streets: Vinohrady, Žižkov and Holešovice show a city that looks the way it did before tourism, and the pub prices are the local ones.

The Czech Republic uses the koruna, not the euro. About twenty-three koruna equal one US dollar in 2026 (check the current rate). Cards and contactless work almost everywhere, so you need little cash. The key rule is to avoid exchange booths on Wenceslas Square, Old Town Square and Na Příkopě: they advertise no commission but give a poor rate and add hidden fees. Withdraw koruna from a bank ATM, choose to be charged in koruna and decline the conversion, and keep CZK 200 to 500 in small notes for toilets and market stalls.

Public transport is cheap. A 90-minute ticket costs about CZK 40, a 24-hour ticket about CZK 120 and a 72-hour ticket about CZK 330 (2026 estimates; check). Buy in the PID Lítačka app, at a machine or in a metro station, and validate a paper ticket in the yellow machine when you board or enter the metro. Inspectors fine on the spot if a ticket is not validated. For a short stay in the centre, walking plus a few rides is enough.

For the airport, the best plan is a ride-hailing car or a licensed taxi booked before you land. Bolt and Uber are common, and an airport ride to the centre costs about CZK 600 to 900. The budget option is bus 119 to Nádraží Veleslavín and then metro A into town, about CZK 40 and 45 to 60 minutes, or the Airport Express bus to the main station. There is no rail link. Avoid street-hailed taxis in the centre: overcharging is common, so book by app or use the official rank.

The common scams are predictable. Restaurants on the square add cover and service charges; read the bill. Club touts offer a free drink and lead you to an overpriced bar; walk on. Pickpockets work the crowd at the clock, the bridge, tram 22 and the metro; keep your phone and wallet in front pockets and your bag zipped. Fake inspectors sometimes demand fines; a real inspector shows a badge and gives a receipt. Nothing here is unusual for a popular European capital, and the habits are the same ones you would use elsewhere.

Finally, watch the calendar. Public holidays close shops: 1 January, Easter Monday, 1 May, 8 May, 5 and 6 July, 28 September, 28 October, 17 November and 24 to 26 December. Many small shops close on Sunday, and the Jewish Museum is closed on Saturday. Hotel prices spike at Easter, in the Christmas market season, at New Year and on summer weekends. Book the castle, the Jewish Museum and Karlštejn a few days ahead in season, carry shoes with grip for the cobbles, and keep the big suitcase in the hotel on days out.

Prague is a good base for a few day trips, most by train from the main station. The best one is Kutná Hora, about an hour to the east. In the Middle Ages it was one of the richest towns in Europe because of its silver mines, and it built a great Gothic cathedral, St Barbara's, on the proceeds. Nearby, the Sedlec Ossuary is a small chapel decorated with the bones of tens of thousands of people, arranged into a chandelier and other shapes. Allow a full day, check ticket and timetable details, and take the local bus or walk from the station.

Karlštejn Castle is about 40 minutes by train toward Beroun, then a 20-minute uphill walk from the station. Charles IV built the castle in the 14th century to hold the imperial crown jewels, and it is the most visited castle near Prague. Interiors are by guided tour and sell out in summer, so book ahead. The village below has cafés and souvenir stalls that are pricey; bring a picnic.

Terezín, about an hour north by bus, is a fortress town that the Nazis turned into a ghetto and transit camp for Jewish prisoners, and the Small Fortress was a Gestapo prison. It is a serious half-day visit and not suited to young children. Plzeň, about an hour and twenty minutes west, is the home of Pilsner Urquell, and the brewery tour and the underground cellars make a good day for beer fans. Český Krumlov, a castle town in a river bend, is better with a night than as a rushed day trip.

For your next stop, the trains are good. Dresden is a little over two hours away by direct train, Berlin about four hours, and Vienna about four hours, with both the national railway and private operators such as RegioJet on the route. Budapest is about seven hours by train, so many travellers fly instead. Buses from Florenc are cheaper but slower. Book advance train tickets early: cheap fares sell out, and comparing the two operators saves money.

If you have only a short trip, skip the day trip and spend the time on the castle, the bridge at sunrise, the Old Town and Josefov, and one long pub dinner. If you have five days, add Kutná Hora, Vyšehrad and a slow day in Vinohrady or Letná. In every case keep the mornings for the crowded sights and the afternoons for rest, and keep one bed for the whole stay: the trips are easy from a single base.