Four Days in Prague: A Guide

Strolling through the Old Town

Prague is a famously beautiful city loaded with architecture, history, and culture. We went when the temperatures were near zero, and there were few tourists, which made it easier to see sights without crowds but also left the city eerily deserted in the evenings. Prague escaped the heavy bombardments experienced by other European cities during World War II, so the city is very well-preserved. The real pleasure is strolling its streets and imagining that you’ve gone back in time.

Things to Do

Prague Castle

Prague Castle is an excellent starting point for grounding yourself in Czech history. The centerpiece of the castle complex is the elaborate St. Vitus Cathedral, whose enormous spires give the castle its most romantic aspect. The Old Royal Palace provides detailed explanations of the succession of dynasties that ruled Prague and the various functions of the castle, as well as notable events — the Third Defenestration of Prague, the genesis of the Thirty Years’ War, occurred in the Old Royal Palace. The history is chilling, literally and figuratively. You can thaw in the small tea room off the square below the Cathedral.

Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum is a series of linked historical synagogues that survived the ghetto’s redevelopment in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Most are no longer functioning as synagogues but serve as homes to the museum exhibits describing the thousand-year history of Jews in Prague. Each is notable and moving. Highlights for me were the Altneuschul from 1270, remarkably intact and a working synagogue; the Pinkasova shul, with its painstaking mural of Czech Holocaust victims; and the Spanish Synagogue with its Moorish-inspired interior and display of artifacts from Terezin.

The gothic sanctuary of the Altneuschul, with its ribbing altered to avoid depicting a cross

Terezin (Theresienstadt)

Terezin is weird and unsettling; paradoxically full of the ghosts of the people who suffered and labored and perished there, and yet deserted and silent, so empty and devoid of people as to feel utterly hollow and not a real place of agonies. The one remaining makeshift shul, located in a shed in a courtyard, is inscribed with a harrowing and heartbreaking plea from tachanun, the supplication prayer: “And yet despite all this, we have not forgotten Your Name; please, do not forget us.” The artist perished in Auschwitz, but he is not forgotten, as long as people bear witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust.

“Although the sense of abandonment in this fortified town […] was extraordinarily oppressive, yet more so was the forbidding aspect of the silent facades. Not a single curtain moved behind their blind windows […] What I found most uncanny of all, however, were the gates and doorways of Terezin, all of them, as I thought I sensed, obstructing access to a darkness never yet penetrated…” (Austerlitz, p. 189-190)

Old Town Square

The Old Town, and especially the Old Town Square, are charming, beautiful, and evocative. The fairy-tale spires of the Tyn Church, the medieval Astronomical Clock, the pastel baroque facades of surrounding buildings: they’re all perfect and transporting. Go during the day and again at night, wander through the winding streets, and be enchanted.

The Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square

Tour the State Opera

The State Opera reopened recently after a full restoration to its original 19th century glory, after years of half-hearted repairs. The interior is lush, ornamental, and highly rococo; among the many striking design elements, the stage features an elaborate trio of curtains, including an iron curtain to protect from fire. The iron curtain literally came down during our tour, a deeply ironic moment in a venue only steps from Wenceslas Square and once appropriated by Nazis, who used to organize assemblies there, and the Communists, who let it decay.

Crossing Charles Bridge to the Mala Strana

Chaz Four was a cultural and architectural visionary who gave the world the gift of Prague’s greatest gothic structures, including the Charles Bridge. Join every other tourist in Prague and amble across the bridge to the Mala Strana. The Mala Strana, the area just below Prague Castle, is home to several museums, parks with great views of the city, elegant villas now functioning as embassies, trendy cafes, and stylish shops. You can find curated art and homeware from Czech makers at Le Temps Des Cerises and English-language books at Shakespeare a Synove.

Looking at the Mala Strana from Prague Castle; Charles Bridge is left of center

Museum of Communism

The Museum of Communism is a punchy and detailed museum spanning the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic until the Velvet Revolution of 1989, a modern complement to the historical Prague Castle. The descriptive copy is very readable and pointedly anti-Communist; the museum pulls no punches in describing the devastation wrought by Communist industrial policies and the political persecution of Czechs, including a reenactment of a border fence complete with a discomforting soundtrack of an unsuccessful escape.

Slivovitz Museum

The Slivovitz Museum is a relatively small whizz-bang museum about the R. Jelinek slivovitz company that includes a hilariously ridiculous 4-D virtual reality experience of “becoming a plum.” The history is poignant — several of the Jelinek family members were killed in the Holocaust and the company was later seized by the Communists. We specifically bought the tickets that included the premium tasting, which was a few koruna extra but offered a small flight of kosher slivovitz. Cue extreme excitement re: kosher option, which all came crashing down when the flight arrived with three little snacks including bacon-wrapped dates and prosciutto. WITH KOSHER SLIVOVITZ. HELLO. NO ONE ORDERING KOSHER SLIVOVITZ IS GOING TO EAT PORK. HOW. WHY. Y U DO DIS.

Entering the Slivovitz Museum

Food

Eska

Super cool, super inventive, and super delicious: Eska is a phenomenal bakery and restaurant in a converted warehouse serving a modern take on Czech cuisine. The menu and interior are hip and artisanal: the plating is creative and colorful, with clever and playful presentation, and the industrial interior is painted a gleaming clean white, elevating the former warehouse into an airy and light space. The bread alone is worth the trip into the Karlin district where Eska is located.

Cafe Savoy

Prague has several old-world style cafes with high ceilings, elaborate designs, and chandeliers; my favorite was Cafe Savoy in the Mala Strana, where the interior is traditional and the menu is modern. The coffee drinks arrive beautifully presented on small salvers and the cafe menu offers French- and Viennese-inspired small dishes, in addition to traditional Czech pastries.

Food Lab

Food Lab is a chic bar and restaurant with a very trendy interior design and flavorful menu. Like Eska, the cuisine is a contemporary take on traditional Czech foods. The food is bright and well-seasoned, but the drinks menu seems determined to leave Czech beverages behind: the restaurant only serves one type of beer. Trailing greenery hangs from the ceiling over a black-and-white tiled floor and stylish barrel chairs, so if you’re looking for a restaurant that screams Pinspiration, Food Lab is a great choice.

Bakeshop

With huge picture windows, a charming tiled floor, and a location near the major sights of Old Town, Bakeshop is a good choice for breakfast or a light lunch. The savory pastries were crispy and well-flavored, especially the vegetarian Cornish pasty and spinach quiche. We tried their pumpkin pie (fine) and the cherry-apple galette (delicious), and the coffee is good too.

Enjoying a latte on the benches outside Bakeshop

EMA Espresso

Coffee aficionados will appreciate how seriously the baristas at this minimalist and airy cafe treat the brewing process: we watched them use some kind of coffee geiger counter to measure the level of extraction from the beans (?). They also offer a small variety of light cafe fare, including a cauliflower, tofu, and pear chutney sandwich, which was kinda weird, honestly, but if you eat around the cauliflower it is very delicious!

Trdelnik

Trdelnik doesn’t refer to a specific cafe or restaurant. It’s the name of a Slovak pastry made from a sweet dough wrapped around a metal rolling pin spit thing and cooked over an open flame, then rolled in cinnamon sugar, and it’s delicious. Think soft pretzel meets challah. I only ate one and I regret that now. You can find Trdelnik at various street stands around Prague, and there’s even a kosher Trdelnik shop near the Jewish Museum.

Kosher trdelnik near the Jewish Museum