Currency
Czech republic does not use Euro, but rather its own currency called Czech crown ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_koruna ), abbreviated CZK. The exchange rate is around 23 ~ 25 CZK for 1 Euro. Credit card payments are widely accepted and visitors can mostly manage without the cash with the exception of street markets.
Warning: Pay extreme attention to the currency exchange scams in Prague. There are plenty of scam exchange offices (even looking trustworthy on the first look), which offer extremely unfavorable exchange rate or hidden extremely high transaction fee. One can loose 30% of the value or more due to the wrong exchange rate. Recommendation: Always ask how much get before you do the exchange and if the offered amount of CZK does not meet the expectation, be ready to walk away.
How to get to Prague
Prague international airport ("PRG", also known as "Vaclav Havel International Airport") is very close to Prague and is easily accessible by a public transport, ~45 minutes distance from the city center
The Prague main train station ("Praha Hlavni Nadrazi") is almost in the city center with a good connection to the public transport (metro/subway, tram).
Public transport
Prague busses, trams and metro/subways are operated by a same company and several durations of ticket are available: 30 min, 90 min, 24 hours, 72 hours. It is allowed to combine multiple lines and means of transport within the given period of time of the ticket. Detailed info is here: https://www.dpp.cz/en/fares/fare-pricelist . A ticket must be validated in the validation machine upon the entry into the bus, tram, or metro/subway tunnel.
Paper tickets can be purchased in the orange wending machines, which are located in every metro/subway station and also on some tram/bus station. Some trams and some busses do offer the option to buy the ticket directly inside in a dedicated machine by a credit card.
It is also possible to buy tickets (and validate them for usage) in the mobile phone via a dedicated official app: https://app.pidlitacka.cz/ . Please beware the 2 minutes delay until the electronic ticket gets validated. It is not allowed to hop in until the validation is done (and one can get caught and fined if you hop in without validated ticket).
Connections can be searched via few search engines:
- https://idos.idnes.cz/en/vlakyautobusymhdvse/spojeni/ (searches in english)
- https://www.dpp.cz/en (the official web, but results are in czech only)
The official connection search engine ( https://www.dpp.cz/en ) is not fully translated to english. The precise connection search works from the official app ( https://app.pidlitacka.cz/ ) or IDOS app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.mafra.jizdnirady , https://apps.apple.com/cz/app/id473503749 )
Connection from/to the airport:
- bus number 119 to "Nadrazi Veleslavin", then metro/subway green line "A" to the city center
- bus number 100 to "Zlicin", then transfer to metro/subway yellow line "B" to the city center
- AE (Airport Express) to the main train station ("Hlavni Nadrazi") - a faster, but slightly more expensive bus. This connection needs a 100 CZK (~4 Eur) dedicated ticket, which can be also purchased in the bus
- TAXI:
The only company officially allowed to operate at the airport is "TICK TACK" company. Other companies (and Uber, Bolt) have restricted access to the airport.Airport information link. The price to/from the FZU is approx. 700 CZK ( ~30 EUR).On September 26 there has been a change of the official taxi company, which is now Uber. Airport information link. Taxi can be ordered via an app, self-service kiosks, or a service counter with assistants at each terminal.
Language
The czech language is a slavic language and does not share many words with english. Since Prague is a big tourist city, english communication is generally not a problem, but not always. Here is an emergency vocabulary:
| English | Czech (written) | pronunciation |
| beer | pivo | /pɪvɔ/ |
| 2 beers | dvě piva | /dvjɛ piva/ |
| 3 beers | tři piva | /tr̝̊ɪ piva/ |
| 4 beers | čtyři piva | /t͡ʃtɪr̝ɪ piva/ |
| 5 beers | pět piv | /pjɛt piv/ |
| I pay by card | platím kartou | /placɪ:m kartɔu̯/ |
| I pay cash | platím hotově | /placɪ:m ɦɔtɔvjɛ/ |
| hotel | hotel | /ɦɔtɛl/ |
| taxi | taxi | /taksɪ/ |
| thank you | děkuji | /ɟɛkujɪ/ |
| hello | dobrý den | /dɔbriː dɛn/ |
| hello (to a friend) | ahoj! | /ʔaɦɔj/ |
| good bye | na shledanou | /na zɦlɛdanɔu̯/ |
| good bye (to a friend) | ahoj! | /ʔaɦɔj/ |
| please | prosím | /prɔsiːm/ |
For other phrases you can use the English->Czech translator, for example https://translate.google.com/?sl=en&tl=cs (which can help also with the pronunciation)
