Hi all – I have just booked a short break (just three nights) in Prague for my family this summer. Apart from the obvious (the castle and a boat cruise), can anyone recommend stuff that will be of interest to a family (with two 17 yr old girls). I love the idea of one of the underground tours, but my wife is claustrophobic so that probably wouldn't work.
Thank you!
The national museum is enormous, so seeing everything might be a bit much, but we really enjoyed the history of the 20th century exhibition for an hour or two.
We also did a guided food tour when we were there that was really good, started and finished near the beach where people feed and take photos of the Nutria (water rats)
make sure you do your homework on the boat cruises then, we did one spur of the moment and it was garbage, just under the charles bridge a couple of times to the breakwater, dont know how they dared call it a cruise 😀
obviously do the old square with the astronomical clock, then we preferred the area just over the bridge, mala strana, and the prices are more reasonable there.
maybe a walk down to the franz kafka rotating head too, and a photo by the 'crawling babies' statues.
Food, Wine 'o' Clock - fabulous tapas, with manager's choice of wine with courses. Tiny place, fabulous. Book in advance. Take cash. Deer Restaurant, excellent - we stayed in the hotel and ate here one night !
Obviously you need to eat some goulash. We walked about 50 miles over 5 days just exploring.
The train bar is worth a trip ( removed link )
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Staropramen have their main brewery on the west side of the river (Andel district), they do tours and tasting there.
Use the trams to get around, they're frequent, cheap and reliable. Do a bit of research beforehand on buying tickets / passes etc.
Watch it as you come out of the airport, you get the usual touts and scammers offering to change money or give you "special price" taxi rides into the city. The 119 bus from right in front of Arrivals takes you direct to the end of the metro line for about £1.70 and from there you get the metro into town.
My SIL lives there and we drove via Germany last year.
Lasagneria (which STWer doesn’t like lasagna!)
Go to district 6 on the tram, the local bars are great and dirt cheap. Also ditch the kids and have a beer spa!
Do some charity work. U Černého vola (The Black Ox)
As was explained to us having a drink in there, so may be paraphrased and slightly misremembered, but go back 15-20 years or something, and the centuries old pub was in danger of getting sold and redeveloped. So the locals all clubbed together and bought it, and now run it as a sort of community venture.
However unlike a UK community pub, bought out of obscurity because they were never very successful, the Black Ox is too successful and they were making profit with nothing really to do with it. So they donate them to a nearby blind school.
So as your vision goes a bit hazy and you start to be unable to focus, you're literally doing charity work and shouldn't feel bad - you're one of life's givers!
The big tower with the babies crawling up is fun, and the area around it has some great eateries. Avoid the car boot out of town - full of thugs selling cigarettes and dodgy perfumes. Buses are cheap.
I didn’t expect to, but I found the Museum of Communism (sandwiched between Macdonalds and Burger King if I remember correctly) an amazing step back into my childhood and explained the things I saw on the telly at the time….. really stuck with me.
There's a museum of optical illusions which was fun and should entertain teens for a bit. The walk along the river to the John Lennon wall was nice and there's a great bar on the island in the middle of the river in summer. There was also a photography gallery we went to off one of the main squares.
Trams; I read on Reddit to activate your ticket before you board, so did and on literally our first ride an inspector jumped on the tourists to hit us for the 40EUR fine, but reddit saved me! Overall though, trams were great, as were the hire bikes/scooters all around. We also used an Uber service from the airport for not that much money if I recall correctly.
Not for with teens (unless they are into fine dining), but if you were to leave them for the night Salabka was a meal my wife still keeps talking about as pretty much her favourite ever and it was an excellent meal/experience.
There's the VUZ train test centre about 50km due east from Prague. See the latest new European rolling stock being tested, if you peer through the fencing or stand near one of the level crossings.
Not an official tourist destination I grant you, and no visitor centre like youd get at a nuclear power station.
But I visited it every day weeks on end when I was in Prague. But I had to as I was testing a locomotive 🙄
I suppose the Sex museum is out then with the kids - looked pretty crap - we passed it every day as our hotel was nearby.
There is also the 'brutalist' style shopping centre near the old town, good god you've got to go - awful place, but it does have a cafe/bar on the roof for some 'views' - fortunately, not of the shopping centre. Just googled it, Kotva - looks like it's being refurbed....
There was also a photography gallery we went to off one of the main squares.
Ohh, good shout (our daughters are both doing A-level photography). Any idea what it's called?
Any idea what it's called?
Hmm, looking at it we definitely went here https://www.centralgallery.cz/en - but it may have had an additional photography exhibition on as well as the regular exhibits at the time. There may have been another location too - my memory is annoyingly hazy and it's not all beer related (as I was off beer at the time!).
Cameras, stuff to do... Novak House it is then! Cheap and good quality 35mm stuff, art, great cafe, and a lovely place.
@johndoh my bro lives in prague and has recommended a few for you. maybe the one off the main square is this one?
also maybe this one https://fotografic.cz/vystavy/
this one is good for digital art if that’s of any interest https://www.lumia.gallery
he says the first one is the only one off the main square but the others arent far away.
only other one he knows is Prague House of Photography
National Museum at the top of Wenceslas Square sometimes will have photo exhibitions but they change frequently. he just checked and there don’t seem any at present focused on photography
https://www.ghmp.cz/en/buildings/ghmp-dum-fotografie/ again though the exhibitions change frequently so it may be something else completely different by the time they come
hope that helps a little
That's really helpful, thank you 🙂
We went to a chamber music concert (fairly short, honest, and the kids liked it) in the Obecní dům (municipal house ?). The room it took place in was spectacular and there's a quite cool cocktail bar in the basement.
The monastery at the top of the hill was a major disappointment after a big build up. All the guides say that the library is amazing, and I bet it is but you can't go in on a normal ticket (needs a guided tour) and the view from the door is kack.
Not sure Asian food should be top of your list but there's a weird little place called Maly Buddha near the shit monastery. Dark and with a shrine in there too - and the food was pretty good . we only went in because we walked past it so often (our hotel was up there) but it was good food and suitably weird
There's also a Ducla Prague club shop so, y'know ....
The monastery at the top of the hill was a major disappointment after a big build up. All the guides say that the library is amazing, and I bet it is but you can't go in on a normal ticket (needs a guided tour) and the view from the door is kack.
we were exactly the same. my bro's pad is near there and he loves that sort of thing so really insisted we go see the library. we were in for about 2 minutes, saw the best bit was roped off even though we'd paid a tenner(ish) to get in so straight out again.
There's also a Ducla Prague club shop so, y'know ....
ahhh the DP away kit 😀 we asked about that but apparently it was some distance away so never got round to acquiring one.
just thinking of anything else..... if youre up near the castle and cathedral, theres the 'eiffel tower' park, the tiny houses on Golden Lane where Franz Kafka was born, then theres the 6 synagogues in the Jewish quarter and the Jewish cemetary which are thought provoking.
if youre up near the castle and cathedral
We're staying in the Design Hotel, NERUDOVA 44, PRAGUE, 11800, which I believe is very central?
We're staying in the Design Hotel,NERUDOVA 44, PRAGUE, 11800, which I believe is very central?
pretty sure Nerudova (the street) is a fairly steep street leading to castle/cathedral. good news is the hotel is near the bottom end 🙂
that streets quite busy with tourists going up the hill in the daytime, but its a good area (mala strana, our favourite area) with a few decent pubs nearby if you like your beer and some good eateries. also yes youre right, its pretty central for sightseeing.
