PRAGUE · BOHEMIA
A hundred spires, a darker beer, the long way through Bohemia.
Old Town under the Orloj. The Castle on the hill. Pilsner from the source, ghosts along the Vltava, the bone church at Kutná Hora, and the long, lit evenings on the river.
The Prague evening
Start where the city looks best.
Most travellers say the same thing afterwards: the river at dusk. The Castle floodlit, the bridges lit from below, the city slow-moving and quiet from the water.
The classics
Prague’s Most Popular Tours
The Castle, the Orloj, Old Town, the Vltava. The trips most travellers fly into Prague for — ranked by everyone who’s already taken them.
By place
Pick a corner of Prague.
Old Town for the cobblestones. The Castle for the long view. Josefov for the synagogues. Charles Bridge at sunrise. The Vltava from the water. Each is its own afternoon.
Beyond the spires
Six day trips out of Praha.
Czechia is small and the rail network is dense. Fairy-tale UNESCO towns south, silver mines and the Bone Church east, hot springs and Pilsner west, the gothic castle of Charles IV in the woods. None of these need a second night to be worth the trip.
Only in Bohemia
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
A lot of European capitals have castles and old towns. Prague has a few things that genuinely don’t exist anywhere else. Each one was invented here, or built here, or only happens here. Worth planning around.
Time, made strange
The Astronomical Clock
The Orloj on Old Town Hall has been keeping time since 1410. Every hour it rings; twelve carved apostles file past the windows; a skeleton tips its hourglass. It is the only working medieval astronomical clock left on earth — and the gears are still the original ones.
- 1 Prague: Old Town, Astronomical Clock and Underground Tour
- 2 Old Town, Astronomical Clock & Underground Tour with PragueWay
- 3 Prague 3-Hour Tour with Astronomical Clock Admission
Bath, with foam on top
The Beer Spa
Czechs invented bathing in beer. You soak in hops, yeast and barley at brewery temperature with an unlimited Pilsner tap by the tub. The hops are good for the skin and the lager is good for everything else. It started here, and it’s still mostly here.
- 1 Prague: Bernard Beer Spa with Beer and Massage Option
- 2 Prague: Beer Spa Bernard with Beer and Massage Option
- 3 Caroline Bernard Beer Spa Prague with Beer & Massage Option
An hour east of the spires
The Bone Church
Under a country church in Kutná Hora, the bones of 40,000 plague and Hussite-war dead were arranged into chandeliers, coats of arms and a Schwarzenberg crest. A half-blind monk did the carpentry in 1511. The chapel still holds services every Sunday.
- 1 From Prague: Kutna Hora UNESCO Site Tour with Bone Chapel
- 2 From Prague: Kutná Hora, St.Barbara’s Church, Sedlec Ossuary
- 3 Day Trip to Kutná Hora by train from Prague
By activity
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Cruise the Vltava if you want it slow. Walk if you want to read every doorway. Cycle if you want range. Or pick the things you can only do here — the Orloj, a beer spa, a classical concert in a baroque chapel.
By lamplight
Prague after the streetlights come on.
The city has two registers: the daylight one with the tour groups, and the after-dark one. Pick a thread for the evening — old-town ghosts, the bridges lit from below, or a long table with Pilsner on tap.
After dark, Old Town
The stories the daytime tours skip.
The Faust house, the headless Templar, the Iron Man of Platnéřská Street. Three walks we’d take after a glass of red.
On the water
Charles Bridge, lit from below.
Prague’s bridges and embankments earn their picture at dusk. The Castle floodlit on the far bank, the river quiet, dinner on an open-top deck. Three evening cruises we’d book first.
With a beer in hand
The pubs are old, and the beer is serious.
Czechs drink more lager per head than anyone else on earth, and most of them think Prague’s pubs are the best place in the country to do it. If we had to pick three, we’d start with these.
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