Prague: Fairy-Tale City, €2 Beers, and Stag Parties as Far as the Eye Can See

Complete Prague 2026 guide: the Castle, Jewish Quarter, the best beers and all the tips to visit the Czech capital without missing anything important, stag parties included.

I went to Prague for a hen party. Not my own. It was for a friend of a friend I knew well enough to be invited and insufficiently enough to decline gracefully. I arrived on Thursday thinking I'd stay the weekend.

Some things change plans. Other things make them entirely obsolete. The Prague Spring — Eastern Europe's most important classical music festival, held annually since 1946 — was starting the following Monday. The Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum. The hen party ended on Saturday. I stayed until the following Thursday. Prague has that effect.

Prague Castle dominates the city from Hradčany hill with the authority of something that's been there since the 9th century and has no intention of moving. It's the world's largest inhabited castle complex and houses St Vitus Cathedral, whose Gothic stained glass transforms morning light in a way that justifies waking early. — the combination includes the Royal Palace, St George's Basilica and the legendary Golden Lane where Kafka briefly lived and where there are now souvenir shops. Kafka would have made it into a novel.

Charles Bridge is Prague's postcard and it deserves the early start. At dawn, before 7am, you have it nearly to yourself: the 30 Baroque statues of saints, the Vltava River, the Gothic towers in the background and a morning mist that makes everything look like a scene from an 18th-century book. By 11am it's the background for four million photographs taken by people you don't know.

Josefov, the Jewish Quarter, is arguably Prague's most important visit. — the combination ticket gives access to six synagogues and the medieval cemetery where twelve generations of Prague's Jewish community are buried in 12,000 square metres. It's one of those places that changes your perspective on Europe and on history and on what it means for something to survive when everything around it didn't.

The Vinohrady neighbourhood, away from tourist circuits, has the city's best specialty coffee shops, modern Czech cuisine and craft beer halls where a Pilsner Urquell costs under two euros. In 2026 this remains one of Europe's finest statistical facts.

through the historic centre is the most intelligent way to start — local guides know the stories that appear in no printed guidebook, including why the Astronomical Clock was built in 1410 and what was done to the master clockmaker when he finished it. (It's not pleasant. It's perfectly medieval.)

For getting around: Prague's metro and trams are efficient and cheap. The historic centre is entirely walkable, in comfortable shoes, because the cobblestones are beautiful but have no sympathy for your knees.

A practical note: city centre café and hostel wifi varies considerably in quality — if any work depends on a secure connection. And although Prague is not in the euro zone, airport ATMs and exchange bureaus are expensive: and pay in Czech crowns at the real exchange rate with no fees.