Why you must go Czech out one of the best preserved medieval cities in the world

Images by the author

It’s a dream, walking across Charles Bridge while it’s as empty as it was when Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt ran across it only seconds after the character played by Jon Voight plunged into the Vlatava in Mission Impossible.

Before the pandemic, it might have seemed like an impossible dream, except maybe on a particularly cold night, such as on March 1, 1785, when the temperature fell to as low as -27.6 Celsius, the lowest historic temperature on record in the Czech capital. Back then, though, budget travel was centuries away. Besides, Prague as well as Charles Bridge dusted in snow is magical in winter, even for those averse to cold weather.

But if you share this dream, the time to go to Prague is now. Get your travel plans in order while much of the world is still shilly-shallying about whether or not it is now safe to travel.

I don’t mean to rush you, but as of April 9, 2022, the Czech Republic has lifted all Covid-19 related entry restrictions for travelers. It means we can travel to Prague more freely. It means that Prague is about to get crowded again.

I bet your friendly Czech hotelkeeper will tell you, as mine told me again and again, from the Marriott to the Mozart Hotel Prague, that there is no more need for masks in the hotel premises, including—horror of horrors!—the breakfast buffet, but play it safe. After all, masks are still required on planes and in city transport, such as the buses and the trams.

But Prague without the crowd is the most beautiful—and so is the 516-meter-long, 9.5-meter-wide medieval stone arch bridge named after Charles IV, the Bohemian king. True, it wasn’t as empty as I hope it would be when I crossed it twice on my recent trip, but there was room to breathe in all the Baroque and Gothic glory of it as the jewel of Prague. There was room to stand before St. John of Nepomuk, the oldest of the original statues still standing on the bridge, and touch it to reap the reward, as rumors have it, of returning to Prague one day. The statue was erected on the bridge in 1683 right at the point where the saint of Bohemia, the first martyr of the Seal of the Confessional, was thrown off into the Vlatava at the behest of Wenceslas IV for refusing to reveal the secrets of the confessions of the latter's wife. If I woke up early enough to be on Charles Bridge at the break of dawn, chances are, I could have had it all to myself.

I was in the Czech Republic in spring in early April, when winter had yet to fully give way. There were days snow still collected on the eaves and the awnings or the branches of trees. It was my second trip out of the country since before March 2020. And, though there was a rush to see as much as possible in the span of my weeklong stay, I would say the trip freed up my soul. I could have spent all week in Prague alone, but I also traveled by car to Karlovy Vary, to Český Krumlov, to Mcely, where the crowds were even thinner. In Český Krumlov, for instance, I had a town square completely to myself in the late afternoon when, once before, when I was there in 2019, a tourist jam occupied every square inch, a sea of hands raised with smartphones taking photos of the brick-red roofs, clock bells, domes, spires, and towers.

Each of these places has its own story to tell, but for now we return to Prague, just as I did after my brief excursions away from the capital. The name Prague or Praha is derived from the Slavic word prah, which means “ford” or “river rapids.” It is said that the city was first built at the crossing point of the Vlatava River, but many argue that the name might have come from an ancient Slavic word related to Czech pražiti, meaning “woodland cleared by burning.”

When we hear the word Prague today, what comes to mind is a fairy city packed with the history of the past millennium, spared as it had been from the bombs of World War II as well as from any large-scale urban renewal or massive demolitions, according to UNESCO.

Prague is arguably Europe’s most beautiful city. In 1992, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site, particularly its historic center composed of the Old Town, the Lesser Town, and the New Town, which are each teeming with neoclassical commercial and residential buildings, Baroque town halls, Renaissance theaters, and Gothic churches. Along with France’s Carcasonne, Belgium’s Bruges, Italy’s San Marino, Portugal’s Monsanto, and Spain’s Toledo, Prague is one of few cities in Europe to have survived from the Middle Ages.

And it has survived the pandemic too.

If I may repeat myself, before the revenge tourists come in hordes again, this is the best time to see the soulstirring views of Prague from the top of the Old Town Hall Tower, where the famous Astronomical Clock is, or to walk down the banks of the Vlatava below the Malá Strana end of Charles Bridge to commune with the swans or to hear mass in English at 10 a.m. on a Sunday at the Church of Our Lady of Victories, where cradled is a 16th-century wax-coated wooden statue of the Child Jesus holding the Medieval symbol of the orb and cross.

I love Prague without the narcissists. If I’m being honest, I love it when the only narcissist there is me and I can have all my selfies against a backdrop of such beauty without hundreds of other narcissists waiting for me to finish looking for the right angle and lighting so they could take their turn.

Though the return of tourists is essential for economic recovery, overtourism remains a serious problem, especially for Prague where, unlike in neighboring Budapest and Vienna, the tourist sites are concentrated in what the city calls the Royal Way, a 2.4-kilometer route connecting the most travel-worthy sights on both sides of the Vlatava.

Having recognized the problem, however, Prague City Tourism since before the pandemic has strategized on solutions, led by promoting less well-known pedestrian trails to redirect foot traffic away from the Royal Way as well as by focusing more on quality tours and unique and optimal visitor experiences rather than on numbers alone.

For now, however, while the average visitor is still hesitant to step out of their Covid safety nets, overtourism is a problem we can set aside and incentives like cheaper hotel rates and shorter waitlists await the bold.

Ah, Prague in spring, when the gardens, such as the Baroque Vrtba Garden at the foot of Petřin Hill, reopen, when you can take a cruise on the Vlatava from the Rašinovo nabřeži embankment in downtown Prague, through the Vyšehrad tunnel, to Charles Bridge, when pop up markets come alive in city squares selling all manner of merchandise, from klobásy or grilled sausages to trdelník, a unique cinnamon sugar pastry, to seasonal produce, such as apples and zucchini.

There’s much to do in Prague when the weather is mild and you need not spend so much time in a queue.