Prague

The capital, and one of the fourteen regions of the Czech Republic in its own right.

Best seasonApr – Jun, Sep – Oct

Ideal length3 – 4 nights

Main gatewayVáclav Havel Airport Prague (PRG)

Getting aboutOn foot, metro and trams; no car

MoneyCzech koruna — not the euro

SuitsMedieval centre · castle · river · walking

Overview

Why the Prague region

The Prague region is an administrative unit rather than a landscape, and saying so plainly is more useful than pretending otherwise. The City of Prague is simultaneously a statutory city and one of the fourteen self-governing regions of the Czech Republic — a kraj in its own right — and it is not part of the Central Bohemian Region, which is a separate kraj forming a ring around it. So the region and the city are, for practical purposes, the same ground: a capital on the Vltava with a medieval street plan that came through the twentieth century intact, and a UNESCO-inscribed historic centre covering the Old Town, the Lesser Town and the New Town together. What a traveller does here is what they do in Prague, and the city guide carries it.

🗺 Interactive Map · Coming Soon

Explore the Prague region on the map

City locations, drawn from our published destination data. Attractions, hotels and restaurants are not mapped yet.

📍 View Larger Map 🗾 All Czech Republic Regions 🚆 Transport 🏨 Hotels 🍽 Restaurants

Cities & Places

Where to go in Prague

Prague is the region and the region is Prague. The city guide covers the castle side, the Old Town, Josefov and the bridge between them.

Prague

Highlights

What this region holds

A castle complex on a ridge, a pedestrian bridge across the Vltava, an inscribed medieval centre and a Jewish quarter that survives as monuments.

The Historic CentreInscribed by UNESCO in 1992, the property covers the Old Town, the Lesser Town and the New Town as one ensemble. The point of it is the continuity — a medieval street plan carrying baroque façades, never bombed flat and never comprehensively redeveloped — rather than any single monument inside it.

Prague Castle and HradčanyA walled complex on the ridge above the west bank rather than a single building: courtyards, palaces, a lane of small houses and St Vitus Cathedral at the centre, whose Gothic east end and much later west front are separated by roughly six hundred years of building.

The Charles Bridge and the VltavaBegun under Charles IV in the fourteenth century, pedestrian, gate-towered at both ends and lined with baroque statuary that is almost entirely copies — the originals are indoors at the Lapidárium. The river it crosses is the axis the whole region is arranged around.

JosefovThe former Jewish quarter on the northern edge of the Old Town. Its residential streets were cleared in a late-nineteenth-century slum clearance, so what remains is a cluster of synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetery, where the headstones stand in layers because the community could not extend the ground.

Malá Strana and PetřínThe Lesser Town on the slope below the castle is baroque palaces, walled gardens and stepped lanes running down to the river. Petřín, the orchard hill beside it, is the quietest high ground in the city and has a funicular up its flank.

Vyšehrad and the twentieth-century cityA fortress and national cemetery on a rock upstream, and — beyond the inscribed centre — the functionalist and cubist architecture that makes Prague more than a medieval set piece. Both are what a fourth day is for.

When to go

When to visit Prague

A continental climate with a warm crowded summer, two strong shoulders and a cold, short-dayed winter that some travellers prefer.

Apr – JunThe strongest window. Long days, gardens open on the castle side, comfortable walking weather and a city that is busy without being saturated. Late spring is the best light on the river.

Jul – AugWarm and at its most crowded, with the Charles Bridge and the Old Town Square absorbing most of it between mid-morning and late afternoon. Perfectly workable if you start early and treat the middle of the day as indoor time.

Sep – OctThe other good window and for many the better of the two. The heat has gone, the crowds thin through September, and the autumn colour along the river and on Petřín is worth the trip on its own.

Nov – MarCold, grey and dark early, with the possibility of snow. The city under snow is genuinely beautiful and the museums and interiors come into their own, but the days are short and the castle gardens close for the season. Dress for it and plan around the light.

Make it yours

Plan your journey

Plan My Journey →