The best-value beer in Europe, a capital that survived the war intact, and a country most people never see beyond it. Prague deserves the crowds; Brno and Olomouc deserve more than they get.
Prague was barely bombed, which is why it looks the way it does: a thousand years of architecture standing where it was built, from Romanesque cellars to Gothic spires to the art nouveau that followed. It is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and it is very busy, particularly in the old town square and on the Charles Bridge between ten and six.
The trick is timing rather than avoidance. The bridge at six in the morning is empty and worth setting an alarm for. Vinohrady, Žižkov and Karlín are residential districts with the city's best bars and no tour groups at all.
Outside the capital, the country empties out. Brno is a student city with a fraction of Prague's prices, Olomouc has a UNESCO column and almost no visitors, Český Krumlov is a miniature Prague on a river bend, and the beer towns of Plzeň and České Budějovice are where two of the world's most copied lagers come from.
Trains and buses are cheap and quick, and nothing is more than four hours from Prague.
The castle, the bridge, the astronomical clock, and a bar scene that has outgrown the stag parties.
Great place to see and explore, and roam around, specially for walking and enjoying many things
A traveller, on Hostelworld
The second city: students, functionalist architecture, and the best coffee in the country.
Lovely place! We would definitely come back. Small and chill but still enough entertainment for three nights, four days.
A traveller, on Hostelworld
A medieval town wrapped in a river bend, with a castle above it. Stay the night, after the day trips leave.
A baroque university town with a UNESCO column, cheap beer and almost no tourists.
Czechia is a city-break and beer country with more hiking than anyone expects.
Three or four days, one city, everything walkable.
The cheapest drinking in Europe, and not only beer.
A thousand years of architecture, and twentieth-century history.
One of the cheapest countries in the EU.
Sandstone towns and forests nobody outside the country visits.
Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle complex in the world and the grounds are free — you only pay to enter St Vitus Cathedral and the specific buildings. Go early or late, and walk down through Malá Strana afterwards rather than fighting up through it.
The Charles Bridge is the postcard and is genuinely lovely at dawn, when the statues are lit and there is nobody on it. By eleven it is a slow-moving crowd. The astronomical clock's hourly show is famously underwhelming and worth seeing once anyway, from a distance.
Day trips are excellent and cheap: Kutná Hora's bone chapel, Terezín, the fortress town used as a Nazi ghetto, and Český Krumlov, which needs an overnight to see properly.
Czech beer is the cheapest good beer anywhere: €1.50 to €2.50 for a half-litre of Pilsner Urquell or Kozel in a proper pub, less outside Prague. Pubs serve it tank-fresh, and ordering is simple — hold up fingers and it keeps arriving until you put a beer mat on your glass.
Food is heavy and designed for it: svíčková, beef in cream sauce with dumplings; goulash with bread dumplings; roast pork with cabbage. Lunch menus in pubs run €5 to €8 for soup and a main and are what office workers eat.
Trdelník, the sugared chimney cake sold all over Prague's old town, is not Czech and never was. Eat it anyway if you want, but not under the impression that it is traditional.
Prague's nightlife divides sharply between the old town, which is stag parties and overpriced clubs, and the residential districts, which is where the city actually drinks. Žižkov claims the most pubs per capita in Europe; Vinohrady and Karlín have the cocktail bars and the craft beer.
Beer is so cheap that a night out costs what two drinks cost in Amsterdam, and the traditional pubs — communal tables, no music, a waiter marking your tab on a slip of paper — are the experience worth having.
Brno has 90,000 students and a genuinely good cocktail scene that punches well above the city's size. Olomouc is cheaper again.
RegioJet and České dráhy run comfortable, cheap trains, and RegioJet's buses are often better still — Prague to Brno for around €10, with a steward and free coffee. Book online a few days ahead for the lowest fares.
Prague's public transport is excellent and cheap: three metro lines, trams that run all night, and a 24-hour ticket for about €6. Tram 22 passes most of the sights and costs the same as any other ride.
For day trips, trains reach Kutná Hora, Plzeň and Terezín easily. Český Krumlov is better by bus, at about three hours from Prague.
This is one of the cheapest countries in the EU and Prague is the cheapest major capital in central Europe after Budapest. Dorms start around €12, a pub lunch is €6, a beer is under €2, and intercity travel costs less than a taxi across a western city.
Prague charges a tourist premium in the old town and almost nowhere else. Walk fifteen minutes into Vinohrady or Žižkov and prices halve for better food.
The koruna is the currency, not the euro. Exchange booths in the old town are notorious for poor rates and hidden commissions — use a bank ATM, decline the machine's conversion, and never change money on the street.
Prague is a safe city with very low violent crime. What it has is a well-developed set of tourist scams concentrated in a few hundred metres of the old town.
The main ones: exchange booths advertising rates that turn out to apply only to large sums, taxis that quote absurd fares from Wenceslas Square, and bars where touts lead you in and the bill arrives inflated. Use bank ATMs, book cars on Bolt or Uber, and ignore anyone handing out flyers.
Pickpocketing happens on the Charles Bridge, on tram 22 and in the metro at peak times. Beyond that, ordinary caution is enough, including at night.
The Czech Republic is in the Schengen area but not the eurozone. EU citizens need an ID card; UK, US, Canadian and Australian passport holders get 90 days in any 180 across the whole Schengen zone.
Passports need three months' validity beyond departure and to have been issued within the last ten years. ETIAS has been delayed repeatedly — check the official EU site.
Public transport tickets must be validated when you board, and inspectors are frequent and unsympathetic. An unvalidated ticket counts as no ticket and the on-the-spot fine is substantial.
Prague works all year and looks best in two opposite conditions: May greenery and December snow. Summer is hot, busy and the least comfortable time in the old town.
Average highs for Prague. Winters are properly cold and the country is landlocked, so temperatures swing further than in coastal Europe.
Pick how you travel and how long for. Per night, for one person, at Czech prices.
Prices are in koruna locally; these are euro equivalents. Intercity buses and trains are €8–12 a leg.
Prague fills over Christmas and New Year. The rest of the calendar is cheap and worth timing around.
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