Prague is compact enough that the whole historic core fits inside a two-hour walk, which is exactly why a day here goes wrong. The distances are short and the crowds are not, so the day is won by hour rather than by route: Charles Bridge at seven in the morning is a stone bridge with statues on it, and the same bridge at noon is a queue with a view.

Take the tram up and walk down

Prague Castle sits on a hill, and most visitors climb it. There is no reason to.

Tram 22 runs from the centre to the Prazsky hrad stop, which leaves you level with the castle’s northern gate, and from there the entire rest of the day is downhill: through the castle grounds, down the Old Castle Steps or through the Fürstenberg garden, into Mala Strana, over the bridge, into the Old Town. Doing it in reverse means arriving at the castle already tired and paying for it all afternoon.

The tram ticket needs validating in the yellow box on board, not at the stop. A 30-minute ticket covers the ride; the 90-minute one is better value if you plan two more journeys. Inspectors are frequent, they are in plain clothes, and the fine for an unvalidated ticket is charged on the spot in cash or card.

The funicular up Petrin hill runs on the same city transport ticket, which is the cheapest lift in Prague and one most visitors pay a separate fare to avoid.

The castle is free to walk through, and mostly free to see

Entry to the castle grounds costs nothing. The courtyards, the lanes, the views over the red roofs from the ramparts: all open, all free, security check at the gate. What you buy a ticket for is the interiors, and the standard circuit covers St Vitus Cathedral beyond the first few metres, the Old Royal Palace, St George’s Basilica and Golden Lane.

St Vitus deserves the ticket for one window. The Alfons Mucha stained glass in the third chapel on the north side was made in 1931, and it is nothing like the medieval glass around it: art nouveau, in flat panels of blue and gold, telling the story of Cyril and Methodius. It is lit best in the morning.

The changing of the guard happens at the main gate every hour. At noon it is the full version, with a fanfare played from the windows above the first courtyard, and it draws a crowd twenty minutes early.

Mala Strana, and the garden nobody queues for

The Wallenstein Garden, behind the Senate building on Valdstejnske namesti, is open from April to October and costs nothing. It holds a baroque loggia, a wall of artificial stalactites made of dripped mortar, and a colony of peacocks that wander the lawns. It sits four minutes from the Charles Bridge tower, and it is empty while the bridge is full.

The John Lennon Wall nearby is repainted continuously and has been since the 1980s, when writing on it was a political offence. Whatever is on it when you arrive will be gone within weeks.

Mala Strana’s restaurants along the main route are priced for the walk from the bridge. The streets one block off it are not.

The astronomical clock, and honest expectations

The clock on the Old Town Hall performs every hour, on the hour, from nine in the morning to eleven at night. The apostles pass the windows, the skeleton pulls a rope, a cockerel crows, and it is over in about forty-five seconds.

People wait half an hour for this and then look at each other. The mechanism dates from 1410 and is the oldest astronomical clock still running anywhere, which is the actual reason to stand there; the show was added centuries later and was never the point. Read the dial instead: the outer ring gives Old Bohemian time, counting from sunset, and the inner one tracks the sun and moon through the zodiac.

The tower above it has a lift and a ticket, and the view down onto the Old Town Square is the one that shows you the shape of the medieval street plan.

Money, and the trick the law now protects you from

Czechia uses the koruna, not the euro.

Exchange offices in the tourist streets advertise 0% commission in large letters and then apply a rate about a fifth worse than the market, which is where the money is made. The numbers on the board are frequently the sell rate rather than the buy rate, and a small sign says so in text nobody is meant to read.

Since 2019 there is a law that helps. A customer has the right to cancel a currency exchange and get their money back within three hours of the transaction, for amounts up to 1,000 euro or the equivalent, and the office must display this notice. If you walk out and realise the rate was bad, walk back in.

Paying by card is generally the simpler answer, and declining the machine’s offer to charge you in your home currency saves a few per cent every time.

Beer, which is cheaper than water and taken seriously

A half litre of Pilsner in a Prague pub often costs less than a bottle of mineral water on the same menu, and this is not a joke about the country: beer here is priced as an everyday drink and taxed as one.

Order by size, in decilitres. Ask for a “velke pivo” and you get half a litre, “male” gets you 300 millilitres, and the tapping style matters enough to be listed: hladinka is the standard pour with a firm head, snyt is mostly foam and drunk fast, mliko is nearly all foam and sweet. A good pub will have all three on a card.

U Fleku has been brewing on the same site since 1499 and will bring you a herbal spirit you did not order and charge for it. Say no clearly.

Prague, Vienna and Budapest sit within four hours of each other by train, and the three of them make an obvious week on any longer trip through Europe: Vienna is next down the line, with Budapest after it.

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