Five days in Prague: the Central European capital the war left standing

Four nights in the centre: the Old Town on the first evening, a full day at the castle, the synagogues of Josefov, the hills above Malá Strana, and a last morning near the station.

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Length
5 days, 4 nights
Where you stay
Prague
Places
14 across 5 days
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Warsaw was rebuilt from photographs, Dresden burned, Berlin was flattened and Budapest lost every one of its bridges. Prague was hit a handful of times late in the war, the worst of it by mistake, and otherwise came through. That is the whole reason the place looks the way it does: a Gothic centre with a Renaissance layer on top and a baroque one over that, all of it standing where it was put, on a river bend under a castle.

The layout is simple enough to learn on the first evening. The castle sits on the ridge on the west bank, with the Lesser Town below it. The Old Town is across the river, with the Jewish quarter tucked into its northern edge and the nineteenth century New Town wrapped around its southern side. Charles Bridge joins the two halves, and almost everything below happens within twenty minutes' walk of it.

The catch is that a lot of other people have worked this out. Prague takes several million visitors a year into a medieval street plan built for a fraction of that, and between ten in the morning and six in the evening the famous streets are solid. Five days is enough to see the city properly and to see most of it before the crowds arrive, which is the same thing as getting up early.

Highlights

  • The castle at opening time, when the courtyards are empty and St Vitus has nobody in it
  • Charles Bridge at dusk, with the statues in silhouette and the castle lit above them
  • Josefov: six centuries of headstones stacked twelve deep behind a wall in the middle of a city
  • The library halls at Strahov, and the walk downhill from them through orchards into the Lesser Town
  • Beer at a price that still surprises people, in rooms that have been pouring it for centuries

Where to stay

Prague, four nights

About 1.3 million people live here, which makes Prague smaller than its reputation and much smaller than it feels on a summer afternoon in the Old Town. The historic centre went onto the UNESCO list in 1992 and covers both banks: castle and Lesser Town to the west, Old Town, Josefov and New Town to the east.

Stay on the Old Town side if you want to walk everywhere, in Vinohrady or Žižkov if you would rather pay less and eat better and take a tram in. Malá Strana under the castle is the prettiest option and the one where you will be woken by tour groups. Wherever you land, the trip below is on foot with one tram ride in it.

Day by day

Day 1 in Prague

Old Town Square, the clock, and the bridge at dusk

Start where the city has always started. Old Town Square has been the middle of Prague for a thousand years and still carries the whole argument of the place in one open space: Gothic on one side, baroque on another, a Rococo palace, and a bronze reformer in the middle of it who was burned at the stake.

Then wait for the clock. It is famously anticlimactic, everybody knows it, and the crowd assembles anyway, which is part of the fun. Come back after dark when the square empties and the same façades look considerably better lit.

Save the bridge for the last hour of daylight. In the middle of the day it is shoulder to shoulder with people and caricature artists; at dusk the crowd thins, the statues go black against the sky, and the castle comes up floodlit on the ridge ahead of you. Walk it slowly, then eat on the Lesser Town side.

  1. 15:30

    Old Town Square

    Architecture

    Gothic, Renaissance and baroque fronts around one open square, with the Jan Hus monument in the middle, unveiled in 1915 on the five hundredth anniversary of his burning. Free, always open, and worth crossing twice: once now and once late at night.

  2. 17:00

    Astronomical Clock

    Architecture

    First set going in 1410 and still keeping medieval time on the side of the Old Town Hall. The apostles parade on the hour, it lasts under a minute, and half the crowd looks faintly cheated. Climb the tower instead for the best view down onto the square.

  3. 19:30

    Charles Bridge

    Architecture

    Begun in 1357, sixteen arches, half a kilometre long, and the only way across the river in Prague until the 1840s. Thirty baroque statues line it. Come in the last hour of light, when the day crowds have gone and the castle is lit on the far side.

  4. 20:30

    Dinner in the Lesser Town

    Eat

    Cross the bridge and walk one or two streets uphill before you sit down. The places facing the bridge charge for the address; the ones in the lanes behind them do not.

With more time: If you land early enough, the Powder Tower and the Municipal House sit together five minutes east of the square and make a good first half hour: one is a medieval city gate, the other an art nouveau concert hall opened in 1912, with a café to match.

Day 2 in Prague

Prague Castle, St Vitus and the Golden Lane

This is the day to be up early, and the only day where it really matters. The castle grounds open at six and the buildings at nine, and the difference between arriving at nine and arriving at eleven is the difference between a cathedral you can hear yourself think in and one you shuffle through.

Take tram 22 up to Pražský hrad and work downhill, which saves the climb and puts the crowds behind you all morning. Buy the combined ticket at the information centre in the second courtyard; the individual tickets cost more in aggregate and involve more queuing.

The complex is enormous, so do not try to see all of it. The cathedral, the lane of cottages along the north wall and whichever palace catches you is a full and satisfying morning. Then leave through the eastern gate and come down the old castle steps into the Lesser Town for lunch.

  1. 09:00

    Prague Castle

    Nature

    Reckoned the largest ancient castle complex in the world, and still the president's official seat, so expect a security check on the way in. Grounds free, buildings ticketed. There is a guard change on the hour and a longer one with a band at noon.

  2. 10:15

    St. Vitus Cathedral

    Religious

    Begun in 1344 and not finished until 1929, which is why the west front looks centuries younger than the choir behind it. Inside are the Bohemian crown jewels' vault, the tomb of St Wenceslas and a window designed by Alphonse Mucha.

  3. 12:00

    The Golden Lane

    Landmark

    A row of small bright cottages built into the castle wall for the guards and later occupied by goldsmiths. Franz Kafka worked in number 22 over the winter of 1916. Low doorways throughout, and busy from mid morning.

  4. 13:30

    Lunch below the castle steps

    Eat

    Come down the old steps on the eastern side and eat in the Lesser Town rather than in the castle cafés, which charge castle prices for ordinary food.

With more time: The afternoon is free and there are two good ways to spend it. The palace museum by the eastern gate holds the manuscript of Beethoven's fifth symphony among other things, and the terraced gardens below the castle drop in stages down to Malostranské náměstí, which is a slow and very pleasant way to lose an hour.

Day 3 in Prague

Josefov: the synagogues and the old cemetery

Six streets in the north of the Old Town are what is left of one of the oldest Jewish communities in Europe, and they are the most affecting hours of any trip to Prague. The quarter was cleared and rebuilt around 1900 in the name of sanitation, which is why art nouveau apartment blocks now stand between the synagogues. What survived the war did so partly because the occupiers gathered ritual objects here from destroyed communities all over Bohemia and Moravia, and the collections you walk through are largely those.

One ticket covers the sites, sold at the entrance to any of them. Go at opening, take them in the order below, and give yourself the rest of the day: this is not material to walk out of and straight into another museum.

The cemetery is the part people remember. It is small, walled, and completely full, because for centuries this was the only ground the community was permitted to use and the only way to keep burying was upwards.

  1. 09:30

    Pinkas Synagogue

    Religious

    The walls carry the names of 77,297 Czech and Moravian Jews murdered in the Holocaust, hand-painted in small red and black lettering, with the camps listed above them. Upstairs are drawings made by children held at Terezín. Allow longer than you think.

  2. 10:40

    Old Jewish Cemetery

    Historic

    In use from the fifteenth century to 1787, with more than twenty thousand people buried in something like twelve layers because there was nowhere else to put them. The stones lean into each other at every angle. Reached through the Pinkas Synagogue.

  3. 12:00

    Spanish Synagogue

    Religious

    Built in 1868 in a Moorish revival style, with every surface of the interior gilded, painted and patterned. It is the most beautiful room in the quarter and the least sombre. Concerts most evenings, if you want a reason to come back.

  4. 13:00

    Lunch off Pařížská

    Eat

    Pařížská itself is the luxury shopping street and priced accordingly. Walk two streets east into the Old Town and the same lunch costs a third of it.

With more time: The Old-New Synagogue stands a minute away and is the oldest still in regular use anywhere in Europe, finished around 1270 and never repurposed; it needs a separate ticket and about twenty minutes. Afterwards the riverbank between Josefov and the Rudolfinum is the quietest walk in the centre.

Day 4 in Prague

Strahov, Petřín and the way down into Malá Strana

The hill south of the castle is the part of Prague that visitors skip, and it holds the two best rooms in the city. Take the funicular from Újezd or tram 22 to Pohořelec and start at the top, because everything from there is downhill.

The monastery at the top has been here since 1143 and its two library halls are the reason to come. The older one is low and vaulted, with baroque globes standing on the floor between the shelves; the other is high, walnut from floor to ceiling, and topped by a fresco of the whole history of thought. Between them sits a cabinet of curiosities holding dried sea creatures that were sold to the monks as dragons. You look in from the doorways rather than walking about inside.

From there the ridge runs south through orchards to the tower, and then the paths drop through the trees to the river. It is about an hour of walking, all of it downhill, and it ends where the crowds are, so time it for the late afternoon.

  1. 09:30

    Strahov Monastery

    Religious

    A Premonstratensian abbey founded in 1143, still working, with a picture gallery and two library halls that are the finest interiors in Prague. The terrace outside the church has the classic view over the castle and the whole of the Old Town beyond it.

  2. 12:00

    Lunch at the monastery brewery

    Eat

    There is a brewery at the monastery gate with tables in the courtyard. It is not cheap by Prague standards and the view over the city is worth the difference.

  3. 14:00

    Petřín Lookout Tower

    Architecture

    Put up in 1891 for the Jubilee Exhibition and modelled on the Eiffel Tower at about a fifth of the height, though the hill under it makes up most of the difference. Just under three hundred steps, a lift for those who would rather not, and rose gardens around the base.

  4. 15:30

    The Lennon Wall

    Other

    A wall at the bottom of the hill that has been painted over continuously since 1980, when someone put up a portrait of John Lennon and the secret police kept whitewashing it. Five minutes, and best combined with the mill wheel and the canal beside it.

With more time: If the weather is against you, swap the hill for Vinohrady on the eastern side of the river, where Jože Plečnik put a strange brick church on the main square in the early 1930s and gave it the biggest tower clock in the country. The streets around it are where locals eat.

Day 5 in Prague

Wenceslas Square and Mucha on the way to the train

The last morning belongs to the New Town, which is only new by Prague standards: Charles IV laid it out in 1348. It is also where the twentieth century actually happened, which the Gothic half of the city can make you forget.

Wenceslas Square is a ten minute walk from the main station and the museum below is another five, so both fit comfortably before a train or an airport bus. Leave your bag at the station rather than dragging it over cobbles.

  1. 09:30

    Wenceslas Square

    Architecture

    Not a square but a boulevard three quarters of a kilometre long, running uphill to the national museum. Crowds filled it in 1968 and again in November 1989, when the noise from it ended communist rule. Commercial, scruffy in parts, and the real centre of the modern city.

  2. 11:00

    Mucha Museum

    Culture

    One well-judged hour on Alphonse Mucha, who invented the look of art nouveau almost by accident with a poster for Sarah Bernhardt in Paris and came home to spend eighteen years painting Slavic history. Small, central, and a short walk from the station.

  3. 12:30

    Coffee before the train

    Eat

    The cafés on the side streets off the boulevard are old, high-ceilinged and much better than anything in the station itself.

With more time: With a later departure, the fortress at Vyšehrad is fifteen minutes south by metro and gets a fraction of the castle's visitors, with ramparts over the river and a cemetery holding Dvořák, Mucha and Čapek.

Before you go

Getting in

Václav Havel Airport is twenty minutes west of the centre and, as of 2026, still has no train. The cheap way in is bus 119 to Nádraží Veleslavín and metro line A from there, which takes about forty minutes door to door on an ordinary transport ticket. The Airport Express coach runs to the main station instead, costs more, and is worth it if you are arriving with luggage and leaving by train.

By rail Prague is well placed: Berlin and Vienna are about four hours, Dresden a little over two, Bratislava four. Everything arrives at Praha hlavní nádraží, which sits ten minutes' walk from Wenceslas Square through a park that is best crossed in daylight.

Getting around

Walk. The centre is small and the trams and metro are for the outer edges of it rather than the middle. When you do need them, a ticket good for ninety minutes was 50 Kč at the start of 2026 and a day ticket 150 Kč, both valid across metro, tram and bus, and both bought from the yellow machines or an app.

Two things catch people out. The cobbles are real cobbles, uneven and slick in rain, so this is not the trip for new shoes. And crossing against a red signal is an offence here with a fine attached, which locals ignore and police occasionally do not.

Money, and the ways it goes missing

Czechia uses the koruna and has shown no interest in changing. Prices are quoted in it, some tourist restaurants also quote euros, and the euro price is always worse.

Use a bank ATM and ignore the exchange booths in the centre, particularly the ones advertising no commission, which make their money on a rate you only see after you have handed over the cash. Restaurants on Old Town Square and the streets running off it charge roughly double what the same food costs four streets away, and a few still add a service charge nobody agreed to.

Eating and drinking

Czechs drink more beer a head than anyone else on earth and have held that position for decades, so the pub is a serious institution rather than a novelty. A half litre of good lager costs less than a coffee in most of Europe, and in a proper pub the glasses simply keep arriving until you put a beermat on top of yours.

The food is heavy and unapologetic: roast pork, dumplings, goulash, breaded and fried cheese for the vegetarians. It is very good when it is cooked properly and grim when it is aimed at people passing through once. The rule that works is distance from the Astronomical Clock: five minutes' walk in any direction and both the price and the cooking improve sharply.

When to come

May, June and September are the best of it, with long light and the beer gardens open. July and August are hot, airless in the narrow streets, and crowded to the point where the bridge becomes a queue.

Winter is the underrated option. The city looks better under low cloud than it does in full sun, the Christmas markets on Old Town Square run through most of December, and a cold January morning is the closest you will ever get to having Charles Bridge to yourself.

Prague rewards early starts more than any city its size, and almost nothing else. Book two mornings, keep the afternoons loose, and let the light do the work in the last hour of the day.

Everybody comes here for the postcard. What stays with people is usually the hour they were somewhere quiet: the top of the hill at Strahov, the cemetery wall in Josefov, or the bridge at seven in the morning with nobody on it.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is five days too long for Prague?
No, though three days will cover the famous things. The extra two are what let you do the castle at opening rather than at noon, give Josefov a whole morning instead of an hour, and get up the hill to Strahov, which almost nobody on a long weekend reaches.
How do I avoid the crowds?
By clock rather than by route. The Old Town, the bridge and the castle are packed from about ten to six and quiet either side of that, so do the big things at nine and the eating and walking in the afternoon. Charles Bridge before eight in the morning is a different bridge.
Do I need a car?
No, and it would be a liability. Nothing here is more than a walk or a tram ride apart, the centre is largely closed to traffic, and parking is expensive where it exists at all.
Is Prague expensive now?
Less than western Europe, more than it was. Beer, transport and everyday food are still cheap; hotels in the centre and anything within sight of Old Town Square are priced like Vienna. Eating and sleeping ten minutes out of the centre is where the money is saved.
What is worth a day trip if I add a sixth day?
Kutná Hora, an hour east by train, for a silver-mining town with a cathedral to match and an ossuary decorated in human bone. Terezín, an hour north, for the ghetto and fortress the Nazis used as a showpiece, which is a heavy day and a worthwhile one.
Can I change it?
Yes. Open it in your account and it becomes an ordinary trip: move a day, add the restaurants you have booked, drop whatever does not appeal.