Three Days Deep in Prague

Drop your bags at your Old Town accommodation — ideally within walking distance of everything on today's agenda — and let the city's geometry start to make sense on foot.

Start as the locals do: a proper Czech goulash in a centuries-old tavern where the room smells of slow-cooked meat and dark beer. U Červeného Páva is the kind of place that makes you question every tourist-facing restaurant you've ever been steered toward.

Let the afternoon be unscheduled. Walk from the Astronomical Clock up through Josefov, cross Charles Bridge, and find your own rhythm in the lanes — no map, no agenda, just the city doing its work.

A vaulted cellar space below Old Town streets, Kafka pairs literary atmosphere with modern Czech cooking that actually earns the setting. Order something that requires time to eat — the evening is yours.

End the night underground in a cramped Old Town cellar where the acoustics are far better than they have any right to be. Jazz Republic draws real musicians and a crowd that comes to listen — get there early enough to claim a stool near the stage.

Take a slow start at any café near your accommodation before heading south toward New Town. Prague rewards people who don't rush.

A brewery restaurant in New Town where the beer on your table was brewed a floor away. The Czech fare is hearty and honest, the hall is loud in the best sense, and a house-brewed dark lager is the only reasonable pairing for the pork knee.

Walk south along the river to the Vyšehrad citadel for sweeping views over the Vltava, then loop back through New Town's Art Nouveau boulevards. This part of the city tells a different story than the medieval centre.

A centuries-old New Town tavern where wooden benches fill with a genuine cross-section of Prague — pensioners, locals, and travellers who found their way off the main drag. Cold Pilsner and a bowl of goulash make the best possible pre-dinner snack.

Cross back into Old Town for a nightcap that feels like a minor act of teleportation. This riverside bar pours Cuban rum and mojitos in a bohemian space that has absolutely no business existing this close to Gothic church spires — and yet it's perfect.

Take the metro or tram southeast to Vinohrady — the city's elegant residential quarter where café culture and neighbourhood life take over from the tourist circuit.

Georgian dumplings — khinkali — handmade daily in a no-fuss Vinohrady dining room near the Jiřák market. The spiced meat filling is the kind of thing you'll think about on the flight home. Order more than you think you need.

A minimalist Vinohrady bar with a serious, selective tap list built around natural fermentation and quality Czech brewing. This is the antidote to novelty — every pour here is considered, and the atmosphere follows suit.

Hop a tram one neighbourhood over into Žižkov — Prague's historically working-class district, famous for its density of bars per capita and its thoroughly unpolished character.

A tiny Žižkov corner serving Venezuelan arepas and cachapas made with real care. It's a small room, the menu is short, and the food punches well above the surroundings — exactly the kind of place a neighbourhood needs.

End the trip where Prague's beer culture is least performed: a rotating craft tap list in Žižkov's grittiest corner, surrounded by locals who take their beer seriously without making a show of it. A perfect last memory of a city that rewards those who look past the postcard.