Air
The most competitive air fares from Britain are with the no-frills airlines such as easyJet, but these need to be booked well in advance. Flight time from London is just under two hours. Czech Airlines is the only carrier offering non-stop flights to Prague from North America. All others make stop-overs at a European hub such as London or Paris. The most frequent service is from New York, followed by Montreal in Canada. Flight time from NY is approximately 9 hours. Prague’s airport, Ruzyne, is fairly modern and ever expanding. It’s nine miles from the city centre and connected by bus, shared minibus and taxi. The airport itself recommends bus route 100, which travels to metro station Zlicin in about 15 minutes, or 119 which goes to metro station Dejvicka in about 20 minutes. Tickets costing around 40 Czech Crown or Kc (about £1/$1.80) can be bought from vending machines in the airport and in newspaper kiosks. The shuttle minibuses run by Cedaz leave at half-hourly intervals and go to V Celnici Street in the middle of Prague. A shared ride will cost around 480Kc (£11.50/$22). The third option is an airport cab, which will cost between 500 and 600Kc (£12-14/$23-27), depending on which side of the city you want to go.
Train
Travelling by train is a pleasantly old-fashioned and extremely leisurely way to reach Prague. You can go from London overnight in about 20 hours. There are several possible routes. The most direct, and often cheapest, is via Brussels and Frankfurt, with a change in both. From Frankfurt there’s an overnight service to Prague, arriving at about 8am. Travelling via Paris tends to be a bit more expensive and you’ll still have to change trains at Frankfurt to pick up the overnight service. Fares for continental rail travel are much more flexible than they used to be, so it’s worth shopping around for the best deal. International trains arrive either at the old Art Nouveau Praha Hlavni nadrazi, on the edge of Nove Mesto and Vinohrady, or at Praha-Holesovice, which lies in an industrial suburb north of the city centre. The former is only a five-minute walk from Wenceslas Square and both stations are on metro lines.
Road
Coming from London, the most convenient route would be to take the car through the Channel Tunnel on a train and then drive via Brussels, Liege, Cologne, Frankfurt and Nuremberg, entering the country at the Waidhaus-Rozvadov border crossing – a journey of about 1,000 miles after arriving on mainland Europe. It costs nothing to drive on motorways in Belgium and Germany, but to travel on any motorways within the Czech Republic, you need authorisation in the form of a sticker or vignette (dalnicni znamka) which can be bought from all border crossings and most garages and post offices. A ten-day sticker costs 100Kc (about £2.50/$4.50). You don’t really need a car in Prague since much of the city centre is pedestrianised and public transport is efficient and cheap. Also, the narrow streets are difficult to negotiate and you have to deal with trams. One of the cheapest ways of reaching Prague is by bus. There’s a direct service run by Eurolines from London’s Victoria Coach Station. The journey is about 18 hours and a flexible return can cost as little as £100. www.eurolines.co.uk. Prague’s main bus terminal is Praha-Florenc, which has an adjacent metro station.
