Czechia

For EU, EEA and Swiss nationals, passports and national identity cards only need to be valid for the period of their stay in the Czech Republic. For all other nationals, passports/travel documents must be valid for a period of at least 90 days beyond the expected length of stay in the Czech Republic/Schengen Area.

The currency of the Czech republic is the koruna (crown), plural koruny or korun, denoted by the symbol "Kč" (ISO code: CZK). The ISO code is often used internationally and locally, but the local symbol is Kč (for Koruna česká). However, you will more often see amounts just chalked up like "37,-" without "Kč" added at all.

Find your connections on one of following websites: Both sites cover all Czech trains, buses and city transport and many train and bus lines abroad. A cheap and excellent means of travelling between Prague and other major cities are the buses from FlixBus, RegioJet, Leo Express and Student Agency. These buses are usually a bit faster and cost less than the Czech trains (not considering discounts). On some routes (e.g. Prague to Brno) this is marginal, but on others such as Prague to Karlovy Vary or Liberec, there is no direct train connection so the buses are by far the best option. Usually, y…

The official language of the Czech Republic is Czech. Czech is a Slavic language closely related to Slovak and Polish, and distantly related to Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Serbian. If you are a speaker of any of these languages, picking up Czech should be relatively easy. Slovak is more or less mutually intelligible with Czech.

The Czech Republic is a safe country. Violent crime is very rare, but scams and pickpocketing are rampant in touristy areas, particularly during the high season. In case of an emergency, you may dial 112, the standard EU emergency number. You may also dial 150 for the fire brigade, 155 in a medical emergency or 158 for the police.

Grocery stores do not sell over-the-counter drugs, such as aspirin. You will need to go to a pharmacy (lékárna), which is usually open M-F 08:00-19:00. There are 24-hour pharmacies in the bigger cities, and you should find an address for the closest one to you listed in the window of the nearest pharmacy to you. If you are in Prague, the most central 24-hour one is in Prague 2 - on the corner of Belgická and Rumunská streets - they dispense both prescription and non-prescription drugs from a small window on Rumunská out of hours - ring the bell if there is no-one there.

The international calling code for the Czech Republic is +420. Czech phones operate on the GSM standard, which covers practically all of the country. Mobile network operators use the 900 and 1800MHz GSM frequency bands, which might not be compatible with some US phones operating on 1900MHz.

The Czech Republic, along with its neighbours Slovakia, Austria, Poland and Hungary, is part of Central Europe. Often in Western Europe and North America it is incorrectly referred to as an "Eastern European" country, and most Czechs are very sensitive about this- many will even pre-empt the ignorance of some foreigners by asking "What part of Europe would you say the Czech Republic is in?" Get on their good side by answering "Central Europe", not Eastern!