Bohemian rhapsody: how to escape the Prague tourist crush
Visit ever popular medieval Prague by all means, but the fairy-tale towns of the hinterland offer a more agreeable taste of the Czech Republic, and they're not overrun with tourists. Words and pictures by Tim Pile.
The bus ride from the city's airport into Prague could best be described as expectation-lowering. Unattractive high-rise blocks, industrial estates and a huge yellow store emblazoned with the word "Siko" do little to set the pulse racing.
There's no need to worry, though. As anyone familiar with former Soviet Europe knows, the uglier the suburbs, the more beautiful the historic centre. Before you reach the Old Town, however, there's the new town to negotiate. "New" is a relative term in Prague - Nové Mìsto was founded in 1348.
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More than five million people visited the Czech capital last year and the city attracts a diverse demographic. Dental tourism is flourishing, low-priced but high-quality beer lures stags and hens and mainland Chinese come in droves to have their pre-wedding photos taken against fairy-tale backdrops.
Sooner or later everyone gravitates to Charles Bridge, where there are more tourists than you can shake a selfie stick at. A caricaturist doodles in the shadow of Baroque religious sculptures and living statues try not to flinch as camera flashes go off in their faces. A man hawking watercolours slows the pedestrian traffic but when I see how much his paintings cost, I'm tempted to tell him that in the Middle Ages, unscrupulous traders were suspended from the bridge in wicker baskets.
Despite the international onslaught, sightseers tend to follow very similar itineraries, which means that just 200 metres from the 15th-century landmark, office workers enjoy a quiet coffee in a secluded park. Prague Castle, which is the world's largest, is inundated, yet a short walk away, at the Letna lookout point, a handful of us have lofty views of the city and Vltava River all to ourselves.