Prague in July

If I had not taken the Rick Steve's Tour to Prague and Budapest, I would have used this Company:
https://terezin-private-tours.com

Hope this helps,

Did you try regular email or one of the booking buttons on their web site? At least for the scheduled group tours, bookings seem to be available. www.wittmann-tours.com

Auschwitz is too far from Prague for a day trip. Not even lomg da would be enough.It's a day trip for those who go to Krakow. Suggestion for day trips from Prague: castles: Karlstejn, Konopiste, Krivoklat, towns: Kutna Hora, Tabor, Melnik. Concentration camp: Terezin.

Take a look at a Terezin tour (all day) with the highly regarded Pavel Batel: https://terezin-private-tours.com/

He'll pick you up at your hotel (or a central location if you're staying outside the tourist zones.) Putting his name in the Search field above should provide a spate of good recommendations. This July, 2019? If interested, you might want to look into reservations asap.

We visited the Jewish Quarter in Prague on our own, but in hindsight should probably have booked a guide for a more informative tour.

Edit: Just noticed that the first post, above, by grlilley was also a link to Mr. Batel. Sorry for the redundancy, but he probably deserves multiple mentions.

Thank you everyone. These are very helpful suggestions!

I’ll keep the Terezin-private-tour company in mind. I was finally able to reach Wittman Tours (called them) but they have been very slow to respond to my email. I'm a little concerned, but it sounds like everyone thus far has had a good experience with them. Did you find them slow?

It also looks like they offer a one day trip to Auschwitz. It’s a long day, but I might give it a try depending on how we like the Terezin tour. I’m still torn: private or group tour.

I’m also toying with the idea of trying to take a private tour of the countryside and/or the area outside of Prague. Has anyone done that? Any recommendations? Ilja, thank you for the day trip recommendations. I am going to look into all of them.

I will be in Prague for quite a while (my daughter is attending a program), so I really will have a chance to explore.

Rca, I’d like to take a tour of the Jewish quarter as well. Did any of you feel that Pavel Batel would do a good job of the Jewish aspects of Prague?

Lastly, any recommendations for affordable but good boutique hotels in the Old Town? Would you recommend other areas of the City to stay in, instead?

I will send you a private message.

Noel ,can you read the Cyrillic alphabet ? If not then I’d take a tour , we found it very difficult to read signs and even in the city of Prague it was hard to find any signage ( I mean except in museums etc ) that uses the Latin alphabet so at least we could translate things .
Taking the tram outside the city sucked as we’d show names of places we wanted to go but the locals didn’t recognize them because of alphabet.

Ps a good museum in Prague was the Museum of Communism- not so much artifacts but photos and information , well worth it to us as we didn’t know much about the subject .

Czech does look strange because of all the accent marks, but the language is written in the Latin alphabet. I can't say that it helped me much, but it wasn't quite as befuddling as Polish.

I also thought the Museum of Communism was well done. However, it moved fairly recently and may still appear on some tourist maps at its old location, so be sure you have current information about where it is.

You don't need cyrillic alphabet in Czech Republic. Last time it was in use was around year 1400 when a famous priest Jan Hus changed it to what they use now. Cyrillic alphabet together with christianity was brought to this part of Europe by Cyril and Method. Because of that there is a state holiday in Czech Rep. on July the 5th. July the 6th is another holiday. July the 6th 1415 priest Jan Hus was burnt on stake for refusing to recant his teaching. That really pissed off his followers and under the leadership of a brilliant general Jan Zizka the hussite wars started.

Every street in the Jewish Quarter is worth exploring, but so is every street in Mala Strana, Old Town, New Town, and areas I don't know the name of.

We have spneh 9 days in Prague and have only been in one museum (there are bunch) because we have been busy roaming the streets (and still not done).

Lists of the top sights are a dime a dozen, but here are a couple we found to be little publicized but well worth it:
The view of Prague Castle at night from the Old Town end of the Charles Bridge.
St George Church and the High Castle (Vyšehrad ).
The Baroque Cemetary
The knock out day trip is Chesky Krumlov.

Cesky Krumlov is not good for a day trip. Stay overnight. Six hours roundtrip. IMHO good day trip should not be over two to three hours roundtrip.

I just googled Prague Jewish Community and saw several results, as you may have already seen yourself. Kosherprague.com appears to offer a few tours. I have had no experience with this organization or website. Forty years ago we attended Rosh Hashanah services at the Old New Synagogue and a family invited us to their home. Go to shule?!? 😀 Good luck, and safe travels.

Another big YES for Pavel Batel and his day long tour of Terezin. If you contact them, however, DO make sure you can have Pavel as your guide. We loved our experience with him, but had a very different experience with someone else from the group who gave us a tour of the Jewish Quarter. I thought she was a very poor tour guide. I'd suggest doing the Jewish Quarter on your own, using the guide and the information you can get when you purchase a ticket to see all of the sights.

Thank you, Ruth! I contacted them (Pavel's company) and they said that they couldn't promise Pavel. Do you mind me asking the name of the woman didn't didn't care for? Did you consider Wittmann Tours? They also do a tour of the Terezin. What do you mean "I'd suggest doing the Jewish Quarter on your own, using the guide and the information you can get when you purchase a ticket to see all of the sights."

Hello all,

Sorry for the delayed replies. I’ve been busy planning (er, eh trying to plan).

I contacted Pavel’s company but unfortunately they couldn’t promise him as a tour guide (to Terezin). I also contacted Wittman Tours who finally got back to me (it took two calls to Prague!) but told me that IF they only get myself and my daughter on the tour, the price will go up as they prefer a larger group. Not sure which way to go here.

Denny, I love the idea of attending shule and will probably do so on a Friday night. Did you just show up or introduce yourself first? Thank you for the well wishes.

Pat, nope, I don’t know the Cyrillic alphabet (interesting, Ilja!). But your question makes me a tad nervous. Sounds like tours are probably a bit better bet. Though, I DO love walking/roaming around, just taking it all in, by myself. Are you suggesting taking a “tram” alone to outside the city is completely a bad idea? I'm a city girl, but still this will be a very foreign country to me. Thank you for the Museum tip. Sounds great.

Did any of you use a translation app on your phones?

kb1942, this sounds exactly like me! Thank you for your tips. Your trips and tips are duly noted! I will be there for 9+ days so I am looking forward to getting to see the city in a bit of depth, and by foot w/ my camera is my preferred approach (--though I'mm also very eager to take a few tours).

Lastly, just curious, did any of you attend the flea markets? Any preferences or tips?

Thank you all!! I'm both excited and nervous. Now, how to get from the airport to the hotel…

Noel

Noel, no worries, you can go by tram anywhere. Prague is one of the safest cities in the world I know. Pat, you were showing locals written names of places and locals did not understand? There are several explanations for it: Was it really written in Czech? I mean for example Castle = Hrad, Charles Bridge= Karluv most, Wenceslas Square= Vaclavske namesti and so on. Only English speakers would understand. Czech language does not use cyrillic alphabet or as Russians call it azbuka for over 600 years. What they use is latin alphabet like we do here in US. Plus so called diacritic. So for example Vaclavske namesti would have little dash over first and third "a" little dash over first e, little dash over i and little hook over second e. Unfortunately I don't have Czech keyboard on my computer. That means if I write to my friends in Czech Rep I have to write without diacritics and they never had any problem to read it. That tells me that there are two other possibilities why "locals" did not understand what you wrote. Either they were not locals which does not surprise me that much in Prague or they were illiterate which would surprise me little bit more.

I will answer your Flea market question, yes I been to a few and as recently as the middle of May (I am in Prague a lot).
a new one has opened in the old marshalling yards at Zizkov Terminal (old train area)
https://www.terminalzizkov.cz/
not very big but quite interesting and I got some old sports memerobilia there in May (badges and pennents).I think it is just a Saturday it is on.several trams stop outside.
http://blesitrhy.cz/
this is the main one that is on every Saturday and Sunday, lots of stall selling new and second hand stuff as well as local folk selling things they no longer want,again I have got some good sports stuff there,an old watch and an Illustrated version of the book The Good Soldier Svejk,something I had been trying to get for several years.A few trams stop about 100 yards away and there is a free bus from Hloubetin Metro. Entry to both these places cost 20kc, toilets food stalls and bars on the sites too.

On saturdays there is a great market at Naplavka and there is a barge on the water that acts as a small flea market ,some nice stuff there and again a place I have bought sports related badges.Naplavka is reached easily by tram from the city centre but quite walkable too,just down on the river bellow the Dancing building.
http://www.farmarsketrziste.cz/en/kategorie/trziste-naplavka-en

Noel, we made no prior arrangements. We just showed up. Have a great time.

Hi Noel — I’m pretty sure that there is an audio guide available at the information center/ticket office in the Jewish Quarter. I suspect that—and perhaps some information you could download— would allow you to tour the Quarter at your own pace. One of the most frustrating things about our guided tour there was the guide sat us down in front of the first synagogue and just talked and talked and talked, leaving us too little time to actually visit the sites. The Spanish Synagogue was closing for the evening by the time we arrived...I would have liked to purchase something in their gift shop area, but it was already closed.

We had the most amazing tour of Terezin with Pavel. It was just our family of 3 and one other couple. I wonder if they could tell you the name of who other than Pavel leads that tour...and you could do an internet search to see what the reviews are like for the others? Do you have any flexibility as to the day you could visit Terezin in order to try to get Pavel as your guide? (We scheduled our tour with him months in advance, so it’s possible he’s completely booked, since the group is capped at 8.) I will send you a message with the name of the guide we didn’t like. I don’t really want to cast aspersions publicly!

I suggest Living Prague Tours or PragueWalker for other tour options inside Prague or for day trips. Jason of Living Prague Tours customized a half day tour for 5 of us who were spending a few days in Prague on our own prior to the start of the Rick Steves Best of Eastern Europe tour. We emailed ahead to tell him what we expected to see with our RS tour, and he showed us many off the beaten path sights we wouldn’t have otherwise experienced. There was almost no overlap with the sights we saw while on the Prague portion of our RS tour. Jason is an excellent guide.

Our RS tour guide was Katka, who is also the owner of PragueWalker. It looks like she has a range of guides working for her who might be able to customize tours for you. Katka is wonderful, and I suspect that the people she employs are top notch.

You can find websites for both of the above by googling them.

Sorry for jumping in late - I'm new to the forum but have lived in Prague for 16 years. My cousin was just here for a visit and, as I did with his son last year, we had a private tour of the Jewish Quarter with Yvonne Weisgrab and then had the semi-private tour (mentioned by others) of Terezin with Pavel Batel (terezin-private-tours.com) Both experiences were wonderful - and I say that having done both tours twice in one year. Yvonne is an extremely impressive young woman studying Jewish Studies at Charles University (the premier university in the Czech Republic) and travels regularly to Israel where she is part of a project recording the stories of children of Holocaust survivors. She also travels internationally with Pavel Batel for presentations on Terezin and other related subjects - most recently to speak with university students in Hong Kong. The great thing about having a few hours with an expert vs going on your own or using the audio guide (both of which I've done with past visitors) is the opportunity to have the tour curated to your interests and questions which Yvonne certainly did. To echo previous comments about visiting Terezin with Pavel, it is indeed an extraordinary and powerful experience which should absolutely not be missed. Following Terezin, I'd suggest taking a half hour to visit the very small museum located in the crypt of St Cyril and Methodius Cathedral where the soldiers who assassinated Heydrich - the Butcher of Prague - where horribly murdered by the Nazis (it is located a few blocks off the river and near the Frank Gehry Dancing Building). Check out: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170831-a-prague-church-that-defied-nazi-rule. You also mentioned an interest in architecture so the city will no doubt be a feast for you. I havent taken any private tours but here are two you can look into http://www.guiding-architects.net/architecture-tour/prague/ and http://www.robsarchitour.com/ Hope this helps and wishing you a fabulous visit!

Just joining in to Julia's recommendations upthread. Our cousin's recommended both Pavel and Yvonne for our upcoming trip to Prague. They too were extremely impressed! Fortunately we heard about them months ago and booked right away. Appreciate all the recommendations. ** @Julia, I sent you a private message as well. Thank you!!

To add to Julia's recommendation regarding the museum in the crypt of St Cyril and Methodius church: you can take a bus to Lidice, about 25 km from Prague (I believe it takes about 40 minutes). There is an excellent museum there dedicated to the residents of this village, most of whom were murdered in the aftermath of the assassination attempt against Hitler. (I won't go into detail here, but the two sites are closely connected.) You can walk the grounds of the former town of Lidice; there is a very moving memorial sculpture as well. English translations for written material were available; the video presentation was also available in English.

To get from the airport to your hotel: Contact prague-airport-transfers.com. I have found them to be very easy to schedule in advance and reasonably priced; they will greet you at the airport, even if your flight is delayed. You can use public transport, but it's so much easier (and more relaxing!) to have a local driver get you right to where you are staying.

Thank you for all these comments! I will be following up shortly. I really appreciate them!!!

I am frantically preparing to leave for Prague tomorrow! Can’t thank you all enough.

I am thrilled to say that we booked a tour with Pavel to Terezin. I can’t wait to visit the flea markets and the Museum in the Crypt of St. Cyril and Methodius Church, and will reach out to Jason and Yvonne for tours. I love off the beaten path so Jason might be just my man, Yvonne sounds wonderful for Jewish Prague.

I may attend a synagogue services, as well.

The rest of the time, I plan to roam around. I am a photographer and I wonder if anyone has run into any challenges in terms of photographing of people or places in Prague. I tend to be quite courteous in general about taking pics of people, but I’m just wondering how different this might be from the US.

Thank you as well for the tip on getting from the airport! Invaluable.

You are all awesome. I can’t wait to share my experiences with others, the way you have graciously done with me.

Thank you again – both those of you who posted to the group, and those of you with whom I have spoken individually.

Noel,

Enjoy your trip with your daughter. Please report back with your experiences with Pavel & other guides.
All the best!

Visit the Jewish Quarter in Prague which used to be the largest Ghetto in Europe. There is also an old Jewish cemetery.

You didnt say you were going anyplace but Prague, but if you do find yourself further afield your request reminded me of these tours ....

https://beyondbudapest.hu/tours