Transportation in Prague

Prague's transport backbone is the metro: three intersecting lines that run frequently from early morning to past midnight and cover most places a visitor needs. Trams fill the gaps, rattling through the historic core and up the hills. The night tram network keeps running when the metro sleeps. Buses mainly serve outer districts, but a few handy routes link the main train station to areas the metro skips. A single, rechargeable Lítačka card works on all three, and you can top it up at purple machines in every metro station, buy it once and skip the daily ticket queues. For airport access, the Airport Express bus is the straightforward choice: it departs directly outside arrivals and runs to the main train station (Hlavní nádraží), where you can hop straight onto the metro. Taxis are a splurge by comparison, use the official rank outside the terminal and insist on the meter. Skip the unlicensed drivers who approach inside baggage claim; they're the quickest way to overpay. Once in town, walking is often fastest in the compact centre. But if you're heading uphill to the castle or across the river late at night, the trams are your friend.