In short
Prague came through the twentieth century without major destruction, and that explains the density of its centre: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Art Nouveau follow one another street by street.
The Old Town (Staré Město) holds the square with the astronomical clock. Malá Strana, below the castle, is the Baroque quarter. The Castle, on its hill, is the largest castle complex in the world. Žižkov and Vinohrady, to the east, are the districts of ordinary life and bars.
Arriving and getting around
Václav Havel airport has no rail link: you reach the centre by bus then metro, or by shuttle.
The network is excellent and cheap: metro, trams — including the famous 22, which climbs to the castle — and buses. Tickets are sold by time, not by journey, and validated on boarding.
The Czech Republic uses the koruna, not the euro.
What it really costs
Prague is affordable by European standards, but the historic centre charges prices unrelated to the rest of the city.
Two well-documented currency traps: the exchange offices in the centre displaying misleading rates, and cash machines offering conversion into your own currency — declining the conversion is systematically better value.
When to come
April–June and September–October. Summer is hot and very busy; winter is cold, but the Christmas markets and the city under snow are worth the trip.
What nobody tells you
The astronomical clock disappoints almost everyone. The procession of apostles lasts under a minute, high up, in front of a packed crowd. The object itself — a 1410 mechanism showing the positions of the sun, the moon and the zodiac — is far more interesting than its hourly show.
Charles Bridge is empty at dawn and impassable in the middle of the day. The gap between those two moments is considerable.
Beer is an institution and a price: Czechia has the highest per-head consumption in the world, and in many establishments draught beer costs less than bottled water.
Vyšehrad, the city's second fortress, to the south, has ramparts, a view over the Vltava and a cemetery where Dvořák and Smetana lie. It is free and almost empty.
