Where to stay in Prague

This is the medieval core, and the case for it is simple: you walk out of the hotel into it. Old Town Square, the Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge, the Jewish Quarter and Wenceslas Square are all within a fifteen-minute walk of each other, and at 07:00 you get the square nearly to yourself. Metro A stops at Staroměstská and metro B at Náměstí republiky, so you are never more than a few minutes from the rest of the city either.

The cost is not only money. Prague's own guide describes tourists making the centre unlivable, and this is the ground they mean. Dlouhá, Dušní and the lanes off the square carry pub crawls until 03:00 on a Thursday, and a room facing one of them is a bad night. Prices follow the crowd: a half-litre of beer that costs 25 to 40 Kč elsewhere in the city runs past 100 Kč on the square, and the same three-star room costs roughly twice what Vinohrady charges.

Book Staré Město if the trip is short, the point is the sights, and you are willing to pay for the walk. Ask for a courtyard-facing room, and check on a map how close the address is to Dlouhá before you pay. If the trip is longer than three nights, the same money buys a bigger, quieter room two metro stops out.

Malá Strana is the baroque quarter under Prague Castle, and it is the one central district that goes quiet at night. The day-trip coaches leave, Charles Bridge thins out, and you are left with lamplit lanes, the castle gardens and Petřín hill on your doorstep. Wikivoyage's own advice on where to sleep in Prague names this district and Staré Město and nothing else.

Two things to know before you book. It is steep - Nerudova and Úvoz climb to the castle and every walk back ends uphill - and it is small, so ordinary shops, supermarkets and non-tourist restaurants are thin on the ground. Crossing to Staré Město means Charles Bridge, which is a slow crush from 10:00 to 18:00; the tram or the Mánes bridge is faster on foot.

It suits couples, second visits and anyone who would rather pay for quiet than for square footage. It suits families and heavy luggage much less: the cobbles are the worst in the city and the hills are real.

Nové Město is not new - it is Charles IV's fourteenth-century extension, and it wraps around the Old Town from Náměstí republiky down to Vyšehrad. Wenceslas Square is its spine. On paper it is the best-connected address in Prague: metro A, B and C all stop inside it, night trams meet at Lazarská, and Old Town Square is a ten-minute walk from most of it for noticeably less money than Staré Město charges.

The problem is concentrated and easy to avoid if you know about it. The lower end of Wenceslas Square is clip joints, strip clubs and men handing out flyers, and the park in front of Hlavní nádraží two blocks east is where Prague's street drinking and dealing collects. Touts inside the station sell rooms; taxi drivers at the official-looking rank outside quote 1,760 Kč for a ride across the centre. None of this is dangerous so much as relentless.

Book a street off the square - around Národní třída, Karlovo náměstí or the university quarter - and you get the transport and the walk without the flyers. Book the square itself, or anything advertised as "steps from the main station", and you get all of it.

Vinohrady is the nineteenth-century apartment district east of the museum: wide streets, plane trees, and the highest concentration of decent everyday restaurants and cafés in Prague. Náměstí Míru and Jiřího z Poděbrad are two and three stops on metro A from Můstek, which puts Old Town Square six minutes away by train and about 25 on foot.

What you get for the move out is a normal city. Riegrovy sady has the beer garden with the view, the farmers' market at Jiřího z Poděbrad runs midweek, and the same three-star room costs roughly half of what it does inside Praha 1. Streets are quiet after 22:00 and nobody is handing you a flyer.

What you give up is spontaneity. There is nothing here to see, so every sightseeing day starts and ends with a metro ride, and the walk home is uphill from the centre. If your trip is two nights and all sights, this is the wrong choice. For four nights or more, or with children, it is the best value in the city.

Karlín sits between Vítkov hill and the river, immediately east of the Old Town. The 2002 flood put it under water and the rebuild turned it into Prague's newest district: offices, renovated nineteenth-century blocks, and the best concentration of new restaurants outside the centre. Metro B stops at Křižíkova and Invalidovna, Florenc adds line C, and the walk in along the river is flat and takes about twenty minutes.

It is a good-value, low-friction place to sleep. Rooms are business-grade and priced below Praha 1, the streets are quiet at night, and Karlínské náměstí is a real neighbourhood square rather than a tourist one.

The catch is that Karlín has no sights and does not pretend to. Sunday evenings are dead, the office trade means midweek rates jump when a conference is in town, and the Florenc bus station end is scruffy. If you want to walk out of the door into Prague, this is not it. If you want a flat twenty-minute walk into it, this is the best one.

Žižkov is the old working-class quarter on the hill east of the main station, and it splits in two. The upper end around Jiřího z Poděbrad is cafés, the farmers' market and flats that cost real money. The lower end around Husitská is pawn shops, cheap bars and hostels. Both are Žižkov, and a booking site will not tell you which one you are looking at.

The money is the reason to come: dorm beds from about 275 Kč and doubles from roughly 38 EUR, which is half of Staré Město for a walk of about 25 minutes. The bars are the other reason - the district claims more of them per head than anywhere in the world, and they are Czech pubs rather than tourist ones.

Two practical warnings. The heart of Žižkov has no metro at all: line A clips the edges at Flora, Želivského and Jiřího z Poděbrad, and the middle is served by trams 5, 9, 15 and 26. And it is called Žižkov hill for a reason - the walk home from the centre climbs the whole way. Check your address against a tram stop before you book.

Smíchov is the old industrial quarter on the west bank, south of Malá Strana. Anděl is its centre, three stops and about five minutes on metro B from Národní třída, with trams running in every direction. Because the hotels here were built for business travellers, a four-star room costs what three stars cost in Praha 1, and there are enough of them that peak season does not empty the district.

What you are booking is not a historic neighbourhood. The centre of Anděl is the Nový Smíchov shopping centre, the area around Smíchovské nádraží is a construction site for the Smíchov City development, and the walk to Old Town Square takes about half an hour. Na Knížecí bus station and the Anděl underpasses are unpleasant late at night without being dangerous.

It works for families, longer stays and anyone who wants space and a metro rather than a view. It does not work if the point of the trip is to wander out after dinner: there is nothing here to wander into, and the hill up to Petřín and the Kinský gardens is the only real evening walk.