Caution never hurt anyone
Prague is not a city of crime, on the contrary, it is considered as a quite safe place to live. Nevertheless, it remains a big city, with more than one million inhabitants and thousands of tourists every season, and that definitely attracts many thieves and pick pocketers. Some precaution never hurt anyone, right? Below you will find some pieces of advice regarding the “dangers” you might encounter as visitors or inhabitants of, dare I say, any great city.
Car break-ins& thefts
Car break-in is a problem that concerns especially drivers to Prague. In the last few years, the number of safe parking places has grown and more and more hotels are offering besides attractive accommodation facilities also safe-parking. You can protect your car and your personal things not only by safe parking, but also by making sure that you didn’t leave any valuable objects at see that might attract attention.
Emergency car breakdown link: 1230 or 1240
Pick pocketing
Like in all bigger cities, pickpockets are common especially in crowded public transport means: underground (green line A, the most frequented by tourists), trams (take care in trams no 22, 23, 9) and other highly populated places like: The Charles Bridge, Prague Castle& St. Vitus Cathedral, etc.
Have in mind…. that not all people who seem most willing to give you a hand are honest. A few cases were reported, when tourists arriving at Prague main railway stations were offered cheaper accommodation and free transport to the hosting place. Unfortunately, immediately after the naive visitors put their luggage in the “helper’s” vehicle, the crooks started the car and left with all the victims’ luggage.
This doesn’t mean the same thing will happen to you, but it’s better tu pay some attention when it comes to your personal things, isn’t it?
See also Don’t tease the pickpockets in Prague!
Currency exchange
One good piece of advice to take in mind would be not to change money on the street at persons who might offer you better rates. If you don’t know yet how Czech banknotes look like, the Czech National bank had them scanned and published on the Internet for you. The image on the Internet is faithful to the real one, dimensions are different, though (I guess you had that figured already but, just in case…).
Cases were reported when tourists were given fake banknotes or even Bulgarian Levas instead of Czech Crowns.
Exchange offices and banks can be found all over Prague, so it would be wiser to use their services instead of being taken in.
Also read carefully the terms of the exchange offices, because it sometimes happens that the displayed “NO COMISSION” banner applies only to bought foreign currency and not to sold one.(when exchanging your own currency to CZK you are selling and the bureaux de change is buying – not that you didn’t know, but economic terms can be confusing sometimes, can’t they?).
Water drinking
Prague disposes of a qualitative water supply so, it is generally considered that water from the tap can be safely used for cooking, washing and even drinking.
Bottled water in commerce comes in three variants: “perliva”- sparkling, “jemne perliva”- “lightly bubbled” and “neperliva”-still, “without bubbles”.