12 Hidden Gems in Prague That Locals Actually Use

Most visitors see the same 1.5 square kilometres of Prague and leave thinking the city is a beautiful open-air museum. It is much more than that. Here are the places I take friends to when they visit me, all of them a short tram ride or a ten-minute walk from the centre.

Viewpoints without the queue

• Riegrovy sady – a sloping park in Vinohrady with a beer garden and the best sunset over the castle skyline.
• Vyšehrad – the old fortress on the other hill: ramparts, a cemetery full of Czech legends, and almost no tour groups.
• Letná park – the view straight down the river over all the bridges, with a beer garden under the trees.
• Petřín's rose garden – the top of the hill without paying for the tower.

Neighbourhoods worth an afternoon

• Vinohrady – leafy avenues, independent cafés and the strange, magnificent Church of the Most Sacred Heart.
• Karlín – rebuilt after the 2002 floods into the city's best food and coffee district.
• Holešovice – galleries, the DOX contemporary art centre, and a covered market hall.
• Žižkov – the scruffy, funny, bar-heavy district with the TV tower and its crawling sculpted babies.

Small places most people walk past

• Vrtba Garden – a tiny Baroque terraced garden in Malá Strana, hidden behind an unmarked door.
• Franciscan Garden – a walled green pocket a few metres from Wenceslas Square, and nobody in it.
• The Kampa water wheel and the Čertovka canal, at the quiet end of the island.
• Náplavka riverbank – the Saturday farmers' market and, in summer, boat bars along the embankment.

How to eat and drink like a local

The rule is simple: the further you get from a main square, the better the food and the lower the price. A half-litre of excellent Czech beer costs around 50–65 CZK in a neighbourhood pub and double that on the tourist strip. Lunch menus (denní menu) on weekdays are the best value meal in the country.

• Look for handwritten daily menus on the door – that is where locals eat.
• Order a beer by size: malé (0.3l) or velké (0.5l).
• Tipping is usually rounding up, 5–10% is generous.
• Ask for tap water explicitly; it is safe and excellent here.

Getting around

Prague's trams and metro are cheap, punctual and easy. Buy a 24-hour or 72-hour ticket, validate it once, and forget about it. Tram 22 is a sightseeing tour in disguise: it runs from the New Town up past the castle for the price of a normal ticket.

All of these spots, and around two hundred more, are pinned on the secret map of Prague with photos, notes and one-tap navigation, so you can find the good version of any street you happen to be standing on.