Prague Springs Eternal Despite Tourist Crush
By Tom Kagy | 28 May, 2025

The medieval spell of enchantment cast by Prague was the first delight of our 12-day Central Europe road trip.

Please don't visit Prague if you have an aversion to fatally photogenic squares and cobblestone streets, not to mention the throngs of phone-camera-toting tourists draped on and around ancient stone structures and statues like vain locusts.

Walking across the 700-year-old Charles Bridge at night is an unforgettable experience.

My natural trepidation about voluntarily injecting myself into tourist swarms was overcome by a long-brewing curiosity about a city that seemed to have been the destination of choice for digital nomads since the early 90s, years before digital nomadding was even a thing. 

And of course there is the undeniable reality of Prague being right smack in the middle of Central Europe, which is why it was considered the region's jewel by several Holy Roman Emperors who took up residence there back in the 14th through the early 16th centuries.  If your goal — as ours was — is to visit the most interesting mix of Central European cities within a 12-day road trip, Prague can't be avoided.

Hotel Pod Vezi's breakfast buffet in its charming restaurant is a treat for more than your taste buds and belly.

It was early evening when we finally rolled into Prague in our rented Toyota C-HR hybrid EV after landing at Munich International about five hours earlier.  We were hungry and tired from autobahnning through lush Bavarian countrysides, then lush rain-drizzled Bohemian countrysides dotted with little pink and white villages.  We were anxious to check into our hotel, a 4-star boutique named Hotel Pod Vezi.  

Unfortunately, its location in the intricate cobblestone maze in the shadow of the Lesser Town Bridge Tower befuddled Google.  She kept routing us to the wrong end of a one-way cobbled alley and insisting we had arrived when the hotel was nowhere in sight.  After circling around for several retries, we lost patience with Ms Google and took the matter into our own hands by driving into a narrow cobblestone alley and parking in a questionable spot so we could set out on foot in search of someone to point out the hotel.  

The 700-year-old Lower Town Tower takes you on a time trip to Bohemia's medieval age.

Not even a restaurateur who, we later learned, was working almost directly across the street from Pod Vezi, was able to tell us.  It was only when I asked a table of diners at a patio restaurant that I was pointed toward a subdued sign for Pod Vezi literally 15 yards away.

The hotel clerk walked with us to where our car was parked and instructed us to move it to one of the half dozen spaces within the green lines of the cobblestone parking zone near the hotel.  By sheer luck one of those spaces opened up as we painstakingly maneuvered our car through the narrow twists and turns.

The eastern side of the lower platform of the Lower Town Tower offers a view of the foot traffic on Charles Bridge.

This account is provided to give some sense of the insanity of driving anywhere near either end of the Charles Bridge (named after Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, 1346 - 1378) which is easily the most tourist-infested part of Prague.  True, the comely Vitava River which the bridge straddles, is probably the most photographed splash of water in Central Europe, especially at night when cunning lighting effects add to its allure.

Turns out Pod Vezi was worth the driving and parking hassle due to its unmatched location for tourists like us, and for the charm and excellence of its restaurant.  We took advantage of its location by heading out to find a Czech restaurant for dinner before they closed.  Navigating across the Charles Bridge to the Old Town was impeded by the hundreds of international bodies posing beside various sculpted features along the sides of the medieval stone bridge built around 1436.

And we too being human couldn't resist the incredible photo opps along the way.  One of our photo accostees was the male half of a middle-aged Chinese American couple who showed a serious photographic eye, especially for the hurly-burly of hundreds of others seeking immortality against such backdrops as could be provided by a bridge spanning only about 250 yards over water.  Everywhere we looked were Asian faces: Asian Americans as well as tourists from China, India, Korea and other nations.

The Old Town comprises the central core of Prague, at the heart of which is Old Town Square (or Staromĕstské námĕsti in Czech).  This square features both the wonderfully high and weird 600-year-old Clock Tower with its multiple large clock faces and, nearby, the magnificent Church of Our Lady Before Týn, making the Square one of Prague's three biggest attractions, the others being the Charles Bridge and, about 600 yards uphill from the west bank of the Vitava River, Prague Castle.

About a block and a half past the west end of the Charles Bridge, along Charles Street, we stumbled across a Czech restaurant called U Malvaze.  It offered sufficiently authentic looking Czech decor and a menu full of standard local fare like braised pork knuckles, beef goulash, potato soup, fried cheese, and pickles.  

Our tastes tend toward vegetable-heavy fare, but we were able to enjoy at least a good portion of several of the dishes, washing it down with dark beer and mineral water.  But those who can't eat heavy, meat-rich meals will be relieved to know that, as in virtually every decent-sized city on earth, Old Town Prague offers restaurants serving pizza, sushi, ramen, Chinese, Indian, even Korean and Vietnamese, not to mention McDonald's.  

Our hotel room was located on the second level of an annex building across from the Pod Vezi office.  Despite the hotel's location on one of the Lesser Town's (the area near the river and below the castle) busiest streets, by the time we made our way back to our room after ten, the neighborhood was surprisingly hushed.