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Prague Shopping Introduction

No holiday or city break is complete without a bit of retail therapy, and while Prague isn't able to outgun great shopping cities like New York, London and Paris, there are enough interesting outlets to keep all but the fussiest of shoppers happy. Indeed, Prague today has a decent mix of well-known big name western stores, local brands, souvenir shops and specialist outlets.

Typically, Czech products include crystal, hand painted eggs, handicrafts, folk art, puppets, wooden toys and the now familiar trinkets left over from the Communist era (such as Russian army surplus hats, knives and badges).

Opening hours

Prague's stores open between 9am and 7pm on weekdays and from 10am to 1pm on Saturday - although many are now extending their hours. If you need to replenish food supplies, plenty of late-night grocers shops are dotted around the downtown area, with one of the most central being the Bílá labut store at Wenceslas Square.

In department and specialist stores the time honoured (Communist inspired) practice of ordering goods, paying for them at a separate counter, then returning to have purchases wrapped, still goes on. In such places, unhelpful staff are the rule rather than the exception, with a shrug of the shoulders often signifying the degree of help that you'll get to anything more than a routine purchase (in particular, be wary of female shop 'assistants' kitted out with blue overalls, white socks and open sandals - they'll turn even the most seasoned shoppers into gibbering wrecks).

Shopping in Prague can broken down into the following categories:

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