I need to plan the perfect day in Mala Strana with my 15 year old son. Hoping for help from Prague experts and fans. Appreciate details and special restaurant tips. Thanks.

Topping & hoping for some Fodorite input. I've done some research on the internet & guidebooks but there's not much about Mala Strana, thus I'm looking for Fodorite personal experiences.

Here are some relevant extacts frm my March 2005 trip report:

Mala Strana apartment: Vlasska 8, booked through pragueaccommodations. Serviceable, modernized flat. No great charm apart from painted wooden ceilings but it was fine. Mala Strana is quiet, atmospheric, with few tourists diverging from the fastest route to the Castle. A real neighbourhood, once off the beaten track.

Meals: We kept promising ourselves to go to Restaurant David for a really "fine" meal but never did. We chose instead "authentic", non-touristy places that favoured hearty cooking. In Mala Strana:
1. 1. Baracnicka rychta; na Trziste 23. Next door to David but what a contrast. Simple restaurant and controversial late-nite music venue -- the posh Alchymist hotel folk are opening a building nearby and are fighting the noise from this place, according to this week's Prague Post. Broke down and finally ordered pig's knuckle -- what a meal.
2. U zavesenyho kafe; at Uvoz 6, near the castle. Student-y. My favourite place for lunch or an unpretentious dinner, if you can stand the smoking.

If you go, try a pancake (palacinta) dish, e.g. with bacon, with blue cheese and apple butter. A meal in itself and absolutely delicious. Not a place for small, delicate appetites.

Favourite Mala Strana sites, apart from the castle itself:
The Loreta Abbey
The Strahov Library
Any Baroque church
The Kampa area, especially the small streets and squares south of the Charles Bridge

Overall:

1. These are not very warm people -- unsurprising, considering what they have been through
2. The rich-poor contrast is striking and shocking. I am unused, even in Africa, to seeing beggars literally prostrated before you, with heads touching the pavement.
3. Seeing the tourist traffic even at this season, I think Prague must be unbearable in spring and summer. Moreover the loutish element -- so-called "stag parties" seeking sex shows and cheap beer -- is very, very evident.
4. Notwithstanding the above, it is one of the great, beautiful cities of Europe and I am glad I have seen it.

tedgale, thanks for copying your trip report. It's good to learn other people's impressions. I forgot about the ubiquitous smoking which can be a problem for us.

We visited Prague two years ago when my daughter was 14. We stayed in Mala Strana at Pension Dientzenhoffer in a two room suite that was just great. It had a lot of sunlight, a seperate room for my daughter, a huge bathroom, hallway entrance so it felt like an apartment, and a refigerator. The owner is very nice and the staff were lovely and helpful. Breakfast was excellent. It is off of a cobble stone street near the Kampa Park. The area is just great. We ate at a great little Italian restaurant nearby, can't recall the name, but it is just behind this "waterwheel." My daughter loved the castle area and the view, Petrin Hill, Charles bridge, Wallenstein Palace, Walk up to the castle, the "John Lennon Wall" is something your teen might enjoy seeing, too. She loved Old Town and the square and streets there. We are Jewish so she found the tour of the Jewish quarter very interesting and we did a day trip to Terezin, too. Both tours were done with Wittman Tours- excellent. We at at Don Giovanni, Komotra Pizza, Kampa Park, the restaurant near the waterwheel, and a Czech restaurant just on the opposite side of the town hall (where the clock is) that had excellent food and vegetarian selections. She still talks abuot Prague as being one of her favorite places.