What are the most worthwhile things to do in Prague on a first visit?

The pricing is tiered in a way that rewards reading it. The main circuit costs 450 CZK for an adult and 300 CZK at the reduced rate, which covers young people aged 6 to 16, high-school and university students up to 26, and seniors from 65. There is also a family ticket at 950 CZK, defined as one to five children under 16 together with a maximum of two adults — for a family of four, that is a straightforward saving over separate tickets.

St Vitus Cathedral is open Monday to Saturday from 09:00 to 17:00 and Sunday from 12:00 to 17:00, and the paid tour has two hard rules attached. Last admission is always 20 minutes before the end of opening hours, and tours are not possible during religious services and cultural events. The cathedral is a working metropolitan church, not a museum with a liturgical theme, and its calendar outranks the ticket desk.

What raises the rest of the city above the castle hill is the designation the whole center carries. UNESCO inscribed the Historic Centre of Prague in 1992 under criteria (ii), (iv) and (vi). That is a cultural inscription recognizing the exchange of architectural ideas, an outstanding building ensemble, and associated significance — which in practice means the protected thing is the continuous fabric between the monuments, not a list of separate buildings.

Getting between them is cheap and worth doing by public transport. Prague Integrated Transport sells a 24-hour ticket at 140 CZK in the PID Litačka app or 150 CZK on paper, and a 72-hour ticket at 340 CZK in the app or 350 CZK on paper. Children aged 6 to 15 travel free with proof of age, and so do seniors aged 65 and over.

The castle occupies a long ridge above the left bank, so almost every approach to it is a climb, and the cathedral's own last-admission rule — twenty minutes before closing — means the final slot of the day is decided at the bottom of the hill, not the top.

The castle complex and the cathedral sell and schedule separately, and the cathedral's exclusion of tours during services and cultural events is not a footnote. Concerts and liturgies are frequent enough that a ticket bought in advance for a specific afternoon can meet a closed nave. The complex itself stays walkable regardless, which is why the paid circuit and the free grounds are best treated as two different plans.

• Paid circuit first — At 450 CZK adult and 300 CZK reduced, it is the one admission that unlocks the interior sequence most people came for.
• Then the protected center — The 1992 inscription covers criteria (ii), (iv) and (vi), so the streets linking the sights are themselves the designated property.
• Move by tram and metro — A 24-hour PID ticket at 140 CZK in the app makes the river crossings and the hill climbs a matter of choice rather than endurance.

Timed constraints stack up here. Last admission to the cathedral is fixed at 20 minutes before closing on every day it opens, Sunday opening does not begin until 12:00, and services and cultural events suspend tours without regard to your itinerary. On transport, the paper fare is consistently higher than the app fare — 150 CZK against 140 CZK for 24 hours, 350 against 340 for 72 — so a visitor who never installs the app pays a small premium throughout.

For the beer and the dishes that go with an afternoon in the Old Town, see the Prague food and drink question in this group.