Things to do in Prague
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Charles Bridge
Strolling across Charles Bridge is everybody’s favourite Prague activity. However, by 9am it’s a 500m-long fairground, with an army of tourists squeezing through a gauntlet of hawkers and buskers beneath the impassive gaze of the baroque statues that line the parapets. If you want to experience the bridge at its most atmospheric try to visit it at dawn.
In 1357 Charles IV commissioned Peter Parler (the architect of St Vitus Cathedral) to replace the 12th-century Judith Bridge, which had been washed away by floods in 1342. (You can see the only surviving arch of the Judith Bridge by taking a boat trip with Prague Venice.)
The new bridge was completed around 1400, and t…
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Jáma
Jáma (‘the Hollow’), southeast off Vodičkova, is a popular American expat bar with vaulted ceilings plastered with old rock gig posters ranging from Led Zep and REM to Kiss and Shania Twain. There’s a leafy little beer garden out the back shaded by lime and walnut trees, smiling staff serving up Pilsner Urquell, Gambrinus and Velkopopvický Kozel on draught, and a menu that includes good burgers, steaks, ribs and chicken wings.
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Astronomical Clock
Ironically, if you wish to tell the time in the Old Town Sq, it's easier to look at the clock above this, because this 1490 mechanical marvel is tricky to decipher. The clock's creator, Master Hanuš, was allegedly blinded so he could not duplicate the clock elsewhere, although this is undoubtedly a myth.
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Cross Club
This is an industrial club in every sense of the word: the setting in an industrial zone in Holešovice, the throbbing music (with both DJs and live acts) and the interior, an absolute must-see jumble of gadgets, shafts, cranks and pipes, many of which move and pulsate with light to the music. The programme includes occasional cabaret nights, theatre performances and art happenings. There’s drinking on two levels, plus a few picnic tables outside in case it gets to be too much. It’s easy to find despite the location: after exiting Nádraží Holešovice metro station, walk 100m to the east along Plynární street. You’ve arrived once you see the enormous industrial sculpture out…
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Mucha Museum
This fascinating (and busy) museum features the sensuous Art Nouveau posters, paintings and decorative panels of Alfons Mucha (1860–1939), as well as many sketches, photographs and other memorabilia. The exhibits include countless artworks showing Mucha’s trademark Slavic maidens with flowing hair and piercing blue eyes, bearing symbolic garlands and linden boughs; photos of the artist’s Paris studio, one of which shows a trouserless Gaugin playing the harmonium; a powerful canvas entitled Old Woman in Winter; and the original of the 1894 poster of actress Sarah Bernhardt as Giselda, which shot him to international fame. The fascinating 30-minute video documentary a…
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Cantina
This homely hacienda, decked out in bleached pine and Brazilian coffee sacks, serves up the most authentic margaritas in Prague – perhaps a little light on the tequila, but nicely iced and with a good zing of fresh lime. The menu is as good as Tex-Mex gets in this town, with big portions of burrito, chimichanga, quesadilla and fajitas with both meat and vegetarian fillings; if the salsa isn’t hot enough for you, there are bottles of chilli sauce on the table to add a bit of bite. This place is popular, so get there early, book a table, or be prepared to wait.
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Ariana
Ariana is a welcoming little place decked out with Persian rugs and photos of Kabul, with Asian music wailing in the background. It serves a range of unusual Afghani dishes, including ashak (a sort of ravioli containing chopped leeks, with a rich sauce of minced lamb and yogurt), various lamb and chicken kebabs and tasty vegetarian specialities, served with light, fluffy nan-i-dashi (hot bread) on the side.
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Vyšehrad Citadel
The main entrance to this citadel is through the Tábor Gate (Táborská brána) at the southeastern end. On the other side of the brick ramparts and ditch are the scant remnants of the Gothic Peak Gate (Špička brána), a fragment of arch that is now part of the information office – all that remains of Charles IV’s 14th-century fortifications. Beyond that lies the grand, 17th-century Leopold Gate (Leopoldova brána), the most elegant of the fortress gates. It’s possible to walk around most of the battlements, with grand views over the river and city. Beside the southwestern bastion are the foundations of a small royal palace built by Charles IV but dismantled in 1…
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Riegrovy Sady
There’s a good-natured rivalry between this beer garden and the one across the river at Letná as to which one is best. The answer depends on where you live, and on summer nights the folks in Vinohrady can be counted on to come out and enforce their claim. Order drinks at the bar and carry them to one of dozens of picnic tables. The big-screen TV takes away from the atmosphere, but is a welcome addition during the Euro or World Cup football matches, when the tables are lined elbow to elbow. The easiest way to get here is from Polská, turn up Chopínova, and then enter the park across from Na Švíhance. The beer garden is 30m up the path.
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Jewish Cemetery
Franz Kafka is buried in this cemetery, which opened around 1890 when the older Jewish cemetery – now at the foot of the TV Tower – was closed. To find Kafka’s grave, follow the main avenue east (signposted), turn right at row 21, then left at the wall; it’s at the end of the ‘block’. Fans make a pilgrimage on 3 June, the anniversary of his death. The entrance is beside Želivského metro station; men should cover their heads (yarmulkes are available at the gate). Last admission is 30 minutes before closing.
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Country Life
Prague’s first-ever health-food shop opened in 1991, and is an all-vegan cafeteria and sandwich bar offering inexpensive salads, sandwiches, pizzas, vegetarian goulash, sunflower-seed burgers and soy drinks. There is plenty of seating in the rear courtyard but it can still get crowded at lunchtime, so go early or buy sandwiches to go.
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Vyšehrad Cemetery
For Czechs, the Vyšehrad Cemetery is Vyšehrad hill’s main attraction. In the late 19th century the parish graveyard was made into a memorial cemetery for famous figures of Czech culture, with a graceful, neo-Renaissance arcade running along the northern and western sides. For the real heroes, an elaborate pantheon called the Slavín (loosely, ‘Hall of Fame’), designed by Antonín Wiehl, was added at the eastern end in 1894; its 50-odd occupants include painter Alfons Mucha, sculptor Josef Myslbek and architect Josef Gočár. The motto reads Ač Zemeřeli Ještě Mluví (Though dead, they still speak). The 600 or so graves in the rest of the cemetery include those …
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Church of Our Lady Before Týn
The distinctive, spiky-topped Týn Church is early Gothic, though it takes some imagination to visualise the original in its entirety because it’s partly hidden behind the four-storey Týn School (not a Habsburg plot to obscure this 15th-century Hussite stronghold, but almost contemporaneous with it). The church’s name originates from the Týn Courtyard behind the church. Though Gothic on the outside, the church’s interior is smothered in heavy baroque. Two of the most interesting features are the huge rococo altar on the northern wall and the tomb of Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomerwhowasone of Rudolf II’s most illustrious ‘consultants’ (he died in 1601 of a burs…
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Golden Lane
Golden Lane is a picturesque, cobbled alley running along the northern wall of the castle. Its tiny, colourful cottages were built in the 16th century for the sharpshooters of the castle guard, but were later used by goldsmiths. In the 18th and 19th centuries they were occupied by squatters, and then by artists, including the writer Franz Kafka (who stayed at his sister’s house at No 22 from 1916 to 1917) and the Nobel-laureate poet Jaroslav Seifert. Today, the lane is an overcrowded tourist trap lined with craft and souvenir shops. At its eastern end is the Daliborka, a round tower named after the knight Dalibor of Kozojedy, imprisoned here in 1498 for supporting a pea…
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Letná Gardens & Terrace
Letná is a vast open space between Milady Horáková and the river, with a parade ground to the north and a peaceful park, the Letná Gardens (Letenské sady), in the south, offering picture-postcard views over the city and its bridges. In summer you’ll find an open-air beer garden. In 1261 Přemysl Otakar II held his coronation celebrations here, and during communist times, Letná was the site of Moscow-style May Day military parades. In 1989 around 750,000 people gathered here in support of the Velvet Revolution. In 2008, the far northwestern corner of the park was torn up to build the enormous Blanka Tunnel, part of Prague’s future ring-road system. When completed (anticipat…
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Estates Theatre
Beside the Karolinum is Prague’s oldest theatre and finest neoclassical building, the Estates Theatre, where the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni was performed on 29 October 1787, with the maestro himself conducting. Opened in 1783 as the Nostitz Theatre (after its founder, Count Anton von Nostitz-Rieneck), it was patronised by upper-class German citizens and thus came to be called the Estates Theatre – the Estates being the traditional nobility. After WWII it was renamed the Tylovo divadlo (Tyl Theatre) in honour of the 19th-century Czech playwright Josef Kajetán Tyl. One of his claims to fame is the Czech national anthem, Kde domov můj? (Where is My Home?), whi…
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Wallenstein Palace
The small Wallenstein Square (Valdštejnské náměstí), northeast of Malá Strana Square, is dominated by the monumental 1630 palace of Albrecht of Wallenstein, general of the Habsburg armies, who financed the construction with the confiscated properties of Protestant nobles he defeated at the Battle of (White Mountain) in 1620. It now houses the Senate of the Czech Republic, but you can visit some rooms on weekends. The ceiling fresco in the Baroque Hall shows Wallenstein as a warrior at the reins of a chariot, while the unusual oval Audience Hall has a fresco of Vulcan at work in his forge. Behind the palace is a huge, walled garden, which is an oasis of peace amid th…
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Albio
This family-friendly, nonsmoking, whole-foods restaurant is as bright and fresh as an Alpine morning, decked out in blonde wood and rustic timber set off with salmon-pink tablecloths and seat-cushions. It sources all its food from local organic farms and operates its own bakery, shop and advice counter offering tips on organic food and healthy eating. The menu includes fish, vegetarian and vegan dishes, such as baked whole rice with oyster mushrooms, leeks and cashew nuts, and buckwheat pancakes filled with onion mash and grilled zucchini. There are also organic wines and unpasteurised beer so you can work up a healthy hangover.
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Suterén
‘The Basement’ is a beautiful cellar space, where modern detailing complements the old red-brick and wooden beams perfectly. Cream linen chairs, set at gleaming black tables with a single, deep-pink rose in the middle of each one, surround a circular glass bar with a colourful aquarium along one wall. The menu leans towards seafood, beef and game, with intriguing dishes such as salmon mojito, with the fish marinated in rum and lime juice, served with tart lime jam and sweet rum-and-mint sauce; and more traditional fare such as roast saddle of rabbit marinated in wine, vinaigrette and thyme.
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Capua
This corner restaurant just above Strossmayerovo náměstí is widely considered the best pizza place in the neighbourhood, and even the food editor of the Prague Post listed it in the city’s ‘top four’ in a 2007 pizza run-off. But in truth, it’s only good, not great. The inviting interior is divided into two rooms, with nonsmokers getting the larger and nicer one to the right. The pizzas are thin-crust and follow the usual formula of Italian combinations. ‘Capriccioso’ is a filling mix of ham and fresh mushrooms. There’s a shaded terrace out the front in nice weather.
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Bric a Brac
Hidden up a narrow lane behind the Týn church, this is a wonderfully cluttered cave of old household items and glassware and toys and apothecary jars and 1940s leather jackets and cigar boxes and typewriters and stringed instruments and… Despite the junky look of the place, the knick-knacks are surprisingly expensive; there are two ‘showrooms’, a small one on Týnská, and a larger one in a nearby courtyard (follow the signs), and the affable Serbian owner can give you a guided tour around every piece in his extensive collection.
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Cesky Krumlov Day Trip from Prague
10 hours (Departs Prague, Czech Republic)
by Viator
If you love castles, you won't want to miss Cesky Krumlov's World Heritage-listed castle! Known as 'the Pearl of the Renaissance', the State Castle of Cesky Kru…Not LP reviewed
from USD$82.77 -
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Radost FX
Though not quite as hot as it once was, Prague’s slickest, shiniest and most self-assured club is still capable of pulling in the crowds, especially for its Thursday hip-hop night, FXbounce (www.fxbounce.com). The place has a chilled-out, bohemian atmosphere, with Moroccan boudoir–meets–Moulin Rouge décor, and there’s an excellent lounge-cum–vegetarian restaurant that keeps serving into the small hours. DJs spin tunes in the ground floor gallery on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
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Bohemia Bagel
When this outlet of the local Bohemia Bagel empire opened in 2007, it was widely heralded as a sign of Holešovice’s imminent rebirth. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way. This remains the best all-round sandwich and light meal joint in the neighbourhood, with the usual range of bagels, breakfasts and burgers, plus seared tuna and filet mignon entrees for bigger appetites. Bohemia Bagel is only two tram stops from Nádraží Holešovice (take tram 15), making this a feasible meal option if you’re waiting for a train.
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Pizzeria Kmotra
One of Prague’s oldest and best pizzerias, ‘the Godmother’ can rustle up more than two dozen varieties of pizza, from margherita to marinara, cooked in a genuine wood-fired pizza oven. Sit beside the bar upstairs, or head down to the basement where you can watch the chef slinging pizza dough in the open kitchen – both areas are nonsmoking. It gets busy here after 8pm, so try to snag a table before then.
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