Tips for Travelers to Prague
Prague, Czech Republic
My wife and I recently returned from a week long adventure in Prague, the capitol city of the Czech Republic. It was cold for this March 2023 journey, but the crowds were low and prices seemed reasonable, so we were able to see and do everything we wanted to do. We began our journey on a Wednesday and returned home the following Thursday finding that flight fares were the lowest at mid-week.
Wednesday: Our journey began Wednesday afternoon on a United Airlines flight from Huntsville Alabama to Washington DC where we then boarded an Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna Austria. Our checkin on United went smooth using their app but when we changed over to Austrian Airlines in DC they advised that we carry printed tickets through the rest of the journey their and back warning that the electronics don’t always work smoothly between airlines for international flights. I had noticed that several weeks earlier when we decided to upgrade our seats to business class sometimes called Premium Economy or Premium Plus and was never able to get the United partner apps to work properly to make the upgrade, so I had to call the United customer service desk in DC to have them make the change. Anyway, the upgrade turned out to be a good decision because we were on an overnight flight and were able to get some good meals and a little sleep in reasonable comfort with first class attention from the flight attendants.
Thursday: Arriving in Vienna Thursday morning we boarded another Austrian Airlines flight to Prague where the hotel had arranged for a driver to meet us for our transfer to the Grand Hotel Praha at Old Town Square. I booked the hotel on Booking.com and then made arrangements with the hotel through Booking for transportation at a reasonable fee roughly equivalent to a cab ride. You can take an airport shuttle bus to the subway and exit a couple blocks from the hotel, so that is a good option too, but we wanted the security provided by this kind of personal attention with the hotel. We arrived at the hotel around lunch time and toured the Square including a Visitor Center to get our bearings. The Visitor Center was very helpful offering maps and brochures, and a number of specials for tours. Since we are both seniors we decided to pay as we go because we learned that many tour sites charge half price for seniors and the public transportation is free for seniors. Families and groups might want to consider some of the options they were offering.
Friday: Wow, the Grand Hotel Praha, what a wonderful place to stay! We crashed that night getting ten plus hours of sleep. Our second floor room was quiet and comfortable and had a beautiful view of the Astronomical Clock and the Old Town Square. Our reservation included a complementary breakfast every morning in their Mozart Cafe on the first floor. It was a breakfast buffet with a little variety every morning making for a great boost to get our day going.
The Mozart Cafe gave us our first taste of the local cuisine, and it was great, but what I’ll elaborate on here is the coffee. I booked our room at the Grand Hotel Praha knowing that there was a Starbucks at each end of the block, two Starbucks! I am probably addicted to Starbucks and will go by there almost every day and sometimes twice a day for a morning and afternoon coffee. But while in Prague we decided that we would try the local cuisine including their coffee, and wow am I glad we did. The coffee we had at the Mozart Cafe and many other cafes around Old Town was very strong and flavorful. It was more like an espresso than the traditional cup of brewed coffee we were used too. I loved it and drank it black, with sugar, with cream and sugar, every way was really good. So, we never did make it too Starbucks, but somehow just knowing they were there provide me some familiar comfort in a different place.
The accommodations were great but don’t forget your power adapters. I had purchased two Type E adapters, so we were able to plug one in on each side of the bed to power up our electronics and run my CPAP machine. Our return flights went through Frankfurt Germany and the Type E adapter works with their Type C outlets too. Oh, be careful getting in and out of the shower. The tub-shower glass is not fixed, it pivots for easy access but is not good for stability while taking a shower. Our room was on the second floor but it is actually on the third level with the Mozart Cafe directly below our room and the ground level entrance located directly below the cafe.
We spent the day Friday walking the streets to the north and east of the Square which included a guided tour of the Old Town Hall, and self-guided tours of the Astronomical Clock, Powder Tower, and the Spanish Synagogue and Museum. The Synagogue is a beautiful late 1800s building located in the Jewish Quarter north of the Square and the Spanish Synagogue Museum is an important stop that all should see covering the historical records of what the Nazis did in Prague and the surrounding region during World War II.
That evening we went to an opera at the National Theater which I had booked online about a month ahead of time. The best seats I could get were in the second balcony, which was a great view, but I had a little trouble reading the captions from that distance. The opera was Turandot, an Italian love story, and the projected captions above the stage provided translations in English and Czech. Regardless, the opera was great and since we had read a brief on the opera ahead of time it was easy to follow along.
Saturday: On Saturday we took our first ride on the Trams, which we call street cars, from Old Town west to Petrin Hill, and then another tram up the hill to Petrin Tower. As mentioned, the Trams are free for seniors 60 and up and if asked, all you have to do is show you passport or any ID that gives your age. I ran maps ahead of time and stored them as PDF files on my phone to make sure we could get around town. It is a good thing I did that because my Verizon I-Phone worked fine for texts and calls, but Google Maps would not work without a wifi connection. The hotel and most restaurants had free wifi so there were solutions but it was not possible to get walking instructions on the go through the city. I noticed that my Verizon account was using a T-Mobile connection, so that might have been a better option.
From Petrin Tower you can see the entire city including our walking route down to Saint Nicholas Church in Malá Strana and across the Charles Bridge back to Old Town. Saint Nicholas Church, wow, it was amazing and at the same time too much to take in. You’ll see what I mean when you go. We found our favorite restaurant on this route, the U Tří Zlatých Hvězd, meaning Three Golden Stars. I had their pork knuckle and my wife had their goulash soup and we shared salad, plus beer, water, coffee and a dessert. By the way, the tap water is safe to drink in Prague.
Sunday: On Sunday we took another Tram northwest from Old Town up the hill to the north entrance of Prague Castle to tour the castle complex including Saint Vitus Cathedral and King George’s Basilica. You can walk from Old Town Square to the east castle entrance in about 20 minutes, but it is quite a climb from the river up to Saint Vitus Cathedral at the center of the Prague Castle. We wanted a guided tour of the castle complex but were not able to find one in English at a convenient time. This is where I should have done more research and booked a guided tour online ahead of time. All of the buildings had good tour signage in English so going on our own worked out fine. Inside you will see photography restriction requiring professionals to acquire a license. This applies only to 35mm cameras and not to cell phone cameras, so feel free to shoot away with the flash turned off.
Monday: Monday was museum day where we toured the Central Gallery of Prague on Old Town Square to see artistic exhibitions by Salvador Dali, Alfons Mucha, and Andy Warhol. Later we walked south to Wenceslas Square in New Town and toured the Národní Muzeum, meaning National Museum. The museum is a beautiful building, recently restored, containing historical and natural science exhibits. There are many shops along this route in beautifully preserved buildings from the early 1900s. This should give you some idea of how old everything is when something New is over a hundred year old. As an architect I thoroughly enjoyed all of the sites in Old Town, the Jewish Quarter, Malá Strana, Prague Castle, and New Town. The sculpture, architecture and historical preservations are amazing.
Tuesday: Our last full day in Prague was a free day to wander so we headed southwest from Old Town Square and saw the Franz Kafka head sculpture by David Cerny. If you catch it at the top of the hour its many layers will rotate for about 15 minutes creating a variety of sculptural patterns. From there we wandered the streets and shops finding many more surprises in the way of sculpture, architecture, unique shops and cuisine.
Oh, here is an important tip. The currency in the Czech Republic is the crown so be sure to exchange some dollars or euros for crowns. I exchanged a total of one-hundred-twenty dollars during the trip spending it primarily on small snacks and charged everything else on our credit card. Be sure to carry ten and twenty crown coins, which you can think of as roughly half-dollar and dollar coins. You will need them for the public toilets throughout the city and at many tour stops. The restrooms were free in the restaurants we patronized, but throughout the city you will find very nice and clean public toilets. They are coin operated, some with attendants on duty, and some with both coin and credit card options. You’ll even find a few free standing toilet booths at some street corners.
Wednesday: Wednesday began our journey home where we made arrangements to check out of the hotel and have them take us to the airport for our afternoon flight to Frankfurt Germany, again for a reasonable fee. I learned that had I booked directly with the hotel instead of through Booking.com that the airport transfer would have been free. I actually remembered reading that somewhere but at the time I booked the room I was having difficulty with their website so I opted for going through Booking.com where the reservations went through without any problems. Upon arriving at the Prague airport we boarded a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt where we spent the night at the Steigenberger Airport Hotel. The return flights could not be booked sequentially without getting up at a crazy early hour so we opted for the overnight stay in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt airport is huge but we were able to collect our bags and find the United Airlines desk where we checked in and printed our boarding passes for the remainder of the trip. A hotel bus carried us to the Steigenberger hotel but a note of caution. There was a stop along the way where we made a mistake with others and got off too early leaving us to walk the last block. Oh well, we needed the exercise I guess.
Thursday: We ate breakfast at the hotel and enjoyed a great breakfast bar. I even met a robot busboy taking the dirty dishes back to the kitchen dish washing area. The robot was originally stationed at the front entrance and once loaded it maneuvered autonomously through the crowd back to the kitchen. When it saw me it turned and went around, very cool.
Upon arrival at the airport we checked our bags and then proceeded through security. They had military guards stationed throughout the airport with AK47s which I did not like. Way too much firepower for a crowded airport in my opinion, so we avoided them and asked for directions elsewhere. My backpack was searched after passing through their screening where they pulled two tubes of toothpaste and my CPAP machine for inspection. The attendant gave me a mild scolding because they had asked that any fluid and electronic items be removed, but I had assumed mine would go through fine since they had in the US, Vienna and Prague. Oh well, at least they didn’t keep anything. The flight from Frankfurt to DC and then home to Huntsville was on United Airlines. It was comfortable with good food and seating but we followed the sun back across the Atlantic so it made for a very long day. Upon arrival in Washington DC we had to pick up our bags and then drop them back off with TSA where they passed them on back to United, a weird setup. All went fine passing through customs and on our way back home to Huntsville Alabama.
I hope my Tips for Travelers to Prague was helpful. For more on Prague check out my story on The Doors of Prague, my video of the Franz Kafka sculpture, and watch for more later on the sculpture and architecture in Prague.
Notes and References:
Story, and photographs, by David Smitherman with site visits made in March 2023.
Historical data collected from brochures, onsite inscriptions, Wikipedia, Google Maps, and I-Maps.
You can visit my Instagram page @davidsmitherman3 to see a reel on the Franz Kafka sculpture.
You can visit my artist wife Ana Mari Cadilla on Instagram @arte_anita11 to see some of her paintings inspired by our touring in Prague.