See the golden city
from a new angle
Prague, Czech Republic
Diccon Bewes
Sit back and relax as your boat glides through the water, expertly guided by our man in Prague, who knows all there is to know about this captivating city. While he tells his tales, you sip a cool drink and watch an incomparable urban landscape slip by. This personal private boat tour is probably the most elegant way to see the capital of the Czech Republic, giving you a whole new perspective of the city.
Sailing under the arches of Charles Bridge accompanied by the stirring notes of Dvorak’s New World Symphony – truly a goosebumps moment that you’ll never forget. But it was another Czech composer, Smetana, who wrote the most evocative piece of Czech music, aptly called Vltava (or Moldau in German). This delicate tune, which actually sounds like water running downstream, pops up all over the city but takes on a whole new meaning when heard out on the river itself.
The national river
Seeing a famous city landscape from a completely different angle often means taking to the skies but our favourite way is to take to the water, and in Prague that means the Vltava River. Often referred to as the national river, the Vltava is the longest in the Czech Republic and it plays a central role in Prague. It divides the city between the Old Town on the east bank and the castle on the west, so that you end up crossing its gently flowing waters quite a few times.
But rather than walk across Charles Bridge for the umpteenth time, why not sail under its graceful arches instead? Seeing it from the bottom up, you realise what a feat of engineering the bridge was when it opened in 1357. And you learn that before Charles came Judith, an older bridge washed away in floods but with some hidden remains visible only from the water. Layers of history that are revealed to the lucky few who venture behind the scenes.
Along
the banks
Along
the banks
What we loved about this exclusive little boat ride was discovering what secrets were to be found along the banks of the river. Looking at one grand palace on the west bank, you’d never know that it actually has bulletproof windows in the riverside rooms so that visiting dignitaries are safe from assassination. Or that the structure crowning Petrin Hill is a mini-version of the Eiffel Tower, built to a scale of 1 in 5.
And of course, the Charles Bridge isn’t the only one in town. There’s also a gracious Art Nouveau affair with grand columns and winged sculptures that seem to have flown in from an imperial capital. Or the quiet canals around Kampa Island, where you can see the last working water wheel in the city or get a glimpse of what it’s like to live right beside the water.
It isn’t just the scenery that makes this water tour so memorable, it’s also the stories of life in the Czech capital over the past decades. Nazi occupation and Communist control, the Prague Spring and the Velvet Divorce, freedom and independence: this is history brought to life by a man who lived through it, hearing of his grandfather being deported or seeing the Iron Curtain come down. Prague isn’t only striking medieval architecture, it’s the modern story of central Europe.
