Things to do in Prague

Prague sits on both banks of the Vltava, a castle on the hill and a bridge in between. It came through the last war largely unbombed. What you walk on is mostly original.

The two banks

The right bank holds the old town. The left has the castle and the gardens.

• Staré Město. The Old Town Square and the astronomical clock, running since 1410 and the oldest working.
• Charles Bridge. 516 metres on sixteen arches since 1357, thirty baroque statues, mostly copies. Empty at six, solid by ten.
• Josefov. The Old-New Synagogue of about 1270, and a cemetery of 12,000 stones stacked twelve deep.
• Malá Strana. Baroque palaces and walled gardens under the castle, quiet a street back.
• Vyšehrad, Vinohrady and Žižkov. The second fort upriver, and the quarters where people live, not sightsee.

Doing the castle properly

Guinness calls it the world's largest ancient castle complex. The grounds are free, six in the morning to ten at night. Only the buildings need a ticket.

• Go up before nine, or take tram 22. The courtyards are empty then; buildings open at nine and shut at five, an hour earlier from November.
• Sunday mornings. St Vitus takes visitors only from noon.
• The ticket lasts two days. Split it: cathedral and Old Royal Palace first, Golden Lane later.
• Noon in the first courtyard. The guard changes daily with a fanfare and the standard.

Pubs, and how the evening goes

The tab is a paper slip on the table. Each round gets a mark, and the next arrives unless you say stop.

• Degrees are not alcohol. A desítka is ten degrees of malt in the wort, about four per cent; a dvanáctka is twelve, about five.
• Velké or malé. Half a litre or three tenths. Ask for a mlíko and you get a glass of foam.
• Two prices, two blocks apart. A half-litre of Pilsner runs 45 to 70 crowns in a neighbourhood pub, 80 to 150 on the Old Town Square.
• Lunch is the cheap meal. Soup and a main off the weekday menu, eleven to two, is 130 to 180 crowns.

Evenings also go on the water. Ghosts, alchemy and black-light theatre carry the rest.

Where the day trips go

• Kutná Hora. The silver town, the bone chapel and St Barbara, an hour east.
• Český Krumlov. A castle over a river loop, a long day south.
• Karlovy Vary and Pilsen. Spa colonnades, and the brewery where pale lager began.
• Dresden. Over the border in about two hours, often with Saxon Switzerland.

Practical

• Season. Summer is warm and crowded. December is cold, dark and full of markets; February emptiest.
• Exchange offices. The centre's rates are the trap; no commission does not mean a good one. By law an exchange can be undone within three hours, up to a thousand euros.
• Money. Pay in koruna by card, and decline when the terminal offers your own currency.
• Tickets and nights. Transport is sold by time, and the app beats paper. The metro stops near midnight; night trams 91 to 99 meet at Lazarská.
• From the airport. No rail link. A bus to the metro at Nádraží Veleslavín is quickest.
• Feet. Cobbles everywhere, and the climb to the castle is real. Grip beats looks.