Best For
First Europe trips on a budget, castle kids, walkers
Recommended Nights
3
Getting There
PRG airport, about 40 minutes to the centre by bus and metro
Known For
Charles Bridge, the castle district, the clock, the koruna
Beautiful, And Completely Overrun
Prague is genuinely one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Red roofs, a river full of bridges, a castle on a hill, and a whole old town that survived the twentieth century largely intact. It is also one of the most visited cities in Europe, and in the streets between the Old Town Square and the bridge you will be moving at the speed of the group in front of you.
Adam and I came through in the autumn of 2010, years before the kids, in a small red camper with almost no money. Our day in Prague was mostly a parking disaster. We rolled in around half ten in the morning looking for somewhere to leave the bus and by midday I was driving down streets that would be pavements anywhere else. We got a few photos, we walked a bit, and we left in a bad mood. That is the honest version and I am not going to dress it up.
Here is what I think now, fifteen years and one travel advisor certification later. We did Prague wrong. We treated it as a stop on a drive instead of a place to stay, we brought a vehicle into a city that does not want one, and we saw the parts everyone sees on the day everyone sees them. Do it as three nights on foot from a flat in the old town and it is a completely different city.
Who it is for
Families who want a proper European city at a price that does not make them flinch. Kids who like castles, knights, towers and clockwork will do well here. It is also a good first Europe city because the centre is small, it is walkable, and you are never far from where you started.
Who should skip it
If you are travelling with a baby in a stroller and a low tolerance for crowds, put Prague later. The cobbles are relentless, the pavements narrow to nothing, and the crush between Old Town Square and Charles Bridge in July is genuinely unpleasant. If you have a car, do not bring it into the centre. Learn from us.
Getting There
General ranges, not exact schedules. Traffic and season move all of these.
Three Things Nobody Tells You Before Prague
The Astronomical Clock Is A Letdown
Every hour a small door opens, twelve little apostles shuffle past a window for about forty five seconds, a skeleton rings a bell, and it is over. That is it. The clock itself is a beautiful six hundred year old object and worth looking at properly. The hourly show is not. The genuinely astonishing thing is the crowd. Three hundred people with their phones up, all of them filming the same forty five seconds, all of them quietly disappointed together. Stand at the back and watch the people instead. That is the real attraction and it is free.
The Castle Is Not A Castle
Prague Castle is not one building you walk into. It is a walled district on top of a hill with a cathedral, three palaces, a basilica, a lane of small houses, gardens and a guard change, and it is officially the largest ancient castle complex in the world. Families budget an hour for it and then find themselves three hours in with everyone hungry. Budget half a day or pick two things inside it and go home. St. Vitus Cathedral and the Golden Lane are the two I would pick.
Charles Bridge Depends Entirely On The Hour
At seven in the morning it is thirty stone saints, a river, mist and almost nobody. At two in the afternoon it is a market of caricature artists and a crowd moving at shuffle speed with your kids somewhere in it. Same bridge. Completely different experience. Cross it early once and then use the Legion Bridge or Manes Bridge for the rest of your trip, which nobody does and both of which are two minutes away.
What Is Genuinely Worth Your Hours
Prague Castle and St. Vitus
Go up on tram 22 and walk down. That one decision saves everybody an argument. The grounds are free to walk. The paid circuit gets you into St. Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, the Basilica of St. George and the Golden Lane, which is a row of tiny coloured cottages built into the castle wall and by far the best bit for children. Book online, go at opening or after three, and do not try to see all of it.
Old Town Square and the clock tower
The square itself is the win, not the clock show. Pastel houses, the twin black spires of the Tyn Church, and enough space for kids to actually stand still in. Pay the small fee to go up the Old Town Hall tower. There is a lift, the view over the red roofs is the photo you came for, and it takes twenty minutes. Skip the horse carriages, which are expensive and not kind.
Petrin hill and the funicular
This is the one I would fight for. A little funicular railway climbs the hill from Mala Strana on an ordinary transit ticket, so it is effectively free if you already have a day pass. At the top there is a park, a mirror maze, a rose garden and a small iron tower that looks like the Eiffel Tower had a Czech cousin. You climb it, you can see the whole city, and there is not a tour group in sight. Every family I have sent here has come back saying it was the best afternoon of the trip.
The Koruna, And How Far It Actually Goes
Czechia Is Not On The Euro
The currency is the Czech koruna, written CZK or Kc, and roughly twenty to twenty five of them make a dollar depending on the week. Plenty of restaurants in the tourist ring will happily take your euros at a rate that is quietly terrible. Pay by card almost everywhere, or take koruna out of a bank ATM. Czechia has been talking about adopting the euro for twenty years and has not done it.
Avoid Every Exchange Booth In The Old Town
The ones with a big zero percent commission sign are the worst of them. The commission is not where they get you, the rate is. There is a legal cooling off period that lets you cancel an exchange within three hours, which tells you everything about how common the problem is. Use a bank machine that belongs to an actual bank and always decline the machine offering to convert for you.
It Is Cheap. It Is Not As Cheap As 2010.
Prague is still meaningfully cheaper than Paris, Amsterdam or Copenhagen. A family dinner outside the tourist ring, a tram day pass, a castle ticket, museum entry for the kids. All of it lands lower than you expect. But the streets around the bridge are priced for visitors now, and a beer on the Old Town Square can cost four times what it costs six streets away. The gap between tourist Prague and actual Prague is bigger here than almost anywhere.
The Month You Pick Changes The City
Five Things To Eat In Prague
Gulas
Knedliky
Vepro knedlo zelo
Smazeny syr
TrdelnikNicole’s Perspective
This Is My Actual Photo Of Prague And It Is A Traffic Jam
That is the Dancing House on the right and that is the queue we sat in. Adam and I were doing Europe in a small red camper in October 2010, years before Gavin and Jake and Avilene existed, on a budget that did not allow for mistakes. We came into Prague at half ten in the morning looking for somewhere legal to leave the bus and by lunchtime I was driving it down lanes that are pavements in any normal country. We got a handful of photos and we left annoyed.
The day before that, driving into Czechia from Austria, we got pulled over on the highway by four police officers because we did not have a Czech vignette. Nobody had seen a sign for one at the border. They breathalysed me at the side of the road, made me buy a ten dollar sticker at a petrol station that did not advertise it, and handed me a fifteen hundred koruna fine to pay at a post office. I still have the payment slip. That whole story is here and it is funnier now than it was then.
So no, I did not fall in love with Prague. But I have spent the years since planning it for other people and I have watched what happens when you do it properly. Three nights, no car, a flat inside the old town, the castle in the morning and Petrin in the afternoon. That is a very good trip and it is nothing like the day we had.
If you want me to build yours, send me your dates and I will tell you honestly how many nights Prague is worth to your family and what to pair it with.
Cobbles, Trams And Somewhere To Run
Prague is beautiful and it is hard underfoot. The old town is laid in small rounded setts that are lovely to look at and awful to push a stroller across, and half the interesting doorways have a step.
Downtime Pick
Letna Park, above the river. A big flat green plateau with paths, a beer garden with a view straight down the line of the bridges, a carousel and enough space to let everybody run. Kampa Island under Charles Bridge is the smaller version if you cannot face the hill, with grass, the giant crawling baby sculptures and a mill wheel.
The Four Neighbourhoods, And What Each One Costs You
Stare Mesto, Mala Strana, Vinohrady, Nove Mesto
Stare Mesto is the old town and it puts you inside the postcard. You walk out of the door into the square. You also walk out of the door into the crowd, and it is the loudest at night because of the stag parties, which are a real thing in Prague and worth knowing about before you book.
Mala Strana is across the river under the castle and it is my pick for families. Quieter, prettier, the funicular and Petrin are right there, and you can still be on the Old Town Square in fifteen minutes on foot. It costs a little more per night and it is worth it.
Vinohrady is the residential one. Leafy streets, actual playgrounds, restaurants full of locals, ten minutes on the metro from the centre and noticeably cheaper. If you want space and a kitchen for less money, this is where I put people.
Nove Mesto covers Wenceslas Square and the streets around it. It is convenient and it is where the cheap hotels cluster, but the upper end of Wenceslas Square is tired and has a rough edge at night. Look at the exact street, not just the district.
Kutna Hora, Fifty Five Minutes And A Completely Different Day
Silver, A Cathedral And A Chapel Made Of Bones
Kutna Hora was the second city of Bohemia when the silver mines were running and the money from those mines built St. Barbara’s Cathedral, which is one of the great gothic buildings in Europe and has almost nobody in it. Direct trains run from the main station in about fifty five minutes. Get off at Kutna Hora hlavni nadrazi and take the little shuttle train two stops into town.
The famous part is the Sedlec Ossuary, a small chapel decorated with the bones of somewhere around forty thousand people, including a chandelier that uses every bone in the human body. It is astonishing and it is not for every child. My honest read is that it works from about ten upward and lands badly younger than that. Skip it if you have any doubt, do the cathedral and the medieval silver mine tour instead, and nobody misses anything.
You can do the whole thing in five or six hours and be back in Prague for dinner. Buy the ossuary ticket online because entry is timed now.
Where The Money Is Actually Worth Spending
Buy The Hill, Not The Chandelier
Prague is cheap enough that families arrive with room in the budget and then spend it on the wrong things. The wrong things are the river dinner cruises, the horse carriages on the square and the medieval banquet dinner shows. All three are priced for people who will only be here once.
The two upgrades I actually push. First, a flat in Mala Strana with a real bedroom for the adults, because the difference between sleeping under the castle and sleeping out past the ring road is the difference between an evening and a commute. Second, a private guide for the castle complex for two hours. It is enormous, the signage is thin, and a good guide turns a walled district into a story about defenestrations and coronations that a ten year old will actually repeat at home.
If you want one indulgence that is worth it, go up the Old Town Hall tower at sunset and then eat somewhere in Mala Strana afterwards. It costs almost nothing and it is the memory people send me photos of.
The Honest Number Of Nights
Three nights. That is the answer for almost every family. Two is enough to see the castle and the square and nothing else, and four only makes sense if you are using Prague as a base for Kutna Hora or a day out to Terezin. Prague is a small city and it does not need a week.
Day one, the old town on foot
Old Town Square before nine, the Old Town Hall tower, then wander the lanes toward the river. Cross Charles Bridge, look at the saints, and get off it. Eat lunch away from the water. Afternoon in Kampa Island or back at the flat, then out again after six when the city empties.
Day two, the castle and Mala Strana
Tram 22 up to the castle at opening. St. Vitus, the Golden Lane, out. Walk down through the gardens into Mala Strana for lunch. Everybody is tired by two, and that is fine, because you are already downhill and next to the funicular.
Day three, Petrin or a day trip
Either the funicular up Petrin for the tower, the mirror maze and the rose garden, or the train to Kutna Hora. Not both. This is the day people cut when they get ambitious and it is the day the kids remember.
Things I Tell Every Client Before Prague
More From Us In Czechia
Two real posts from the 2010 camper trip, plus the country guide. The featured images on those old posts point at unrelated photos in the archive, so these cards use actual pictures from that actual week instead.
Prague With Kids, Answered
How many days do we need in Prague?
Three nights suits almost every family. Two covers the castle and the old town and nothing else. Four is only worth it if you are adding a day trip to Kutna Hora or Terezin.
Is the astronomical clock worth waiting for?
The clock is worth looking at. The hourly show is not worth planning your day around. It runs about forty five seconds, the figures are small and high up, and most people walk away flat. Look at the clock face properly, watch the crowd, and go up the tower instead.
Do we need euros in Prague?
No. Czechia uses the koruna. Cards work almost everywhere and bank ATMs give you a fair rate. Refuse the machine when it offers to charge you in dollars, and stay away from the exchange booths in the old town.
Is Prague safe for families?
Yes. The issues are pickpockets on tram 22 and the bridge, street taxis that overcharge, and the stag party crowd around parts of the old town after dark. None of that is a safety problem for a family that plans around it, and Prague is one of the easier European cities to walk at night.
Is Prague good for young kids or is it all history?
It is better than it looks on paper. Petrin has a funicular, a tower to climb and a mirror maze. There is a working paddle steamer on the river, a giant crawling baby sculpture on Kampa Island, and trams the kids will want to ride for their own sake. The castle is the part that needs a time limit.
Does using a travel advisor cost me extra?
No. I am paid by the suppliers, not by you. You get the routing, the ticket sequencing and somebody to call when a train from Vienna does not run.
Ready To Put Prague On The Calendar
Send me your dates and how old your kids are and I will tell you how many nights Prague needs, which neighbourhood to sleep in, and what to pair it with so the trip is not just one beautiful crowded square.
Plan Your Prague Trip