Give Prague three or four nights, then take the train. Kutná Hora, Karlštejn and Terezín are day trips. Then pick a direction. South: Český Krumlov, with České Budějovice on the way. West: the spa towns of Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázně, and Plzeň, where pale lager was invented in 1842. East into Moravia: Brno for functionalist architecture, Olomouc for the finest square nobody queues in, Mikulov for wine. Aim for May, June and September.
5 Czechia city guides
Fun fact
Czechia has topped the world table for beer drunk per person for more than thirty consecutive years. The Czech Beer and Malt Association put 2025 at about 121 litres a head, a record low by Czech standards and still comfortably first, and the pale lager most of the world drinks is named after Plzeň.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityIt is the country's official short name, the equivalent of Česko, and the government registered it in the UN name databases in 2016. The Czech Republic remains the formal name for official occasions. Both are correct, and the foreign ministry publishes a page on when to use which.
The realityCentral Europe, and the map is blunt: Prague sits at 14.4 degrees east, about two degrees west of Vienna. The country borders Germany and Austria along most of its edge, was an industrial heartland of the Habsburg empire, and builds in Gothic, Baroque and functionalist styles.
The realityPrague is one city in a country of ten and a half million. East of the Bohemian highlands lies Moravia, with its own dialects and wine. Brno has a functionalist skyline and a UNESCO-listed villa, Olomouc the finer main square, and the western spa towns are another world.
The realityIt is a spit cake with Hungarian and Transylvanian roots and a long tradition in Skalica, just over the Slovak border. It reached Prague's stalls in the early 2000s as tourist food, and no older Czech cookbook carries it. Pleasant hot, but not the national pastry.
The realityBoth are Slavic and that is where it stops. Czech is West Slavic, closest to Slovak and Polish, written in the Latin alphabet with the háček and the acute accent that Jan Hus's spelling reform introduced. Assuming otherwise lands badly with anyone who remembers 1968, so it is worth not assuming.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Say dobrý den entering a shop, a lift or a doctor's waiting room, and na shledanou leaving. Skipping it reads as rude in a way that no amount of politeness afterwards repairs.
- Toast with eye contact, say na zdraví, touch glasses with everyone at the table and do not cross arms doing it. Then put the glass down before you drink.
- The pub keeps your tab on a paper slip under the beer mat, and a fresh beer arrives the moment yours is empty. Put the mat on top of the glass when you want the run to stop.
- Validate every tram, bus and metro ticket in the yellow machine as you board. Inspectors are plain-clothed, they are not sympathetic, and the fine is collected on the spot.
- Take your shoes off inside a Czech home. Slippers will be produced, and refusing them is the odd move, not accepting them.
- Change money at a bank or a bank's own ATM, never at a street exchange booth, and always decline the screen offering to charge you in your home currency.
- Voices stay low on public transport and in restaurants, and the seat near the door belongs to whoever needs it more than you do.
Famous Czech faces
Václav Havel
Franz Kafka
Antonín Dvořák
Milan Kundera
Alfons Mucha
Emil Zátopek
Martina Navrátilová
Miloš Forman
Bedřich Smetana
Leoš Janáček
Bohuslav Martinů
Rafael Kubelík
Ema Destinnová
Karel Gott
Věra Čáslavská
Ivan Lendl
Jaromír Jágr
Dominik Hašek
Ester Ledecká
Barbora Krejčíková
Jaroslav Hašek
Karel Čapek
Bohumil Hrabal
Jaroslav Seifert
Jiří Menzel
Jan Švankmajer
Karel Zeman
Zdeněk Miler
Josef Sudek
František Kupka
Jan Kaplický
Eva Jiřičná
Gregor Mendel
Jaroslav Heyrovský
Otto Wichterle
Antonín Holý
Sigmund Freud
Charles IV
Jan Hus
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
Milada Horáková
Jan Palach
Must-try Czech food
Svíčková na smetaně
The Sunday plate: beef in root-vegetable cream sauce, dumplings, cranberry and cream.
Vepřo knedlo zelo
Roast pork, dumplings and stewed cabbage. The dish most people call national.
Rajská omáčka
Sweet tomato sauce over boiled beef and dumplings. School food nobody outgrows.
Koprová omáčka
Dill cream sauce with beef, boiled egg and potatoes. Divisive, and worth trying anyway.
Kuře na paprice
Chicken braised in paprika cream, the weekday cousin of the goulash.
Kulajda
Creamy dill and mushroom soup with a poached egg. South Bohemian, and the best soup here.
Česnečka
Garlic broth with croutons and cheese, ordered the morning after by everyone who needs it.
Bramboračka
Potato soup with wild mushrooms and marjoram, often served in a hollowed loaf.
Houskový knedlík
The steamed, sliced bread dumpling. It is there to collect the sauce.
Bramborový knedlík
The potato dumpling, denser and greyer, the one that comes with duck and smoked meat.
Smažený sýr
Edam crumbed and deep fried, with tartar sauce and chips. Student food, everywhere.
Utopenec
Sausage pickled with onion in vinegar, "the drowned man". A bar jar, with dark bread.
Klobása
Grilled sausage with mustard and a slice of rye, the market and beer-garden standard.
Medovník
Layered honey cake with sour cream between the sheets. The cake in every café window.
Trdelník
The Prague corner chimney cake, Hungarian and Slovak in origin, sold here since the 2000s.
Kofola
Herbal cola from the 1960s, still on tap in pubs, with real local loyalty.
Svařák
Mulled wine, the fuel of every Advent market and every winter castle courtyard.
Guláš
Beef goulash, darker and milder in paprika than Hungary's, with dumplings and raw onion.
Pečená kachna
Roast duck with red cabbage and potato dumplings, the autumn and Christmas plate.
Hovězí vývar
Clear beef broth with liver dumplings and noodles, the starter before everything.
Bramborák
Potato pancake fried with garlic and marjoram, sold from hatches at markets.
Dušené zelí
Cabbage stewed with caraway and a little sugar, red or white depending on the meat.
Nakládaný hermelín
Soft white cheese in oil with garlic, chilli and peppercorns. The other bar jar.
Řízek
Breaded pork or chicken schnitzel with potato salad, and half of the Christmas Eve dinner.
Chlebíčky
Open sandwiches on potato salad from a lahůdky counter. Lunch standing up.
Ovocné knedlíky
Fruit dumplings under quark, melted butter and sugar, eaten as a main course.
Větrník
A choux ring filled with caramel and vanilla cream. The pastry Czechs argue about ranking.
Koláče
Round yeast pastries with poppy seed, quark or plum jam. Moravian weddings run on them.
Pilsner-style lager
Pale lager, invented in Plzeň in 1842. Order by degree: a 10 is lighter, a 12 fuller.
Nefiltrované pivo
Unfiltered, unpasteurised beer from the tank. Cloudier, softer, best near the brewery.
Becherovka
Herbal bitter from Karlovy Vary, drunk cold as a digestif or long with tonic.
Slivovice
Moravian plum brandy, often homemade, poured at a strength that assumes you are staying.
Moravian white wine
Veltlínské zelené and Ryzlink from Mikulov and Znojmo, mostly drunk at home.
