Two-Day Trek: Prague, Czechia
A rich, checkered history adorns this gateway to Eastern Europe.
Proud of the scars of its past, Prague broke free of its oppressive history and surged into the new millennium with a steadfast revolutionary spirit.
FRIDAY
We landed in Prague in the early afternoon, meaning that our priorities were getting to our hotel and getting something to eat. The No. 119 bus is the preferred (and cheap) method of reaching the city center, so we took that to Nádraží Veleslavín, where we transferred to the Metro’s Green/A line and traveled two stops to Dejvická, with our hotel, the Vienna House Diplomat Prague (Evropska 370/15), just a three-minute walk away. Its decor is dated, but it’s in a very quiet area of the city, which is always a plus.
Our exploration began with a quick stop at Bageterie Boulevard (Vítezné Námestí 14), a local sandwich chain, not far from the hotel or the Metro stop. Then, we took the Metro to Jirího z Podebrad to find the Žižkov Tower, a 328-foot monstrosity built in the 1980s to allegedly block Western broadcast signals. The first of three towers we’d scale during the trip, it offered the most forgettable views of the three.
On the way back to the Metro, we stopped at two boutique shops within a block of each other — Botas66 (Krížkovského 18), which sells fashionable locally made shoes, and Skoba (Ševcíkova 1288/4), run by a man who quit his career to pursue his passion for bookbinding and sells a variety of custom-made journals and calendars.
From the tower, we took the Metro to Wenceslas Square, the commercial and administrative center of the city. This was where protests in 1989 led to the fall of communism. The balcony from which Vaclav Havel and Alexander Dubcek addressed the crowds is on the Melantrich building and now above a Marks & Spencer.
A quick lap around the boulevard, down to the National Museum and back onward, led to the Havelska Market, a flea market that, like many in Europe, has mostly moved on from selling unique gifts and instead focuses on the same mass-produced tourist offerings. Five minutes away was the Old Town Square and, notably, the Astronomical Clock, which was built in 1410 and chimes every hour — and happened to be undergoing its first extensive renovations during the time we visited, with the aim of being ready for 100th anniversary celebrations in October 2018.
What To Know
Date of visit: Aug. 17 to Aug. 19, 2018.
Airport location: About 12 miles west of the city center and a total of 40 minutes when traveling by bus and metro.
Walkability: 6/10. The sights are generally clustered together and the trams and metro are helpful complements when the feet get tired.
English: Passable. Signs are in Czech and English; younger locals are now taught it in schools and will speak it better.
Must-See Attraction: Prague Castle, which has stood for more than a thousand years as a symbol of the city’s might.
Traveler’s tip: A number of public parks offer a chance to relax, but Vysehrad is the best place to decompress.
With the Old Town Hall open a bit later in the evening, we scurried over to the Jewish Quarter, which has been home to Prague’s Jewish community since the middle ages, and paid our respects at the Old Jewish Cemetery, where a dense collection of gravestones marks the burial place of a number of prominent Jewish residents who lived in the neighborhood from the 1400s through the late 1700s.
Back in the square, we climbed the 228 feet of the Old Town Hall, built in 1338, for a bird’s-eye view of the area, before heading off for dinner at Lokal Dlouhááá (Dlouhá 33), a massive traditional beer hall serving traditional Bohemian grub, including beef goulash and potato dumplings. If you’re thirsty, don’t worry; each table is allowed 108 beers before they will cut off service.
Finally, we crossed the Charles Bridge, which we’d return to the next morning to appreciate it without the suffocating crowds, and took a leisurely lap around Kampa, the largest island on the Vltava and a peaceful retreat. Look under the stairs from the bridge for the plaque that notes the high-water mark during the floods of 2002.
SATURDAY
The Charles Bridge and Prague Castle are both inundated with visitors at nearly all hours of the day, so to appreciate both a little bit more on our own, we woke up early to be among the first at both. The bridge, built between 1357 and 1390 by Charles IV, is adorned with 22 statues that were put in place 22 years later; the most famous is that of St. John of Nepomuk, who was dressed in armor and thrown off the bridge by Wenceslas IV in 1393. The towers at both ends of the bridge can be climbed for a small fee; we did neither, but heard the one on the Staré Mesto side — the solitary tower — is the better of the two.
After a brief stop at the Lennon Wall, on which students spray-painted John Lennon’s lyrics to protest the communist government in the 1980s, we carried on to Prague Castle, the city’s most popular tourist destination. The largest ancient castle in the world, it contains St. Vitus Cathedral, where former Czech emperors, kings and queens are buried, as well as St. George’s Basilica and Golden Lane, a row of colorful cottages were workers were once housed. The castle grounds are free, but security is tight because the offices of the Czech president are here and tickets are needed to visit any of the buildings. The middle tier, Circuit B, is sufficient and will still require three hours to explore; time it so that you can witness the changing of the guard, a 25-minute ceremony every day at noon.
Our intention was to eat lunch at Villa Richter, the restaurant at the hillside St. Wenceslas Vineyard (Staré Zámecké Schody 6) next to the castle, but with it closed for the day for a wedding, we instead caught the No. 22 tram to Peklo (Strahovské Nádvoří 133/3), an underground wine cellar converted into a restaurant that was the perfect way to beat a hot day. Upon emerging, we stopped at the Strahov Monastery across the street, which is home to two ornate libraries — the Theological Hall and the Philosophical Hall — that, because of their extravagance, cannot be entered without advanced permission.
From there, we wandered through Petřín, one of Prague’s hillside parks, and scaled (another) structure, the Petřín Tower, which resembles the Eiffel Tower and offers the best viewpoint of any tower in the city. Next door is the Mirror Maze, a hall of funhouse mirrors that is not worth the wait, and beyond it the terminus of the Petřín funicular, which connects the park to the Malá Strana district.
At the bottom of the hill is the Church of Our Lady Victorious, home to the Infant Jesus of Prague, a 16th-century wax depiction of Jesus Christ holding a globe and orb that draws pilgrims from around Eastern Europe as it is said to have miraculous powers. And, given the lovely weather, we decided to venture across town for a soccer game, visiting Eden Arena to watch Slavia Praha take on, and lose, to Jablonec. The night ended with dinner at Kulaták (Vítezné Námestí 820), a popular pub back near the hotel open late into the night.
SUNDAY
Arguably the highlight of our entire trip was the Prague Communism Tour, which leads twice-daily excursions from its Old Town Square office and explains the political history of Czechoslovakia. With lessons on the Prague Spring and Velvet Revolution, as well as insight into the activities of the Soviet military and secret police, the tour ended with a trip out to the Žižkov neighborhood and a disused nuclear fallout shelter.
After nearly three hours, and having ended in Wenceslas Square, we ate lunch at Miss Saigon (Myslíkova 282/26), an Asian fusion restaurant. We walked past Frank Gehry’s Tancící Dum, the “Dancing House,” a tower that is said to resemble two people dancing, and wandered through Vyšehrad, a public park with the remains of a Middle Age fortress that may offer the most peaceful escape — and views — in the entire city.
Coincidentally, our next stop was across the city at another park, Letna, where a giant red Metronome has been constructed on the site of what was once the largest statue of Josef Stalin in the world, and our final dinner was at Marina, an Italian restaurant on a converted riverboat docked on the Vltava a mere five-minute walk from the Old Town Square.
Verdict: The sheer number of cathedrals, castles and towers in “The City of a Thousand Spires” can be overwhelming and lead to fatigue — as we found out — but the variety of other attractions, as well as the local cuisine and the free-flowing beer, are enough to keep visitors entertained for several days.
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Disclaimers: All products, services and experiences were paid for and arranged by the author and the vendors named herein had no editorial oversight of this piece. All photographs were taken by and remain the property of the author; contact for republication rights.
