A day out of the city gives kids room to run and something new to look at. These trips go to castles with towers to climb, caves, zoos, mazes and hands-on museums, all close enough to get there and back in a day. We picked places that work for kids, not just for the grown-ups planning the outing.
A guided tour leads 620 m through 400-million-year-old limestone caves in the Czech Karst nature reserve, south of Beroun. Kids see stalactites, rare opal formations and the hidden upper-level workshop where 15th-century counterfeiters forged coins.
The route has 483 steps and the air stays at 7.5 to 9°C, so it suits kids who can manage plenty of stairs on foot.
iQLANDIA is a four-floor hands-on science center in Liberec, about an hour and a quarter by car from Prague. Ten interactive exhibitions cover space, math, water, the senses, the human body and old inventions, and a fire tornado swirls in the Elements hall. The iQPLANETARIUM shows dome films in the same building, and kids can combine both on one ticket.
The park around Loučeň Castle holds 12 labyrinths and mazes spread over 23 hectares, linked by a marked trail. The biggest is a yew hedge maze taller than an adult, entered and left by wooden lookout bridges.
Kids also tackle a spruce-post palisade maze that ends in a slide, a stone labyrinth built from Elbe river pebbles, and a finger labyrinth carved into a menhir beside a Minotaur statue.
A small private zoo in a village about an hour's drive east of Prague, split by a road into the Old Zoo and the larger New Zoo. Animals include lions, Asiatic black bears, gibbons, langurs, lemurs, kangaroos and meerkats, plus a giant freshwater aquarium.
The New Zoo has a wooden adventure playground with slides, rope runs and an 18-meter zip line. Kids can feed dwarf goats and walk among fallow deer.
A large adventure park with a wooden castle kids can climb through, a rope jungle, a giant sandbox, trampolines, climbing frames and swings. Underground tunnels and a labyrinth wind between the play areas, and a nature trail passes animals along the way.
An amphitheater hosts shows, and an indoor area with art workshops and game rooms covers rainy spells.
Velká Amerika is a flooded former limestone quarry in the Český kras protected area, about 800 meters long and up to 100 meters deep, with two connected clear lakes at the bottom. Kids look down from a lookout next to the parking lot or walk the wooded paths around the rim. Entering the quarry and swimming are forbidden, and the walls drop straight down, so keep small kids close at the edge.
Škoda's car museum fills the original production halls where the company built cars until 1928, with the modern plant still running next door. The 1,800 m² exhibition mixes historic cars, films and photos, plus a working crankshaft model.
Kids can pick up a worksheet trail at reception, read in the reading room, or ride Škoda balance bikes in the children's corner.
Křivoklát is one of the oldest castles of the Czech kings, with origins in the 12th century, set in the Křivoklátsko woods. Guided tours lead through the second courtyard, a prison, a dungeon, a Gothic chapel and the Knights' Halls. The longest tour adds the ramparts and the Large Round Tower.
Tours are led in Czech, so it suits kids who like looking more than listening.
Kutná Hora grew rich on silver mining in the Middle Ages, and its UNESCO-listed old town still shows it. Three sights do most of the work with kids: the Sedlec Ossuary, a chapel decorated with human bones; St Barbara's Cathedral, with its tent-shaped roofs; and the Hrádek silver museum, where tours go down into a medieval mine.
The ossuary can upset younger or sensitive kids, so talk it through first.
Konopiště began as a 13th-century Gothic castle and was rebuilt by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, as his family home. Guided tours lead through furnished apartments, a chapel and one of the richest armories in the Czech lands, lined with suits of armor and weapons.
Outside, a landscape park with a lake and a rose garden with greenhouses give kids room to run between tours.
Karlštejn is Emperor Charles IV's medieval castle, on a wooded hill above the Berounka River and the small town of the same name. The basic guided tour climbs through the Knights Hall, the emperor's bedchamber, a former castle prison and the treasury, which holds a copy of the St. Wenceslas Crown.
In the Well Tower, kids can look down a 78-meter well with its medieval water wheel.
A day out of the city gives kids room to run and something new to look at. These trips go to castles with towers to climb, caves, zoos, mazes and hands-on museums, all close enough to get there and back in a day. We picked places that work for kids, not just for the grown-ups planning the outing.
A guided tour leads 620 m through 400-million-year-old limestone caves in the Czech Karst nature reserve, south of Beroun. Kids see stalactites, rare opal formations and the hidden upper-level workshop where 15th-century counterfeiters forged coins.
The route has 483 steps and the air stays at 7.5 to 9°C, so it suits kids who can manage plenty of stairs on foot.
iQLANDIA is a four-floor hands-on science center in Liberec, about an hour and a quarter by car from Prague. Ten interactive exhibitions cover space, math, water, the senses, the human body and old inventions, and a fire tornado swirls in the Elements hall. The iQPLANETARIUM shows dome films in the same building, and kids can combine both on one ticket.
The park around Loučeň Castle holds 12 labyrinths and mazes spread over 23 hectares, linked by a marked trail. The biggest is a yew hedge maze taller than an adult, entered and left by wooden lookout bridges.
Kids also tackle a spruce-post palisade maze that ends in a slide, a stone labyrinth built from Elbe river pebbles, and a finger labyrinth carved into a menhir beside a Minotaur statue.
A small private zoo in a village about an hour's drive east of Prague, split by a road into the Old Zoo and the larger New Zoo. Animals include lions, Asiatic black bears, gibbons, langurs, lemurs, kangaroos and meerkats, plus a giant freshwater aquarium.
The New Zoo has a wooden adventure playground with slides, rope runs and an 18-meter zip line. Kids can feed dwarf goats and walk among fallow deer.
A large adventure park with a wooden castle kids can climb through, a rope jungle, a giant sandbox, trampolines, climbing frames and swings. Underground tunnels and a labyrinth wind between the play areas, and a nature trail passes animals along the way.
An amphitheater hosts shows, and an indoor area with art workshops and game rooms covers rainy spells.
Velká Amerika is a flooded former limestone quarry in the Český kras protected area, about 800 meters long and up to 100 meters deep, with two connected clear lakes at the bottom. Kids look down from a lookout next to the parking lot or walk the wooded paths around the rim. Entering the quarry and swimming are forbidden, and the walls drop straight down, so keep small kids close at the edge.
Škoda's car museum fills the original production halls where the company built cars until 1928, with the modern plant still running next door. The 1,800 m² exhibition mixes historic cars, films and photos, plus a working crankshaft model.
Kids can pick up a worksheet trail at reception, read in the reading room, or ride Škoda balance bikes in the children's corner.
Křivoklát is one of the oldest castles of the Czech kings, with origins in the 12th century, set in the Křivoklátsko woods. Guided tours lead through the second courtyard, a prison, a dungeon, a Gothic chapel and the Knights' Halls. The longest tour adds the ramparts and the Large Round Tower.
Tours are led in Czech, so it suits kids who like looking more than listening.
Kutná Hora grew rich on silver mining in the Middle Ages, and its UNESCO-listed old town still shows it. Three sights do most of the work with kids: the Sedlec Ossuary, a chapel decorated with human bones; St Barbara's Cathedral, with its tent-shaped roofs; and the Hrádek silver museum, where tours go down into a medieval mine.
The ossuary can upset younger or sensitive kids, so talk it through first.
Konopiště began as a 13th-century Gothic castle and was rebuilt by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, as his family home. Guided tours lead through furnished apartments, a chapel and one of the richest armories in the Czech lands, lined with suits of armor and weapons.
Outside, a landscape park with a lake and a rose garden with greenhouses give kids room to run between tours.
Karlštejn is Emperor Charles IV's medieval castle, on a wooded hill above the Berounka River and the small town of the same name. The basic guided tour climbs through the Knights Hall, the emperor's bedchamber, a former castle prison and the treasury, which holds a copy of the St. Wenceslas Crown.
In the Well Tower, kids can look down a 78-meter well with its medieval water wheel.
