Things to do in Prague

Original document from 2017. Updated May 2023.

My friends asked me for things to do in Prague, so I created this list. Its mostly things that I have done in Prague, not aspiring to be a real guide or anything. If you want to see some of my photos from Prague click here.

Laptop friendly places

Zizkov:

• proste tam
• Atrium na Zizkove - it has a nice baby
• Kasarna Karlin - large communal space with concerts, night cinema and several pub. Similar vibe (actually better) to Barbican centre in London.
• Cafe pavlac - nice food and space
• Miners
• Spizirna - usually its ok for working and they have nice food. The chairs are not very comfortable though.
• Boho - 2nd hand store and a coffee shop
• Bistro 8
• ROH družstevní kavárna - quite the space
• prostor 39 - cafe / atelier (an hour of photo shooting is about 500, they provide flash and studio lights)
• Central Public Library - if you need study room with wifi you can go here, its open without registration.

Elsewhere:

• Skautský institut - Scout central. It is the only non-touristic place in that area. (Its just next to the Orloj - Prague astronomical clock.)
• cafedu - this is mostly for students but lately it has been so fucking full :(
• Vnitroblock - large hipster complex in Holesovice
• mamacoffee - chain of local cafes
• nona
• Kofarna
• Kolektor - veletrzni palac. Huge windows and large open space plan.
• Pragovka

Just Coffee

• Mezi srnky
• Etapa
• Kafe Damu - if you ever walk from the charles bridge to Staromestke namesti this is the only ok place
• Kavarna co hleda jmeno - cool place in Smichov
• Kaferna - artsy cafe on your way to Prague castle
• Cukrárna Myšák - very central with amazing selection of cakes. Not good for studying
• Chleba a máslo - bakery
• Kavárna Pod Lipami, nice street with a lot of trees, close from Stromovka which you should check out.
• Letka - nice space, usually too ful for laptops
• Tearoom U Kostela, really good masala. Prague has quite a few tearoms that usually have a very different vibe than coffee places so definetely check some of them out.
• typika

Wine bars

• Cafe Jericho and cafe Velryba just next to it.
• Stara ryba
• Kavárna Velryba
• Barcelounoc - nice and cosy hispter pub
• Večerní kavárna Souterrain
• Kavárna Jarda Mayer - pretty surreal pub, very local
• Le Caveau
• Na břehu Rhôny Francouzská - self service wine bar

Pubs

• Restaurace Planeta Žižkov
• Krymska popular street with a lot of pubs and cafes.
• Naplavka - area next to the river, lots of hipsters and tourists, pubs and concerts. It has a very good view on the castle especially during the night.
• Letenske sady this is a cool place to have a drink and watch the city at night.
• Nadrazka
• Dva kohouti - always full

Beers to try

• Svijany
• Cerny kozel, (Dark kozel)
• Plzen (Pilsen)
• Unětice

Náměstí Bratří Synků pub tour

I used to live here, these are pubs that are very close to each so you can do pub tour here.

• Bašta - very tradional pub and restaurant, I can recommend Quarter roast duck stuffed with potato pancakes and sauerkraut.
• Zlý Časy - another traditional pub which has the largest offer of beers, its just 200m from the Basta.
• Pohoda - this one is aimed at locals, so if you want to get gist of what a night life for normal people looks in Prague then go here. They usually go until 3am and the booz is cheap so get wasted! The night trams are just next to it so you are good to go.

Bars:

• Cobra
• Electric sheep - bookshop and a bar
• Bukowski
• Hemingway - pricy but worth it
• Bullerbyn

Restaurants

• Hotel Imperial super fancy and not that expansive restaurant, you should get a reservation.
• Kantyna
• Maitrea - vegan restaurant, that has Svickova.
• Na slamniku I like the area here, this pub has a good food and nice interior
• bahn-mi-ba - small vietnamese chain of fast food restaurants selling super nice baguettes
• K - the two brothers - indian

Cheap, local or just bad service:

• Restaurace U staré pošty - near central train station, local, cheap, bad service.
• Restaurace U Parlamentu - traditional czech foods
• Hajnovka
• U balbinu - usually rude but i like it
• U kozla
• U Černého vola

Other places

• Slovansky ostrov you can rent a water bike boat here - it costs about $10 and you can get drunk on the river.
• Vysehrad - castle complex. There are pubs on top with nice view.
• Zizkov TV tower - most people hate this tower, I love it. You can walk around in the area it is very chill

Nature

• Walk from Divoka sarka to Podbaba.
• Take a train to Beroun and walk to Karlstejn. Then take a train back. Its about 12 km and super friendly. Walking on the east bank is probably easier, last time I was there the west bank got flooded.
• Stromovka is my favourite park

Good views of the city:

• Parukářka - especially at sunset
• Vitkov - sunset provides beatiful view of zizkov
• Petřínská rozhledna - this park is good but i dont really go as it is quite far
• Letna - basic but cant really beat the views of the river

Money

• NEVER EVER EXCHANGE MONEY ON STREET, it is illegal to offer such a service so it will always be a scam. Just get money from ATM.
• If you want to change euros to czk do it in Mcdonalds or Lidl or Tesco - buy something small and pay with euros, they will give you back money using the official rate. You should not have a problem with paying with Euros in malls and larger chain shops, but in local places or small pubs they might try to give you a bad rate or tell you to fuck off.
• Don't use Euronet blue ATMs. Use KB, Raiffeisenbank, or airbank. Overall most ATMs are fine but euronet sometimes tries to push bad exchange rates.
• Full meal costs about 250-300 CZK (7-10 GBP) depending on how touristic / hipster it is.
• Beer costs about 60 CZK, if it is something special it might be more. If it costs more than 100 CZK you are probably in a super turistic place and it's time to leave.
• If I am visiting I usually spend about 300 on lunch (food and drink), 250 on dinner and 500 drinking at night (that is like 7 beers and shots).
• Pre-drinking is not a thing. Just go to the pub if you want to drink.

Public transport:

• To get from aiport take bus 119 to Nadrazi Veleslavin, it takes about 50 minutes to get from Airport to the center.
• Buy the damn tickets for transportation. The fine is about 60 eur and a single ticket for 90 minutes costs about one Eur, so buy like 10 of them.
• You can buy tickets using the PID litacka application, Android and iPhone.
• Tickets are valid for all modes of transportation, if you buy 3-day ticket you can basically stop thinking about any of it.
• Revizors (people who check tickets) don't give a shit why you do not have a ticket. So make sure you have a ticket.
• Instead ofUber you can use Liftago Android, iPhone which is a proper taxi service.
• If you use taxi on the street ask them to turn the price meter on. They tend to scam a lot.

Logistics

• For navigation you can use Google maps but they don't have all connections. Use IDOS to get around city and country, iOS, Android.
• Install mapy.cz for offline maps and download data for Czech Republic if you plan to do any hiking.
• People walk on the right. On escalators you are expected to stand on the right and make space for people walking on the left.
• Crossing street on red light might get you fined for about 10 EUR.
• Being loud or aggressive is not ok even if you are wasted, so if you are used to UK drunk behaviour you should appreciate how chill people are here when they are drunk.
• Prague is one of the safest cities, here is bullshit statistics to prove it. But while nobody will try to steal your shit violently there is plenty of pick-pocketing, be careful in public spaces. Don't leave stuff behind your back and don't expect strangers to look out for your stuff unless you explicitly ask them.
• If you walk in the center around midnight plenty of people will try to speak to you and offer you drugs or prostitutes. Don't accept either of it. The drugs they would sell you are probably shit anyway. The best strategy to deal with these people is just to completely ignore them, if they are standing on a corner and waiting for you to make an eye contact with them then it's obvious they want to scam you in one way or another. So don't even say "Hi" back or anything, just walk past them.