Czechia starts in Prague. Most of the good days never leave.
Which brewery tour pours the unpasteurised stuff. What the castle ticket actually covers. Whether Kutná Hora beats Český Krumlov when you have one day spare. Reviews of every tour you can book in Prague and the country it reaches.
Most booked50-Minute Sightseeing Evening Cruisefrom $21XIIOld TownOld Town Hall Tower Entry Ticketfrom $21IIICastle hillPrague Castle 2.5-Hour Tour Including Admission Ticketfrom $57VIBeerPilsner Urquell Experience & Beer Tastingfrom $25IXAfter darkGhost Walking Tour Where Legends Come To Lifefrom $27In Prague the brewery is a sight, not a detour.
Pilsner was invented ninety minutes west of the Old Town, and the city has spent the century since taking it seriously. Four kinds of beer day, what each costs to book, and which one suits an afternoon you still want to remember.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · Bernard Beer Spa with Beer and Massage Option
Brewery toursThe big houses, with the tasting cellar at the end of it.
Microbrewery crawlsThree or four small taprooms and a guide who knows the brewers.
Pub crawlsAn open bar, a club at the end, somebody else counting the stops.
Beer spasA wooden tub of hops and malt with a tap beside the bath.
All 136 beer days in Prague →
Prague Castle takes a morning. The Old Town takes the rest of the week.
Everything in the old city →
The castle is a walled district with a cathedral inside it rather than a single building, so budget three hours and buy the ticket that covers St Vitus. Down the hill the square, the Jewish Quarter and the bridge sit within twenty minutes of each other, which is why almost every walk links all three.
Grounds only, or the buildings too
The courtyards are free to walk. The paid circuit is what gets you inside St Vitus, the Old Royal Palace and Golden Lane, and a guide is the difference between a queue and a story.
Josefov, and the tower above it
The Jewish Quarter is six surviving monuments and a cemetery stacked twelve graves deep, all inside a few streets. Climb the Old Town Hall tower first to see how tightly the whole thing is packed.
Underground, after the crowds go
Medieval Prague is a full storey below the modern street, and the tours that go down there run at night. Half history, half theatre, and the only version of the Old Town with room to move.
The Prague bookings that fill up first.
The full Prague list →A short river cruise, a castle ticket and a medieval dinner carry more travellers than anything else in the city. What each one costs, and what you actually get for it.
1
50-Minute Sightseeing Evening Cruise
See Prague lit up from the Vltava on a 50-minute evening cruise with audio guide, open-deck views, drinks, and flexible booking.
From · $21
Read our review →
2
Medieval Dinner with Unlimited Drinks
from $75
3
Skip-the-line Castle Ticket and Optional AudioGuide
from $35
4
Castle Tour with Local Guide and Entry Ticket
from $61
5
Prague Castle 2.5-Hour Tour Including Admission Ticket
from $57
6
Oldtown, Medieval Underground & Dungeon History Tour
from $30
7
Vltava River Night Cruise with Buffet
from $81
8
Panoramic Vltava River Cruise
from $16
The country outside Prague is a day trip, not a second base.
A castle on a crag, a chapel decorated in bone, sandstone arches on the German border and the brewery that gave pilsner its name. Every one of these is a coach or a train out and back, and none of them needs a suitcase.
Prague was laid out to be looked at from the Vltava.
The castle, the National Theatre and the whole Malá Strana waterfront were built facing the water, and the bridges were built to be seen from under. An hour on a boat rearranges the map in your head. The cheap ones leave every half hour from the quay beside Charles Bridge.
Prague stays cheap right up until you book a private guide.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it costs. The cheap end here is not a compromise: a tower ticket, a brewery tasting and an hour on the river all sit under thirty dollars.
Tower and museum tickets, the short cruise under Charles Bridge, a brewery tasting, the black-light theatre.
- 150-Minute Sightseeing Evening Cruisefrom $21
- 2Panoramic Vltava River Cruisefrom $16
- 3Old Town Hall Tower Entry Ticketfrom $21
The standards: guided castle mornings, ghost walks through the cellars, dinner cruises and the beer spa.
Day trips out of the city, private guides, and the food tours that run four hours and feed you properly.
Three things Prague does that nobody else bothered to copy.
Gothic squares and river cruises exist all over Europe. A six-hundred-year-old clock with a working calendar, a theatre that only performs in the dark, and a bath filled with beer do not.
The Astronomical Clock
The Orloj has been keeping time on the side of the Old Town Hall since 1410, which makes it the oldest astronomical clock still running anywhere. One dial tracks the sun, the moon and the old Bohemian hours at once; the painted calendar below it turns once a year. On the hour, twelve apostles cross the two small windows above. The crowd gathers ten minutes early and the whole procession lasts about forty seconds.
- 1Old Town, Astronomical Clock and Underground Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 875 reviews
- 2Astronomical Clock Tower Entry Ticket & Audio Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 641 reviews
- 3Old Town, Astronomical Clock & Underground Tour with PragueWay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 463 reviews
Black Light Theatre
Prague companies took a stage trick — black velvet, ultraviolet light, performers dressed to vanish into the backdrop — and built an entire form on it in the 1960s. Objects float, split and reassemble in mid-air, and because nobody speaks, nothing is lost in translation. Several houses run it nightly within a few streets of the Old Town Square.
- 1WOW Show Black Light Theater★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 3,990 reviews
- 21.5-Hour Black Light Theater Srnec Performance★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 1,589 reviews
- 3Skip the Line: WOW Show Black Light Theater in Prague Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 251 reviews
The Beer Spa
A beer spa is a wooden tub of warm water, hops, malt and yeast, with an unlimited tap at your elbow and a straw bed to sweat it out on afterwards. The Czechs make a serious wellness argument for the B vitamins. Whether or not you buy that, an hour in a hop bath after a day on cobbles is an easy sell, and the rooms book by the pair.
- 1Bernard Beer Spa with Beer and Massage Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 4,164 reviews
- 2Beer Spa Bernard with Beer and Massage Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 447 reviews
- 3Caroline Bernard Beer Spa Prague with Beer & Massage Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 283 reviews
Prague is dark by four in December, and that changes the plan.
From November the light goes early and the cobbles turn slick. That is not a reason to stay in, it is a reason to book indoors and after dark: a cellar, a concert hall, a tub full of hops, or a walk that wanted the dark anyway. The markets on the Old Town Square run through most of December.
Out of the city — the day trips
Český Krumlovfrom $19
Bohemian Switzerlandfrom $124
Kutná Horafrom $9
Karlštejnfrom $67
Karlovy Varyfrom $47
Plzeňfrom $7
Bohemian Paradisefrom $115
Terezínfrom $18- Every day trip from Prague →
In the city — by kind of day
Just reviewed in Prague.
The rest of the fresh ones →
Private 4-hour City Tour of Prague with driver & official guide w/ Hotel pick up
Read our review →
Private Bohemian Glass and Czech Crystal Tour with lunch included
Read our review →
Private Vacation Photography Session with Local Photographer in Prague
Read our review →
