Is Prague Safe?

This year about 62 people will be murdered in the Czech Republic. With a population of a little over 10 million the odds that you will be one of them is low.

Of course, being shot in the head and left to rot in a ditch is the worse case scenario. The most practical advise I can offer is that you do not worry about it. It will not happen. Regardless of which dark alley you walk down or which 800 year of castle dungeon you stumble into, you will not be murdered.

Your life is safe in Prague.

Will You Get Robbed?

It was about 10pm and I was calmly walking down a dark street. It was not well lite, narrow and winding so you could not see far ahead or far behind - exactly the type of street your safety guide would tell you to avoid. I was not scared, but I was aware of the situation - theoretically somebody could attack me, take my money and run away with no witnesses. My eyes were open.

Suddenly in front of me appear two young men. They are leaning against the wall and looking at me as I approach. As I get near they move away from the wall and approach. They block me. I silently remind myself, 62 people out of a million, there is no chance they are going to kill me. With a heavy English accent one of them asks, ‘do you want dance lessons?”. He sticks out a pamphlet with a picture of a couple dancing and a phone number. No thanks I say and smile. I try to gently walk past but he and his buddy are blocking my path. They are still smiling. ‘Dance lessons, you can take your girlfriend, very cheap’. No thanks I say again and smile, I mumble something about how I do not dance. Then he grabs my arm.

I am tall and strong but I have never had to fight anybody. My heart rate started to increase and blood rushed to my face - I felt my ears getting hot. At that moment my instinct was to scream like a little girl. But before I could do anything he started to kick his legs into the air and attempt to dance with me. He was showing the benefits of the dance lessons. He was laughing, his friend was smiling and I calmed down. Dancing with a stranger in the street is bad but it is a lot better then being murdered. I was relieved.

And that's when they get you. It is exactly in situations like this that you will get robbed. Not by gun point, but by dance. He was dancing with me, laughing and legs flaying, but he was also attempting to rob me. His free hand was dancing around my jacket pockets.

If your get robbed then it is going to be because you were distracted. Every metro and tram car has a sign - watch out for pickpockets. Metro and trams are a great place to get robbed. It is crowded, lots of people are jammed up against each other. And if you are not careful, if you are busy looking in a map or jabbing with your friends about how great Prague is then you are a prime target. Somebody will bump into you or push past you and with hands quicker then the eye they will take whats in your pocket and put it into theirs.

Prague is a tourist city. Pick pocketers love tourists. Tourist are always distracted and they have money in their pockets.

Will you get robbed? Probably not. People are robbed in Prague, but no more then in any other tourist spot. Tourist are just easy targets. So if you do get robbed its your own fault - you weren’t paying attention. Would it be strange in your home town if somebody suddenly grabbed you by the arm and started dancing with you - of course it would. But being in the Golden city you might think it is normal and that mistake will cost you your wallet.

Will You Fall Down a Man Hole?

The most likely cause of injury you will suffer in Prague is spraining your ankle strolling down a cobble street. The cobble stones are pretty and they do bring you back to old days before asphalt and concrete, but they are dangerous. Step on a cobble the wrong way and you can be down on your knees rubbing your foot. Wearing high heels is just asking for trouble - walking a on street covered in banana peels is safer.

In Czech if you fall down a man hole, the consensus attitude would be that its your fault for not looking where you are going. Few would question why there was not a barrier preventing you from falling in.

Czech people and their policy about your own safety is that you should be able to take care of yourself. If there is a open man hole, then it is assumed that you will not walk into it.

And if you are climbing up an 600 year old staircase that has no hand railing with low lighting then be careful. You come to Prague to get a taste of things were in the past. 600 years ago when there were no hand rails and there was no lighting. Be careful.

Czech standards for personal safety are a little lower then the rest of EU. But that is slowly changing. The EU is forcing Czech to make it a safer place for those who are not looking were they are going. Laws are being created and enforced stating that man holes must either have a cover or have a barrakade forcing people to walk around the open manhole. Some consider this progress.

There are drawbacks to this kind of progress. The Charles Bridge has been around since at least 1360. In 2009 it was decided that the bridge was unsafe and there is a risk that people might fall off. So they put a special guard rail along the sides of the bridge to protect people from falling off. For over 650 years nobody had a problem with people falling off the bridge - now they do. The bridge is safer now, but at what cost? Which is better - a majestic old bridge untouched my the modern hand or a safe bridge that obscures your view of the river and saves the drunkard from taking a swim?

Will They Take Care Of You At The Hospital?

Lets say you had one to many and are trying to get a better look at the river from the Charles Bridge. The wind blows, catches under your jacket and tosses you into the river. Not being deep in the summer you hurt your head on the bed rocks. In a matter of minutes as you are bobing down the river you will hear the weeeeeee-woooooooo sounds of the ambulance coming to your rescue.

This kind of thing has not happened to me so I have never been to the hospital. But I have a friend who was running down a cobble street road in her high heels and slipped on a banana peel. She had to go to the hospital.

She is ok and her ankle was taken care of. She said the doctors were nice and the rooms clean. The only complaint was the long wait and the stale food. In other words, hospitals in Prague are the same as in every western country.

As long as you have your travel insurance and can point to your injury (if it is not obvious) then you will be taken care of.

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Before You Arrive

Your First Day In Prague

Transportation

Eating out

Places Tourist's Must Visit In Prague

Where The Locals Go

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