A Fairytale City

-Travel/Transport-
Transport in Prague is excellent. They have a metro as well as buses and trams so getting around the city is never a problem.
For me there were three things that made the transport great, it was clean, it was efficient and it was cheap.
You can buy tickets that give you unlimited travel for certain periods. I think it was something like 90p to travel for 75 minutes on buses, metro and trams. I thought that this was really good value.
I never had to wait more than five minutes for a bus and the metro was even more regular than that. I'm quite an impatient person so this was really good for me.
The metro was surprisingly clean, especially when you compare it to the London underground. The stations were clean and very new looking and so were the trains. I was very impressed.
It is important to remember to buy the tickets before boarding any form of transport though.

However, you don't really need to use the transport if you stay in the right places because it is possible to walk to most of the tourist area's. I used the transport when I was still trying to find my way around Prague but with a good map and a good pair of walking shoes there's not really any reason why you need to use the transport if you prefer to walk.
Walking through Prague is really a pleasure. The city is really beautiful and although it was obviously a bit cold (it was winter) I still really enjoyed walking around.
I found Prague to be a very pedestrian friendly city. There are a lot of crossings so there's never an issue with crossing the road. Cars generally stop for you (this may seem like a silly thing to say but I've been to so many places where the cars ignore the crossings and the pedestrians) and there are a lot of pedestrianised areas.
It snowed a lot while I was there and I was a bit concerned about the ground being slippery but almost everywhere I went was salted so that there was no ice or snow on the floor.

-Eating-
We went self catering which was perfect for us because it kept the cost of the holiday down. There was a tesco, which seemed to be the main supermarket, and it sold pretty much everything and like the tesco over here was pretty cheap. There were also loads of mini markets, at least one on every side street, it seemed. There were three on the road that we were staying on and they stocked a good variety of food and drink.
So, basically, you won't starve! If you go self catering there are plenty of places to buy food and drink and the prices are very reasonable compared to the prices over here. You won't have to look far for the food shops.

Although we went self catering we did eat out quite a lot. I was quite disappointed to find that there are so many American chain restaurants (TGI's, McDonald's, Starbucks...the usual suspects) but if you like to stick to what you know I guess that could be a positive thing.
It is not difficult to find a restaurant in Prague and they serve all kinds of food so there's something for every taste. I would highly recommend that anyone visiting Prague tries the traditional goulash at least one, but it's not suitable for vegetarians.

There are a lot of places that are suitable for vegetarians, including a number of places that serve just vegetarian food. If you are a vegetarian it's best to look up vegetarian places before going out in Prague because we did end up in some places where there were only one or two vegetarian options.

I would recommend eating at Cafe Slavia. Apparently it's famous. I didn't know this until I looked it up on google just now to check the spelling on the name, but I can see why it's famous. It's wonderful in there!
It's a cafe, the prices are really reasonable but you get treated as though you're in an expensive restaurant.
The service was excellent. Always very quick and very friendly with staff who couldn't do enough to help you.
The food was great and there was so much choice. The portion sizes are huge. I have a good appetite but I struggled to eat all of my main course and had to leave some of it, so definitely good value for money. They have a great selection of cake which I'm told by my friends are lovely but everytime we went in there I couldn't fit any dessert in! Over all really tasty, huge portions that are great value for money.
Oh, and try the hot chocolate. It's the best hot chocolate I've ever had.
The entire atmosphere in this restaurant is great. It has an art deco look, so very attractive and looks out over the river.
Unfortunately there was no non smoking section and I hate smoke so this ruined the experience slightly for me. However, it's a testament to the greatness of this place that I was willing to eat there so many times even though it involved inhaling other peoples smoke.

If you want a cheap, vegetarian place to try I would recommend Country Life. It's not the best food that I've tried but it is all vegetarian and it's all very cheap. There isn't any table service. It reminded me a lot of school dinners, you go up to the counter, choose your food and then take it to the till. It's completely self service.
This place isn't anything special in terms of service and atmosphere but it's perfect if you're out in old town and need somewhere cheap and quick to eat.

-Things to do-
I did a lot of sight seeing n Prague and I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail here, the things worth reviewing I'll review seperately for those who are interested.
There is a lot to do in Prague and if you do want to see a lot of sights it's worth looking into the Prague card (just search google for it).
I would recommend going to the old town. It's such a beautiful place and when I was there I felt like I was in a fairy tale! Honestly, with the snow and all of the pretty buildings it was like being in a disney film. I don't know much about art or architecture, all I know is that the buildings look great.
There are a number of attractions in old town and I personally really enjoyed going into the old town hall and tower.
On the hour every hour there are crowds gathered outside of the tower to see statues of the apostles going past the window in the astronomical clock. This isn't anything amazing but you might as well see it if you're in the area.

The national museum is another must see for anyone going to Prague. Like most of the buildings this building is amazing and inside there is so much to see. I'm really interested in history and this museum will give you a good overview of the history of the Czech Republic. There's also a zoology, paleantology and anthropology exhibition, but that didn't really interest me so I can't really comment on that.

-Shopping-
Like in most touristy places there are shops everywhere.
I was surprised to find that there was a debenhams and a marks and spencer in Prague. There are a lot of chain stores which weren't personally to my taste. I don't go to a different country to shop in the same shops.
I wanted to buy marionette puppets as gifts and found that there were loads of shops selling them, as well as other souvenirs. It's worth shopping around a bit because the prices do vary. I found that in most of the shops the shop assistants were quite pushy. I really hate that because it makes me feel uncomfortable. They are good in the way that they're happy to talk to you about the product but I would have preferred being left to browse.

-General-
Prague is a beautiful city, I really enjoyed my visit and want to go back but there were a few things that I didn't like.
I've mentioned before that I hate smoking, I just don't like inhaling smoke and people smoke everywhere here. I don't think that I went into a single cafe or restaurant where people weren't smoking.
The city is clean but I found that there was frequently the smell of sewage.

I would definitely recommend visiting Prague. I was there for a week and felt like I needed longer to really see everything that Prague has to offer. I can't wait to go back.

During my recent trip to Prague my friends and I decided that the best way to see as many things as possible for as little as possible was to buy the Prague card.

A full list of what you can do with the Prague card is available at the website (http://www.praguecard.biz/) so I'm not going to list every single thing that the pass will get you but there are a lot of attractions available.

The pass entitles you to four days worth of free passes into the attractions listed on the website and in that time there is no way that you will be able to see absolutely everything. I consider this to be a good thing because it means you have a lot of choice. For the £25 that it cost me to buy this card (please not that the price changes due to exchange rates etc.) I was basically entertained for four days and didn't have to pay a single penny more to get into the places that I wanted to see. I wasn't interested in everything that was available to me so if there had only been enough attractions to last for the four days I would have been very disappointed. As it was we had a good choice of what we wanted to do.
I do think that it would be better if you could choose the length of time that you had the card for and pay accordingly because I personally would have had an extra day just to do a few more things that I didn't get a chance to do.

The saving in money was not a huge amount because attractions aren't very expensive in Prague compared to some other cities but I think it's so much more relaxing to know that you can go to all of those places without having to worry about money.

We did have some trouble actually getting the card. On the website there is a list of places where you can get the card, fortunately one of these was close to where we were staying. Unforrtunately they didn't actually sell the card so we had to go to the tourist information (which was a bit further away) and buy it there.
So, if you do decide to get a Prague card go straight to tourist information and buy it there.

The second problem that we had was that the information on the website was not consistent with the information in the book so while I thought that we had access to certain things it turned out that we didn't. This was very disappointing. Most of the information on the website is accurate but if you do buy the card I would ask to read through the guide book first to make sure that everything that you want to see that's on the website is in the book.

The Prague card comes with a booklet that has your vouchers in (you will need these for some of the attractions), a map and information about what you have access to. In addition to this there are some discount vouchers.
The map was not a great map but it did get us from A to B so I can't really complain.
The guide book was wonderful. The attractions are sorted by area so you know that those are the ones that you can visit around the same time. I found this really useful for planning my time (and if you want to get the most out of the Prague card then you should plan your time, especially as not everything is open every day).
For all of the attractions everything that you really need to know is listed, opening times, the usual cost of entry (although in some cases this wasn't accurate), the nearest metro station and a little blurb about the attraction.

-Summary-

I would recommend buying the Prague card if you are interested in the attractions that the pass will get you into and if you plan to sightsee for the entire four days. If you only do three days or less then it's probably cheaper to buy individual tickets.
But you should buy it at the tourist information and not look for the other outlets and ask to look at the booklet first.

I had an amazing time in Prague and the Prague card really made my trip much easier (I didn't have to worry about paying to get into places and the guide book really helped me decide what to do and when to do it).

Cost: 790 crowns (about £25 when I was there). Travel passes and student discounts are available.

-The Location and Getting There-

The best thing about this apartment is its location. It's located just off of Wenceslas Square which is right in the centre of Prague. Within walking distance is the old town and Charles Bridge. So when it says that it's a centre apartment it really is right in the centre.
Getting there is really easy regardless of where you're coming from in Prague because there is a metro five minutes away. The nearest metro station is Mustek but do be aware that there are at least six exits for mustek. We ended up taking over an hour to walk to our apartment because we didn't realise that there was more than one exit on the first day that we arrived.
This really is an excellent location, I don't think that you could get much better!

-The Apartment-
The apartment is basically two rooms. The first room is a combined kitchen and living room with a little balcony that had a double bed. The second room was a bathroom with a spa bath.
The apartment was exactly as it was pictured on the website so there weren't any surprises there, which was obviously a good thing.

My first impressions when I entered was that it was incredibly cozy, a perfect size for the three of us that were staying there and I loved it. It wasn't the most well decorated or tastefully furnished apartment but that wasn't what we were looking for. We just wanted somewhere reasonably priced in the centre of Prague and that's exactly what this was.

The apartment was clean and tidy. However, when we arrived there was an awful smell of cigerette smoke, particularly in the bathroom and the smell in the bathroom remained throughout our stay. I think it's possible the smell was coming in through the vents somehow because sometimes the smell was a lot stronger than at other times and we didn't smoke at all in the apartment (as we're not smokers). Smoking is allowed in the apartment and ashtrays are provided.

-Comfort-

This apartment was not comfortable. The beds were very uncomfortable. I slept in both the bed and the sofa bed and neither were very comfortable but the sofa bed was particularly uncomfortable. I slept on both sides of it, one slopes so that you end up in the middle of both parts and the other is a lot smaller so it's like you're sleeping in a child size bed. The way that the sofa bed is you can't sleep in the middle because that is even more uncomfortable. It definitely is not suitable for two people to sleep on, which wasn't a problem for us because there were only three of us but the apartment is supposed to accomodate up to four people.

The apartment was very warm which was excellent considering how cold Prague is in the winter. I thought it was lovely coming back after a cold day to such a warm apartment.

The spa bath was lovely (and necessary after sleeping in such uncomfortable beds) but unfortunately there wasn't enough hot water for one bath, two showers and washing up. The hot water ran out one night when I had a bath and did a small amount of washing up which meant that no one else could have a hot shower that night. The apartment was supposed to cater for four people and I thought that this was unacceptable.

This is not an apartment for tall people. Under the balcony sleeping area is the kitchen so the ceiling for the kitchen is quite low. This wasn't a problem at all for me or my friends because we're not particularly tall but I think it's worth mentioning for those who are taller.

I think that having three people in this apartment was fine. As I said it was cosy and perfect for our purposes but any more than three people would have been overcrowded in my opinion.

-Amenities-

There was a small kitchenette which was perfect for our use. There was a two ring cooker, a kettle and a microwave. I was surprised that there was no toaster but I don't think there would have been room for one so I'm not holding that against the apartment. Everything in the kitchen was in good working order.
Cooking utensils were provided but there wasn't a tin opener which I thought was a bit strange and a little annoying as we didn't realise before we bought tinned food (that was our fault of course for just assuming that there would be one).

The living area had a television with satelite t.v which had some English channels and music channels and internet was provided. This made a big difference to our stay because it meant that we could look things up online rather than trecking to tourist information everytime we needed information.
I wasn't very impressed by the fact that some of the lightbulbs weren't working but that's probably quite a minor thing (and I wouldn't have picked up on it if I hadn't worked in a hotel).

Towels were provided for us but I didn't think that one bath and one hand towel were adequate for a week and if I had known that we wouldn't be provided with more than one bath towel for the entire week I would have brought my own with me.

-Customer Service-
The woman who rented the apartment to us was very friendly and very helpful. She provided us with a lot of information in the form of booklets.
However, she told us that we could stay in the apartment until four on our day of departure, which was very generous of her and we were very grateful for that. So, we left all of our bags in the apartment and went out to enjoy our last day in Prague. Then at around three she text us to say that she was at the apartment and needed us out of there immediately.
Needless to say this caused us a lot of stress because we had to rush away from the restaurant where we were eating, without eating the food and with one of us waiting there, go back to the apartment and pick up all of our bags and then take them with us to the restaurant.
I thougth that this was very unprofessional of her and it really ruined our last day because it meant that we didn't actually get to eat (and I'm awful when I don't eat).

-Price-
It cost us £195 for six nights. I thought this was very reasonable considering the excellent location.

-Would I recommend it?-
No. In short I wouldn't recommend this apartment but it is possible that I would stay there again. For me the most important factor in choosing an apartment is the cost and locaton. I would much rather stay somewhere that's cheap and be able to go out more in the city than stay in a great five star hotel and not be able to afford to do anything (I'm still waiting for the day when I can afford to do both).
But there is no way that I would recommend that someone else stay there because apart from it being cheap and in the centre of Prague this apartment has nothing really going for it.

So, it's one star for a great price and one for a great location.

This review is going to be really mixed because there is so much to Prague castle. It's really like going to a little village because there is so much to the castle and the area around it and if you want to see it all then you'll need to spend the entire day there.

-Tickets-
I bought a Prague Card and got the short tour free on that but if you don't have a prague card the prices are:
Short Tour- 250 crowns (£9.22)
Long Tour-350 Crowns (£12.90)
You can also pay to get into individual attractions and discounts are available, as well as family tickets.

(Please not that the currency in Prague is changing so prices may not be accurate.)

-Getting There-

Obviously travelling there will depend on where you're staying but the easiest way is probably to take the metro to Malostranska from there you can get the tram but I would highly recommend walking up the steps to the castle because the view from there is amazing. Of course you can take the easier way and get the tram up and then walk to the top of the steps.
The view is simply breathtaking and while there are towers that you can go up for similarly great views they cost money and this is free. From here you can see all over Prague.
I personally think that it's worth going to the castle just for the view. It was the highlight of my day...but then much of the rest of the day was a huge disappointment so maybe that's not saying much!

-Free Things to do in Prague Castle-

-The Changing of the Guards
I've never really seen the appeal to this but we found ourselves at right place when the guards were changing and stayed to watch. We actually didn't have a choice as we trapped on the other side of the fence and couldn't get out without walking through the guards, which was quite tempting because it was so boring.
I don't like to say that this wasn't worth going to see because it could be the best changing of the guards in the world and it just wouldn't interest me. If you're interested in this kind of thing then go to the castle. It happens every hour and at noon there's a fanfare and flag ceremony.

-The Gardens
It was winter so there wasn't anything great to see in the gardens, all the flowers were dead but I'm sure that in the summer they're a lot better.

-St. Vitus Cathedral
Once again something I have no interest in but if you like Cathedrals then it's worth visiting. It's pretty enough but I personally have no interest in this and thought it looked much the same as any other Cathedral.

-Paid Things to do-

-St. George's Basilica
Apparently there is a lot of history to this place, unfortunately I learnt nothing about it because all of the information (and there wasn't much of it) was in Czech. I don't think I can hold this against them as we were in Czech Republic but it was a bit disappointing.

-Golden Lane and Daliborka Tower
Daliborka Tower is very interesting in my opinion. It's small but it contains so much history and all of the information was written in many languages including English. It's basically a tower that was used a jail where people were tortured. Not the most pleasant of histories admittedly but certainly very interesting.
Golden Lane while very pretty is just a row of gift shops. I was personally shocked that they actually charge you to go to a gift shop...surely that's not good for business!

-Old Royal Palace
Interesting building. It's a shame that they don't have any information up anywhere about it. I would have liked to have found out some information about this building but didn't realise until after we went in that there wasn't any information written anywhere and by that point it was too late to get an audio guide.

-General-
This was a very disappointing day out. I was expecting so much and it delivered so little.

First of all my ticket was supposed to cover the short tour which according to their website includes The Story of Prague Castle. I was really looking forward to seeing this and then when we arrived we were told that the short tour did not include it (it still says on their website that it does). When I mentioned this to the staff they weren't very helpful at all.
Generally the staff were unhelpful and seemed to not really know what they were talking about. I had to ask a couple of members of staff for directions to a place only to discover that it was the same building that the first member of staff had refused to let me into with my ticket. I then returned to the building and was told that yes, it was the right place and I did have the right ticket.

The signposting was confusing. There were signposts but they seemed to either lead to nowhere or back the way we had come. I don't have the best sense of direction but I can usually follow sign posts.

Some attractions had no information at all which I found disappointing because I like to know about the buildings I'm visiting. I wanted to know about the history of the castle but left knowing very little.

I would not recommend buying tickets for the attractions unless you happen to have a big interest in that area. It's worth going to see the free attractions, if you have nothing better to do with your day and as I said before it's definitely worth going up there for the view but the tours are pretty much a waste of money.
And they're not tours. They give you a map and that's it.

I'm giving this attraction two stars, one for the view and one for the tower but I think that's quite generous.
There are other attractions in the same area so you can go for the view and not waste the day but do keep in mind that most attractions aren't open on a Monday (Prague castle is though).

This review is going to be about three things, the astronomical clock, the old town hall and the old town hall tower.
They are all basically the same building but were three different experiences for me.

You do have to pay to go into the tower and the hall, they cost 70 crowns each (which was around £2.30 when I was there).

-The Astronomical Clock-
This is obviously an astronomical clock and it is very pretty but the main attraction is that every hour on the hour the windows open and models of the apostles go past the window.
We were drawn to the clock by the crowds of people standing in front of it and I was really expecting something amazing to happen but it actually wasn't anything spectacular. If you're in the area on the hour then it's worth stopping to watch, it's nice being able to say that I've seen it and it's certainly much more interesting than other clocks like Big Ben but I wouldn't go out of my way to be there on the hour just to see it. You can't really see much of the detail of the apostles from the ground anyway.

The clock itself is worth seeing though and the entire area is possibly one of the most beautiful area's that I visited in Prague so I would recommend going to see it, just don't stand around for ages waiting for the windows to open.

-Old Town Hall-

The old town hall is basically three buildings. There are a number of rooms in there, some of them going back to the 1300s when Prague was four different towns, each with a town hall, but unfortunately parts of the building were destroyed by the nazi's in world war two and have had to be rebuilt. I didn't think this took anything away from the experience, of course it would have been nice to have seen all of the rooms as they originally were but the attacks from the nazi's are an important part of the history of Prague and it seemed fitting that they would have impacted on everything including the Old Town Hall. I have an interest in the holocaust and all things related to nazi germany (as someone who is very anti fascism, I would like to point) so I actually found this part of the history of the Old Town Hall to be very interesting. Historical buildings tend to be adapted a lot throughout history anyway and this was just another, admittedly very sinister, part of the history of the Old Town Hall.

When we arrived at the Old Town Hall we assumed that our ticket would just allow us to look around all of the rooms so we were pleasantly surprised to find that included in the cost of the ticket was a tour. And it cost less than £2.50!

The tour was excellent. We arrived shortly after the tour had began so we missed the first two rooms but the tour guide took us back there after the tour had finished. I thought that this went beyond the call of duty, we would have been happy to just go back and look at the rooms ourself but we were really happy to have the tour guide go back with us.

The tour takes you to the chapel, various rooms that would have been used by the council and then down into the cellars. The whole thing was really interesting. The tour guide was really knowledgable and able to answer any questions that people had. Her English was really good too. She gave everyone ample time to look around the room after she had finished telling us about what the room would have been used for.
This was excellent for me because although I love to go to these kinds of places because I feel that it brings history to life for me my main interest is actually learning something about the history of the building, so having someone there to tell me all about it and answer my questions while I look around is really the perfect way for me to visit a historical building.
There was so much history in this building and although I feel like I learnt a lot about it the tour guide could only really touch on it and give quite brief information, not because she didn't know more but because if she had given any more information it would have been too much. She gave just enough information to be able to take it all in and it did leave me wanting to learn more and really ignited my interest in the history of Prague (I'm hoping to go back at some point).
In the chapel you get a much closer look at the statues of the apostles that you can see when the windows of the clock open. They are much more interesting up close where you can see all of the details.

I really can't speak highly enough of this experience. It was excellent value for money. It was interesting and the staff were incredibly friendly and helpful.

If you do one thing in Prague I would recommend doing this.

-Old Town Hall Tower-

This is basically the tower where the astronomical clock is. You get the lift (or take the stairs if you're fitter than I am) to the top and then you can walk around it and look out over Prague.
The views are amazing! I'm not great with heights so I probably didn't make the most of it but I really loved looking out over the city. Although heights make me nervous I did feel quite safe when we got to the top because there are walls all the way around and it's very obvious that the building is well maintained.

However, if you're going on a budget (and aren't buying a prague card attraction pass) then you could skip this and just go to Prague castle that has an equally great view, possibly better, and it's free.