4 Best Places to Shop in Czech Republic

A slightly kitschy but still lovely woodwork shop, where you can start small, with hand-carved Christmas decorations, and work your way up to beautifully crafted tables and chairs. 

Located inside the SmetanaQ building, a gallery-cum-café-cum–design space right on the river, this fashion and interior design shop showcases the best of Czech design. Some of the artists work in the building's Bottega project on the second floor, and others are located elsewhere, but if you're looking for the most up-to-the-minute Czech design work out there—anything from chic handbags to modernist posters and unusual earrings—get it right from the source here. There's a great assortment of ubercool vases, in particular: much better than an "I love Prague" sweater.

Take a trip back in time to when toys were made from wood and model cars were cherished. Everything about this store will make you smile, from the friendly owner's greeting to the stock of cheerful wind-up music boxes and animal figurines. Look closely at those wood-carved rocking horses and three-headed dragons; many items are handmade by Czech craftsmen. The shop even sells kits with colored pencils and pastels for budding young artists. It's only open in the afternoons, but easily combined with a visit to the Loreta.

These cute enamelware products are a proper homegrown success story, from a sister-and-brother team who started off selling them on Charles Bridge. The look has now taken off, but these are the original and best, with their bright mugs, decorated with animals, now gracing a million homes worldwide, the team estimate.