Visiting Prague
Visiting Prague will provide you with huge positive experiences. Prague is the most visited touristic site of the Czech Republic. We have been there several times and never were bored.
Visiting Prague and Czech Republic
Czech Republic, also called Czechia, is a country in the Central Europe, although, due to its 20th century history it is classified here rather as belonging to Eastern Europe.
Czechia has borders with Slovakia, Austria, Germany and Poland and its land territory is 77 thousand square kilometres (almost 30 thousand square miles).
This is a very similar size to their neighbouring country Austria (slightly smaller) and central American country Panama (Czechia is slightly bigger). In Czechia live more than 1ten million people; majority of them are Czechs.
Prague is the largest city in the Czech Republic and the 13th biggest city in the European Union; total number of the people living there is around 1.3 million (over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area).
Getting there
By car
If you are in Czechia’s neighbouring country, it may be a good idea visiting Prague by car. Motorways in Czechia are excellent and driving on those is a joy. However, there are a couple things to keep in mind.
Firstly, buy highway vignette; if they catch you without it, fines may be huge. Also, follow speed limits; according to my personal experience, police officers use to hide to stop you with a surprise if you are speeding.
By airplane
If you go by plane, you’ll most probably arrive at Vaclav Havel Prague Airport. Options to get from the airport to the city centre cheap are not huge; there are no metro connection between Prague airport and the city centre, and it is not planned for a foreseeable future as far as I know. The best option, in my opinion (we used it a few times), is departing from airport by bus 119.
After 8 stops (this might be the destination of 119, although I am not quite sure about it; sign next to 119 says ‘Dejvicka’), leave bus and look for Prague Metro Green Line station Nadrazi Veleslavin and board a train going in direction of Depo Hostivar – after six stops you’ll arrive in the city centre (Mustek).
It’s not hard to find metro station because it’s close and just follow the crowd as majority of people will go the same route usually. All journey from boarding the bus to arrival at Mustek will take around 30 minutes. Using private pick-up, shuttle or taxi would not save that much money, however, would cost much more – 10 to 25 euros or even more in some cases.
People say there is also Airport Express bus service (costs about a double of bus/metro transfer, which is still cheap), however I have not been using it and cannot comment for that reason.
There are more options, and you can explore those visiting Prague airport webpage dedicated to transportation to Prague city centre – information is really detailed and useful there.
Getting around
I already mentioned Prague metro – apart of busses and trams, this is convenient way to travel across the city. There are three metro lines – Green (A), Yellow (B) and Red (C). They have plans to open the fourth underground line (Blue line) in 2027 to connect southern parts of the city to the city centre.
Once we lived quite far away from the city centre, however, were able quickly to reach central parts of the city, where vast majority of the best touristic sites are located, by using metro.
After you arrive at one of metro stations in the city centre, we usually prefer to walk, occasionally popping into tram. Metro may be useful to commute between sites located in opposite sides of the river.
More information, including prices, you may find on different websites. You can also explore where to go, where to stay, where to eat and drink in Prague.