Czechia Family Travel Guide

Nobody is going to beam at you. A flat face at a counter is neutral, not hostile. Say Dobry den on the way in and Na shledanou on the way out and you have done the important part.

Beer has rules. You clink, you make eye contact, you tap the glass on the table, then you drink. Skipping the eye contact is a real superstition here and people notice.

Shoes come off indoors. In a home, an apartment rental, sometimes a small guesthouse. There will be slippers by the door and they are for you.

Do not call it the Czech Republic if you can help it. Czechia is the short name and it has been official since 2016. And do not lump it in with eastern Europe in front of a Czech. Prague is west of Vienna on a map.

Watch the bill in tourist Prague. Cover charges, bread you did not order, a service charge plus an empty tip line. It is the one place in the country where this happens routinely. Read it before you pay.

Never change money on the street or in a booth advertising zero commission. Prague exchange scams are famous and they are still running. Use a bank ATM, decline the machine’s own conversion, and let your card do the math.

Cards work, cash still helps. Prague and Brno are close to cashless. Village pubs, castle ticket desks and toilets are not. Keep a few hundred koruna.

Tipping is ten percent, said out loud. Tell the server the total you want to pay as you hand over the money. Leaving coins on the table is not the custom.

Tap water is safe and nobody drinks it in restaurants. Ask for it and you will get a look, then you will get it. Or accept that here the beer really is the cheaper option.

Toilets cost ten to twenty koruna. Train stations, squares, gas stations. Small coins, always.

Lekarna is the pharmacy. Green cross. Pharmacists handle minor problems directly. EHIC and travel insurance both work fine and healthcare here is good and cheap.

Three days. Prague only. Old Town and the Jewish Quarter, the castle and Mala Strana, then a day that is not in the center at all. Vysehrad, Letna, Petrin hill.

Five days. Prague for three, then Kutna Hora as a day trip and Cesky Krumlov as an overnight. Krumlov after dark once the day buses leave is a completely different town.

Eight days. Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Brno. Three bases, two easy train legs. Brno is the one nobody books and the one people come back talking about.

Ten days and a car. Add Bohemian Switzerland, Karlovy Vary and two castles nobody has heard of. This is where the two thousand castles finally pay off. Buy the vignette first.

Prague. Ours, and we blew it. Beautiful and mobbed, both at once. The Charles Bridge, the astronomical clock and Old Town Square are the three most crowded spots in central Europe between ten and six. See them at seven in the morning. Then spend the actual day in Vysehrad, on Petrin hill, in the Jewish Quarter or across the river in Mala Strana where the streets go quiet two blocks up. Do not drive in. There is nowhere to put a car and the streets narrow without warning.

Cesky Krumlov. A medieval town wrapped inside a bend of the river with a castle on the ridge above it. Day buses from Prague and Vienna arrive around eleven and leave by five, so stay the night. The castle has a bear moat with actual bears, which settles the question of if your kids will be bored.

Kutna Hora. An hour from Prague by train. Saint Barbara’s Cathedral is stunning. The Sedlec Ossuary, decorated with the bones of around forty thousand people, is the reason most families come and it is a real conversation with older children about how other cultures handle death. I would not take a sensitive seven year old.

Brno. The second city and the anti Prague. Students, cafes, a functionalist villa that is a UNESCO site, and prices that make Prague look expensive. Nobody plans it and everybody who goes rates it.

Olomouc. The town people mean when they say Prague thirty years ago. A UNESCO plague column in a huge square, six baroque fountains, an astronomical clock the communists rebuilt with workers instead of saints, and barely a tour group in sight.

Karlovy Vary. A spa town of pastel colonnades in a narrow valley. You buy a porcelain sipping cup and drink warm mineral water that tastes strange, which children find either delightful or offensive. Easy day trip from Prague.

Pilsen. Where pilsner was invented in 1842 and where every pale lager on earth descends from. The brewery tour ends in the cellars with unfiltered beer straight from the barrel. There is a puppet museum for the people not drinking.

Bohemian Switzerland. Sandstone gorges and rock arches on the German border, ninety minutes north of Prague. The Pravcice Gate is the largest natural arch in Europe. Note that a serious wildfire burned part of the park in 2022 and some trails are still recovering. Check before you build a day around it.

Castles are the whole trick here. Two thousand of them, most under ten dollars a head, most with a courtyard the kids can run in while you look at things. Karlstejn is forty minutes from Prague and is the easy first one.

The bone church needs a judgement call. Sedlec is remarkable and unsettling. Older children find it fascinating. Under eights can find it frightening. Talk about it before you buy the ticket, not in the doorway.

Prague trams beat Prague taxis every time. Tram 22 climbs to the castle and doubles as a sightseeing route for the price of a normal fare. Taxis in the center have a long history of overcharging visitors.

Portions are enormous and cheap. Two adult mains will feed a family of four with a side. Nobody will care if you share, and fried cheese with fries exists specifically for the child who will not eat anything.

Prague is not stroller friendly. Cobbles everywhere, steep hills to the castle, older metro stations without elevators. A carrier is easier than a stroller for anyone under three.

The motorway sticker is barely signed. One sign at the border, in Czech. Austria signs it everywhere, Czechia does not, and the fine is instant. Buy it online before you cross and you never think about it again.

Prague is smaller than you think and more crowded than you think. The entire historic center is walkable in an afternoon, which is precisely why every visitor is standing in the same four hundred meters at the same time.

Trdelnik is not Czech. It is sold on every corner as ancient Czech tradition and it arrived from Hungary and Slovakia relatively recently. Eat one anyway, just do not put it in the scrapbook as heritage.

It is central Europe, not eastern. Prague sits west of Vienna. Say eastern bloc in a Czech pub and you will get a short history lesson you did not ask for and probably deserve.

Prague. Four nights. The castle early, the Charles Bridge at dusk, the astronomical clock on the hour, a boat on the river. Stay in Mala Strana under the castle.

Karlstejn or Cesky Krumlov. A day trip to Karlstejn castle is forty minutes. Cesky Krumlov is three hours and worth a night, a river town with a castle and a bear moat.

Kutna Hora. An hour by train. The bone church for older kids who like a story, the silver mine, a cathedral with a ceiling that stops you.