What do you imagine when you think of Prague? Beautiful castle on the hill, Medieval style architecture, tightly packed old town sprawling with building and intense colors, churches and cathedrals, and bridges spanning a winding river that runs through the old European capital. This is all true. Prague is a vivid and lively city brimming with culture and history that, thankfully, was mostly untouched by the war. But there is a side of Prague that is less talked about, it’s infestation from tourism. Prague is one of the most visited cities in Europe, and this has taken a toll on the authenticity of the city. Everywhere you turn while in the old town, it feels like someone, somewhere, is trying to rip you off to make a buck. This greatly impacted our experience while in the Czech Republic.

To clear the air of some irony, I understand I am a tourist, and that I also visited this city just like millions of other people. And of course I understand this industry has had an impact on the city and how residents try to make a living there. But many cities are visited every year by millions of people. But Prague felt like it stood alone in how much it catered to this market. And to a degree of fault.

Luckily, before Aga and I went to Prague we found a YouTube channel called Honest Guide. It’s a medium sized channel run by a couple Prague locals that has some great tips on visiting the city. If you plan on visiting Prague, I would definitely check it out.

These guys helped us steer clear of some tourist traps that you wouldn’t know about if no one told you. Like the fact that taxis will charge you around 11 Euro per kilometer, to put that into perspective, a 3 mile trip would cost upwards of $65. That’s right $65. Of course all the locals know this, so their only customers are unsuspecting tourists. There are also a couple currency exchange locations that advertise their selling prices instead of their buying prices. Let me iterate what that means exactly, so potential visitors understand. The exchange rate for the Czech Crown is around 1:21, so $1 is worth about 21 Crowns. So if I exchanged $5 I should receive somewhere in the ballpark of 100 Crowns, give or take a few cause of course, the place has to make a little money too. That rate of around 1:21 should be their buying rate, and their selling rate will always be higher than this. For example, it would cost me about 110 Crowns to exchange for my original $5. But there are places advertising their selling rate outside to trick you into thinking it’s their buying rate. But their buying rate is actually somewhere around 1:12. So when you go in the place and hand over your $5 you’ll only receive 60 Crowns, so about 60% of its actual worth. This is the first and only time I’ve ever seen this, at least to this degree of discrepancy, so please be careful!

So after you get ripped off for your taxi ride into the city and exchange money for 60% of its value, you now get to tour Prague. Ok, just a small joke, this didn’t happen to us but I’m sure it has happened to some, or maybe a lot. But honestly the city in general is expensive, and not the best place if you’re a traveler on a budget. Our friends from Honest Guide showed a place where you can spend $5 for a can of coke. What I’m trying to show here is that the good exchange rate for the dollar doesn’t necessarily reflect a city that’s cheap. The food at most restaurants was fairly expensive, and we also had an experience that left a really bad taste in our mouths. Aga and I popped into a little cafe in the evening to have a small dinner together. We walked by a cute place and decided to check it out. The decor was warm and inviting, and felt homely. The waitress came over and we ordered, but only after this we realized something wasn’t right. The place was empty minus one other person, so we checked out some reviews online. Unfortunately, they weren’t good. They brought bread to the table, that whether your ate it or not, cost 25 Crowns per person. So they charged Aga and I $2.50 for bread that we neither ordered nor wanted. Of course this isn’t expensive, but principles matter. Aga had a chicken salad, where the meat was undercooked and tasted old. I had 2 fried vegetable skewers with a small salad. Neither of us was full, or enjoyed our meals. Also there was an automatic gratuity added of 10-15%, I can’t remember exactly. This part didn’t bother us on its own, we’ve both worked in the restaurant business for years. But to add it on top of a bad experience felt wrong, especially since we talked to our waitress about our food, and the bread and she never even apologized. All in all the meal cost us over $35. After we looked into a bit, we saw there were places like this around the city that bank on catching tourists in a similar trap.

Stuff like this was everywhere, and so many things felt cheap, inauthentic, and overpriced. It felt like being at the beach back home where you wander the boardwalk and see a bunch of t-shirt shops selling shirts that say stuff like “COME AT ME BRO”. I saw airplane bottles of liquor for $6, Russian nesting dolls(in Prague?), and weed paraphenalia shops everywhere. None of this bothers me on it’s own, but add everything up, and you feel like you’re in a place that’s lost some of its character. Like, if we had come to Prague 20 years ago it would have been awesome, but we missed it.

Ok, ok, enough of being negative. Prague wasn’t all bad I swear, but I just wanted to be realistic and tell about our experience. Prague really is a beautiful city, truly one of the nicest I’ve seen. It had amazing sites and an incredibly walkable old town district. In fact Aga and I walked most of the city. We didn’t take a cab, uber, metro, or bus except for coming into and leaving the city.

The beer was super cheap everywhere and I had a couple tasty local brews. Also the local food was definitely hearty to say the least, and was good for the winter time. Lokal, was a pretty good spot, I’d check it out if you want to try some traditional Czech food. It’s setup in a kind of giant beer hall style, with some heavy dishes and cheap beer. Defintely a good place for some food and to have a couple drinks. Czech food seemed to mostly feature meat dishes with some kind of carb or starch on the side, not very vegetarian friendly just a FYI. Knedliki is one of the most traditional dishes, featuring a kind of potato bread and gravy, with paprika and beef inside. For my veggie friends, not a lot of choices but you can find a popular fried cheese dish all around the city as well. Chlebicky is also a famous dish, it’s basically an open face sandwich with a myriad of different toppings. Our AirBnb had a little kitty, whom we called Bready. He was a super cool cat who was incredibly friendly and loved attention and cuddling. So if you see an ad with an all white cat on the app, it’s worth staying at for this little guy. And if you really want to feel Czech, there’s an old cartoon called Krecik, that’s cute and funny. You might end up leaving with a little souvenir of him.

Like I said the sights were dope. The Vysehrad and Prague Castles are definitely worth seeing. Also, you can get into the Prague Castle complex for free after 5pm, and the Vysehrad is no charge and basically without tourists. The old town square was beautiful and the astronomical clock is the oldest working astronomical clock in the world, so go see that. Take a walk across the Charles Bridge of course, it has some cool views of the city. The Jewish Quarter was also neat and the birthplace of Franz Kafka. For all the Kafka fans out there, there’s also a museum dedicated to the late writer.

Most of this goes without saying really. Prague is a beautiful city with amazing historical sites. But there’s another side of Prague that I wanted to show, because it was something I wasn’t quite expecting. I was really excited to visit Prague, but left slightly disappointed. I just wish someone had painted a more realistic picture for me before I had gone there, so that’s what I’m hoping to do with this piece.