1. Down a pint of the brown, frothy stuff

The Czechs regard their locally pro­duced beers as a national trea­sure. ‘If Czech beer is the best in the world,’ ask many vis­i­tors to Prague, ‘what’s the best beer in the Czech Repub­lic? The answer isn’t as straight­for­ward as you might hope or expect. The most pop­u­lar beer here is Gam­bri­nus. How­ever, it’s not uni­ver­sally recog­nised as the best. Kozel’s Medium, a pale lager, won the prize for the best Czech beer at the Research Insti­tute of Brew­ing & Malt­ing awards in 2008. Many locals, mean­while, claim that Pil­sner Urquell is the best of the bunch, with Czechs from Pilsen insist­ing that the water qual­ity in their home city means that their pil­sner is supe­rior to those pro­duced any­where else in the country.

Inevitably, Prague is home to a num­ber of bars that spe­cialise in beer, offer­ing a huge vari­ety or a care­fully cho­sen selec­tion of top-notch brews. The best beer expe­ri­ence can be had in U Med­vídků, U Černého vola, U Houdků, U Provaznice, U Vejvodů.

See all bars & pubs in Prague

2. Deci­pher a 15th cen­tury clock face

The Astro­nom­i­cal Clock has been tick­ing and pulling in the crowds since 1490, although its party trick is laugh­ably unspec­tac­u­lar. Every hour on the hour, from 8am to 8pm, wooden saints emerge from trap doors, while below them, a les­son in medieval moral­ity is enacted by Greed, Van­ity, Death and the Turk.

How­ever look a lit­tle longer and try and fig­ure out the com­pli­cated zodiac fig­ures on the clock’s face, reput­edly there are some occult mys­ter­ies encoded in them.

See all his­toric sites & build­ings in Prague

3. Join the nation’s con­tem­po­rary art movement

DOX, a new art cen­tre opened in 2008, placed modern-day art in Prague firmly on the bleed­ing edge with its hit first exhi­bi­tion, ‘Wel­come to Cap­i­tal­ism!’. The centre’s man­i­festo sets out to its ideals with admirable clar­ity: ‘Today, when more and more peo­ple tend to think dan­ger­ously alike, art’s capac­ity to sus­pend, even for a moment, our habit­ual ways of see­ing may be its great­est value.’

See all art gal­leries in Prague

4. Greet some old faces

Look up as you’re walk­ing through Prague’s medieval war­rens and saints, gods and gar­goyles will be look­ing back at you. Nowhere are the dis­plays more lively than in Staré Mêsto. One on Charles Bridge depicts the famously lusty St Roc, just after his tes­ti­cles had been bit­ten off by a dog sent by God. Oth­ers include a sceptical-looking Czech prophetess-queen, pup­pets, Kafka, and the Angel of Death.

5. Hit a local note

Polit­i­cal anthem-mongerers Lucie, ska mas­ters Sto Zvi­rat and Mora­vian folk rock­ers Cechomor are some of Prague’s better-known local musi­cal tal­ents, but there are plenty more where they came from. Catch local acts in beau­ti­ful art deco the­atre Akropo­lis which hosts avant-garde, indie and world bands. Jazz acts, blues bands play week­days in the Lucerna Music Bar and Vagon stages fresh unrecorded rock, jam nights and reggae.

See all music venues in Prague

6. Pay your respects to the dead

Wan­der amidst ancient sand­stone and mar­ble tomb­stones in Prague’s eerie tree-shaded Old Jew­ish Ceme­tery (Starý Židovský hřbitov). The tiny patch of ground con­tains around 100,000 bod­ies and is a force­ful reminder of the lack of space accorded to the ghetto, which remained walled until the late 1700s. For­bid­den to enlarge the bur­ial ground, the Jews were forced to bury their dead on top of one another up to 12 lay­ers deep.

See all reli­gious sites & build­ings in Prague

7. Say ‘I do’ in Czech

With all those Baroque church bells, the fan­tas­ti­cal archi­tec­ture and old-world glam­our, Prague is a great place to tie the knot, pop the ques­tion or do any­thing else of a roman­tic nature. It’s a pop­u­lar wed­ding des­ti­na­tion for any­one look­ing to do some­thing dif­fer­ent. Top places to get hitched are theOld Town Hall (Staroměst­ská rad­nice) and the New Town Hall (Novoměst­ská rad­nice), both offer­ing cou­ples the chance to pair up in a his­toric Gothic building.

Local wed­ding plan­ners – White (www.destination-wedding.cz), PragueWeddings.com (www.pragueweddings.com) and Prague Wed­ding Plan­ners (www.pragueweddingplanners.com) – can deal with the practicalities.

8. Get the picture

The revival of Czech pho­tog­ra­phy is upon us. While home­grown pho­togra­hers such as Josef Sudek and Jan Saudek have long made their mark on the inter­na­tional scene, pho­tog­ra­phy has taken a back seat at home for almost two decades. That’s set to change with the arrival of promi­nent Prague photg­ra­phy galleries.

The Prague House of Pho­tog­ra­phy plans to mix clas­sic mod­ern Czech pho­tog­ra­phy with recent local trends, the Leica Gallery aims to exhibit the best local art phot­g­ra­phers and pho­to­jour­nal­ists, while Galerie Fotografie Lou­vre (housed within the ven­er­a­ble Café Lou­vre) has started life with a bang, with impres­sive shows by ever-mutable Václav Stratil and always-subtle Pavel Baňka.

9. Pull some anar­chic moves

A unique aspect of Prague club­bing is the feel­ing of anar­chy that could only be found in a place with vir­tu­ally no safety reg­u­la­tions or polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness. Bar-top strip­ping, crum­bling walls and ram­pant stim­u­lant use can all be found in Staré Mêsto on any Fri­day night. Pass over the tacky tourist-traps and head to the hip­per art bar – Cross Club – it’s raw and laid-back and you’ll find the arty types or per­haps a short film fes­ti­val. Bordo organ­ises infec­tiously fun nights a throw­back to Prague’s mid-’90s salad days.

Delv­ing deeper into the odd­i­ties of the Prague under­world, Újezd is a three-storey mad­house filled with smoke and badly ampli­fied rock. and patro­n­ised by a young Czech crowd with dreads: more fun than it sounds. And if what you really want is a club whose inte­rior décor could be the set of a cheap hor­ror film head to Wakata, a down-and-dirty teenage wasteland.

See all clubs in Prague

10. Eat pub-grub Czech style

After all the beer, you may fancy some cold smoked mack­erel? Raw beef on deep-fried toast? Bits of meat sus­pended in aspic, aka ‘head cheese’? well, we won’t describe Czech pub grub as healthy but it’s cer­tainly pretty unique to the Czech Repub­lic. Some of the best places to try it are: Pivnice u Pivrnce, which serves meaty no-nonsense local fare; U Med­vídků, which offers the infa­mous head cheese; and U Rad­nice, where feasts, served at shared tables, can be had for sur­pris­ingly low prices.

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11. Travel back 1,000 years at Prague Castle

Prague Cas­tle dom­i­nates the city’s sky­line, its jum­ble of styles and influ­ences per­fectly illus­trat­ing the shift­ing demands of its occu­pants and con­querors over the last mil­len­nium. At the cen­tre of the cas­tle, its dra­matic Gothic spires and fly­ing but­tresses vis­i­ble from every­where in town, is the impos­ing St Vitus’s Cathe­dral; even the most jaded of vis­i­tors will be given pause by its grandeur. Other high­lights within the cas­tle com­plex include the Old Royal Palace, which has excel­lent his­toric and archi­tec­tural dis­plays; Basi­ica of St George; the Lobkow­icz Palace, which now has a fully fledged museum, with the city’s best restau­rant vis­tas; and Villa Richter, the scene of many cul­tural events, includ­ing Jazz at the Cas­tle (www.jazznahrade.cz).

See all major venues in Prague

12. Jump off a bridge

From  June to Sep­tem­ber KI Bungee Jump (www.bungee.cz) have been doing brisk busi­ness in pitch­ing oth­er­wise ratio­nal week­end vis­tors off Zvikovské podhradí, a bridge high over the Vltava val­ley. Expect to pay 900–1,000 Kč per jump, and be sure to book ahead.

13. Mar­vel at the pup­pet masters

Pup­pet shows are not just for chil­dren in Prague. The art of pup­petry has a long and some­times sub­ver­sive his­tory in the Czech Rebublic. Although much pup­pet the­atre is aimed at tourists, high-quality Czech pup­peteers and pro­duc­tions appear fre­quently. Catch a show at the lively and pro­gres­siveDivadlo Minor, or buy a pup­pet for your­self at Truh­lář Mar­i­onety.

You don’t often get to see slap­stick pup­pet operas per­formed on a boat and the slap­stick pup­pet opera on the For­mans’ Mys­tery Boat The­atre is pretty spe­cial. The play­ing area itself is a minia­ture mock-up of a clas­sic Baroque stage, pop­u­lated by a vari­ety of pup­pets, from antique mar­i­onettes to hand pup­pets; and masked actors con­tin­u­ally intrude upon the grotes­queries that ensue. The the­atre seats 170 (each place is sup­plied with its own lifejacket).

With its cosy hull bar and charm­ing touches, such as stained-glass tables in the the­atre, the boat mer­its a visit in its own right. Great visu­als and strong music mean you don’t need Czech to enjoy it. It’s under­stand­ably pop­u­lar, so be sure to buy tick­ets in advance.

See all the­atres in Prague

14. Burn a witch

In a tra­di­tion that rolls the best of Hal­loween and Bon­fire Night into one, Witches Night (Pálení čar­o­dźjnic) marks the death of win­ter and the birth of the new spring. On April 30, locals light bon­fires to purge the win­ter spir­its, an effigy of a hag is burnt – a relic of real witch hunts – and the more dar­ing observers of the cus­tom leap over the flames. Most fires are in the coun­try­side, but there’s some­times a pyre in the city: check Pet¡ín Hill in Malá Strana.

See all fes­ti­vals and events in Prague

15. Attune to the ‘frozen music’

Goethe wasn’t def­i­nitely talk­ing about Prague when he called archi­tec­ture ‘frozen music’ – but he could have been. The city is an ice cube box of melodies, strik­ing chords, mak­ing vibrations.

Down the blind alleys and twist­ing lanes you’ll find ancient Romanesque basil­i­cas, Gothic tur­rets point­ing up like magi­cians’ hats, bru­tal­ist Soviet tower-blocks and Art Nou­veau façades. Prague is a mass of extro­vert styles knit­ted together in a glo­ri­ous and unique cityscape.

Read more about Prague’s areas

16. Live a lit­tle Las Vegas

Adding an old-world Czech touch to the casino idea, the Savarin Casino has can­de­labras and Baroque fres­coes as well as Amer­i­can roulette and stud poker. It’s a world apart from most of the bet­ting rooms on Wences­las Square, and worth a look even if you don’t gam­ble; if you do, drinks are on the house.

See all casi­nos in Prague

17. Dine in style

Recently, menus in Prague have risen above stodgy dumplings and saur­kraut, and it’s now pos­si­ble to dine on world-class cui­sine. Alle­gro was the first Prague restau­rant to win a Miche­lin star, and its inspired Tuscan-meets-Czech menu fea­tures delights like veal fil­let, pan-fried foie gras and truf­fles and monk­fish saltimbocca.

Two other restau­rants of par­tic­u­lar note are the Alcron, where seafood mas­ter Roman Paulus casts lob­ster bisque and smoked eel with black truf­fles and savoury sauces; and Kampa Park, also serv­ing gourmet seafood in a restau­rant over­look­ing Charles Bridge.

See all restau­rants in Prague

18. Indulge in an out­landish baroque fantasy

A swirling mass of stuc­coed cherubs front the façade of the Loreto, per­haps the wildest expres­sion of Catholic Baroque in Prague, inside are the skele­tons of two female saints and a diamond-studded cross-shaped mon­strance. Also look out for the carv­ing of St Wilge­for­tis the bearded (female) saint, and the sculp­ture of St Agatha car­ry­ing her breasts on a meat platter.

A small chapel to the Vir­gin boasts sev­eral relics, a crevice – sup­pos­edly caused by light­en­ing – and a dark red colour scheme that makes it look less like a virgin’s boudoir and more like a place in which to hold a black mass. Visit, pray and soak up a bit of Catholic mir­a­cle culture.

See all reli­gious sites and build­ings in Prague

19. Explore an existentialist’s mind

Stand­ing just out­side the Span­ish Syn­a­gogue is a sur­real bronze statue of Kafka depicted as a gnomish fig­ure rid­ing on the shoul­ders of a head­less, hand­less, foot­less giant with a strik­ing resem­blance to the Golem of Prague.

Only erected in 2004, it’s a sign of Prague’s ambiva­lent atti­tude to Kafka. Born in Prague he wrote in Ger­man and has never been entirely accepted by Czechs as one of their own. How­ever, that hasn’t stopped a small indus­try of cafés and restau­rants around his old neigh­bour­hood in the tourist-saturated Jew­ish quar­ter of Jose­fov from cash­ing in on his name.

If you’re a bud­ding Kafka your­self head down to The Globe Book­store & Cof­fee­house, where Alchemy hosts organ­ises read­ings and open mic ses­sions on the first Mon­day of every month (www.alchemy-prague.com).

20. Become X-rated

Warn­ing for adults only: read on only if you’re an exhi­bi­tion­ist with­out any inhi­bi­tions! Czech law skirts the issue of pros­ti­tu­tion and as a result Prague is known for its pros­per­ing sex busi­ness. But they’re not rest­ing on their err lau­rels. The Big Sis­ter brothel gives a new media twist on this old pro­fes­sion. It nakedly cashes in on the Big Brother phe­nom­e­non, putting live inter­net cam­eras inside. All the pun­ters who agree to appear on the web, get an hour of gratis action.