Prague With Kids: Four Days, No Car, and a Castle Every Morning

Prague is the fairy tale city that is also a real city with trams and playgrounds, and that is why it works with children.

Sleep in Mala Strana, the little quarter under the castle. It is quieter than the Old Town, the castle is a walk up the hill, and the Charles Bridge is at the bottom of the street. Four nights is right. Three feels rushed, five and the kids are done with cobbles.

The castle first, and early. It is a whole hilltop of palaces, a cathedral and a lane of tiny colored houses where the alchemists lived. By ten the tour groups arrive. Go at eight, see the cathedral and the Golden Lane, and be having a pastry in a courtyard cafe when the buses pull up.

The Charles Bridge at dusk. Statues, buskers, the castle lit above you, and a swan or two on the river below. Walk it twice, once each direction, and let the kids touch the saint for luck. It is free, it is the thing, and it never gets old.

The clock, once

The astronomical clock on the Old Town Square does its show on the hour. Skeletons ring bells, apostles pass a window, a rooster crows. It lasts forty five seconds and a crowd of five hundred waits twenty minutes for it. See it once, from the back, then go and eat a trdelnik, the chimney cake, from a stand while the crowd disperses.

A boat on the Vltava for an hour, the Petrin tower by funicular with the mirror maze at the top, and a tram ride for the sake of a tram ride. That is the rest of the list. Petrin is the one the kids will ask to do again.

Karlstejn castle is forty minutes by train for a day out. Cesky Krumlov is three hours and worth its own night, a river town with a castle and a bear in the moat.

Planning Czechia with kids? Start with the full Czechia family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.