HOW TO SPEND THREE DAYS IN PRAGUE THE BEST WAY

A week ago we went to Prague for three nights and like everyone does, we asked those who had been there for recommendations. It’s always nice to know a few things to do or where to go. Hence the post with what we did if you ever need ideas or wants to know what we thought. Prague is a really beautiful city and I would definitely go again, next time in summer.

We really wanted to explore the city and tried to not spend our days in shopping centers or the most touristy restaurants, as they’re usually not as good and we wanted to see as much as we could of Prague.

Where to stay?

Hotel Leonardo

We booked our hotel based on recommendations on booking.com and location. It was fabulous – perfect for a romantic/cosy getaway and walking distance to all the main places! We walked everywhere and there were even restaurants and bars on our street if you don’t want to go far. The room was the cosiest ever and it felt like being in a ski cabin. Breakfasts are my favorite meal of the day so for me it’s important that the breakfast is good and it definitely was! We even decided to do breakfast in bed on our last morning but didn’t order nearly enough so we went down for a second breakfast after haha!

Where to eat?

Fat Cat Pub & Brewery

We didn’t really want to eat in the old town, but one of the days we just wanted to sit down somewhere to grab some easy lunch. Out of the places we saw the Fat Cat seemed like the best option. They served pub food and they had lots of burges which was perfect as we craved something easy like that. From the outside, the place looks like a small pub but in fact it goes far back and is huge! The burgers were also delicious and quite big so we decided to share the fires – definitely our unhealthiest meal but so tasty. I wouldn’t say this was cheap cheap, but definitely worth every Czech crown considering location and taste.

Lehká hlava

This restaurant was literally 50 steps from our hotel entrance, hidden in a small alley and impossible to spot if you didn’t know it was there. I was checking on tripadvisor for restaurants in Prague and found this – a vegetarian restaurant next door. The food was good vegetarian food and the portion sizes were huge. The place was very small so might be good to make a reservation. They also had breakfast/brunch and even that menu looked amazing.

Garuda

This was an Indonesian restaurant about 2-3km out of the old town area. This was recommended by a friend of mine who has a friend, who’s got a boyfriend who is from Prague haha. They had been here and liked it – obviously we had to try it out as it was recommended by a local. We made a reservation because we didn’t know how busy or big it was gonna be on a Saturday night, but probably wouldn’t have needed to. The food was delicious, the cocktails cheaper than coffee in the old town and the place had a really cosy vibe.

Where to drink?

Cobra

This cocktail bar recommendation came the same way as the restaurant recommendation. Go for dinner to Garuda, then for cocktails after to Cobra. The best part is, they are basically next door to each other so extremely convenient. They had very interesting cocktails but they were good. We were actually quite lucky getting a table, because the place got busy very quick. After the food and drinks we didn’t want to walk back so we jumped in a tram that left from just one street down, to right in front of our hotel.

Hemingways

This bar was one of the most recommended ones when I was trying to check tripadvisor for nice cocktail places. Little did we know, it happened to be maybe 30 steps away from our hotel. Hemingways was a really cool cocktail bar – you can only go in if they have a table for you, which explained the long queues outside every night. I read they don’t take reservations after 9pm so before that is your best chance to go if you go without a reservation and don’t want to wait long. Or we were just lucky. The cocktails were amazing!

What to do?

Old town

There is no way for you to miss the old town – all the roads lead to the old town square. I don’t know about other times of the year, but even in January you could just follow the masses of people so I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding it. The old town square (and all of Prague) is so pretty with it’s colorful buildings and churches. There are a lot of restaurants around the old town, but if you are like me and prefer not to go to all the worst tourist traps, then avoid eating all your meals here. The most touristy places are usually more expensive and not as genuine.

Shopping street/center

We didn’t do much shopping because we decided to rather see more of Prague than spend our days inside shopping centers. We did however walk through the shopping street to look around a little and quickly visited the shopping centre. On a rainy day you could definitely spend a few hours in here, but if it’s not, get out and explore! You’ll enjoy the beauty of the city more walking around.

Petřín

On a clear day, a trip to the Petřín gardens will be the perfect thing to do to get the full view of Prague. This is on the top of a hill and there are a few different ways to get up there, taxi, old school tram or walk. We chose the tram. They had different ticket options and we decided to get a 90 minute ticket because it was basically the same price as a 30 minute ticket. This was 80 Czech crowns for both of us (about 3€). I didn’t quite understand how the system worked because on our way down no one even checked them. While being up on the hill we went to the lookout tower because the hill is surrounded by trees so you get a better view from a little higher. We paid 150 Czech crowns (about 6€) each to go up to the tower and the viws from there were incredible! We saw the city, the old town, the castle and the river and it was so pretty!

Charles bridge

This bridge was like Prague’s Brooklyn bridge. Full of tourists taking photos, people selling souvenirs and art. However, if you do walk among the masses you will eventually end up on this bridge and I think it’s worth taking a walk over to the other side.

Beer spa Bernard

The beer spa has four locations around Prague city and one of them was just opposite our hotel (again haha). We went in to book the spa for the following day and they had a few times available in the spa in the old town. We chose a bath for two, without massage and that costed 2590 Czech crowns (100€). You can choose it with a 20min massage each for about 30€ extra but we didn’t. While in the bath, you are then allowed to drink an unlimited amount of beer. There’s a tap next to the bath from which you can pour your own drink. It was actually fun and after we got two beer bottles to go (which we unfortunately couldn’t bring back because they were too big to take in hand luggage) and a certificate from doing the bath. I thought this was a really fun experience!

Ice Pub

The ice pub is a room completely made of ice and everything inside is made out of ice too. It is a -7 °C and they serve your drink from an ice cube! It’s about 10€ for the entrance and it includes one drink inside. They let people in in small groups and it’s a 30 minute slot for each group. It actually got so cold inside we decided to leave after about 10-15 minutes, but we had to get to the airport anyway so… I though it was pretty cool, but we went here in the middle of the day on a Sunday and there were about 6 others there with us. It would probably have been even better if there was more people because now it was pretty much just an empty cold room with music.

General tips

There’s always those few annoying things you wish you thought of before and here are the two main ones for us.

Always ask for a menu

On our way back from Petrin gardens, we stopped off for a coffee and made the mistake of ordering them without looking at the menu. We ended up paying 10€ for our coffees which such a mug! That was how much as we paid for four cocktails the night before. So make sure to always check the menu before you order anything!

Have cash for taxis

Most of Prague accepts card even if I’d say many of the places would prefer you pay cash. We got about 100€ worth of cash out because we heard taxis are better to pay cash and then to have some just in case. On our way home we pre booked a taxi with TICK TACK because they “offered a 15% discount”. Our hotel called the taxi company for us and when it arrived we asked the driver if we can pay with card and he replied in english and said this would work just fine. When we got to the airport and I got my card out he started to ask for cash” and pointed at an ATM indicating he wanted me to get cash out. We asked him what this was about, because he said before card would be fine. Suddenly he forgot all his English and only spoke Czech. Somehow after a while he then did get out a card machine from somewhere and took the payment, but only charged about half the price and wanted me to get cash out for the rest. Ridiculous. Well we kindly refused and gave him whatever cash we had, said we hope this is ok and left him there shouting. Lesson learned, have cash for taxis.

Published by Carolina Törnqvist

28 years old, working and living in Helsinki, Finland. Currently studying to take a private pilot license. Love to travel, explore and experience new things while still wanting to live sustainable. My whole life is my hobby and I want to do things that make me happy and always follow my gut feeling. Follow my blog for a mix of lifestyle, recipes, travel, sustainability and pretty much anything between heaven and earth.

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