Where to go with children in Prague on vacation? History that will get them out of their chairs thanks to augmented reality

Summer vacation is the perfect opportunity to show children Prague. But as soon as the streets heat up and long queues form, children’s enthusiasm slowly starts to be replaced by fatigue. Then comes the familiar question: Where to go with children in Prague so that they can really enjoy the trip?

If you tell your children that you are going to a history museum, you may not be met with thunderous applause. The idea of ​​display cases, long texts and silent passage from one room to another is simply not a holiday dream. But in Story of Prague, history does not look like a list of dates that visitors are supposed to learn by heart.

On three floors, audiovisual installations, interactive photo points and, above all, augmented reality await you. Children do not just look at Prague’s history. They can discover it on their phones, listen to it and watch it come to life right in front of them.

So if you are looking for family activities in Prague that will keep your kids entertained and take away more than just a few photos, Story of Prague may be exactly the place you are looking for.

A museum where you don’t have to just quietly walk around the display cases

Story of Prague differs from classic history museums in its very way of storytelling. The exhibition is spread over 19 atmospheric rooms on three floors, contains approximately 160 exhibits and takes visitors through 800 years of Prague’s history. Instead of long blocks of text, it works with stories, sound, images, scenic installations and modern technologies.

Therefore, children do not have to stand in front of an object and wait for their parents to read them the entire description. They move through the exhibition themselves, exploring individual corners and observing what is happening around them. History here is not a distant world from a textbook. It has faces, voices, tension, surprises and moments that can evoke laughter and goosebumps.

That is why Story of Prague can work as an interesting compromise for the whole family. Adults will get an overview of the fundamental events of Prague’s history, while children still have something to discover. No one needs to convince them every five minutes that “there is only the last room left”.

Augmented reality turns your phone into a guide to the past

The museum application works as a personal audiovisual guide. Visitors are accompanied by a virtual “Spirit of our house”, which leads them through the individual parts of the exhibition. The audio guide is available in seven languages, and thanks to augmented reality, the physical installations are connected to animations, digital reconstructions and other interactive elements.

Children can thus look at the real exhibition and at the same time observe other interesting facts about the story on the display. This is not a classic VR experience in Prague, in which the visitor puts on glasses and stops perceiving the surrounding space. Augmented reality, or AR, on the contrary, complements what is right in front of them.

And this is where the imaginary “getting up from the chair” comes in. Augmented reality does not leave the visitor to be just a passive observer. It encourages them to search, explore and find out what happens next.

Eight hundred years of Prague in three different worlds

One of the reasons why children do not get bored quickly during the tour is the variability of the exhibition. Each floor has a different atmosphere and opens another chapter of the Prague story.

First floor: knights, rulers and secrets of medieval Prague

The tour begins in the Middle Ages, a period that offers almost everything to a child’s imagination: knights, kings, warriors, legends and mysterious chambers.

Visitors will encounter the story of the Old Town Hall and the astronomical clock, learn about medieval dining, the Hussites and Jan Žižka or take a look into the mysterious chamber of Emperor Rudolf II. The exhibition also includes medieval torture instruments, which may be more intense for more sensitive children, but at the same time show how significantly everyday life in the past differed from today.

The Middle Ages are not presented here as a distant date in a textbook. Children enter an environment in which they can more easily imagine how people lived, what they feared, what they believed and who decided their fate.

Second floor: history that is no longer a fairy tale

The atmosphere changes on the second floor. The exhibition is dedicated to the world wars, the occupation, the bombing of Prague, Operation Anthropoid, the Prague Uprising and the subsequent period of communism.

For example, visitors can watch virtually interwoven photographs of the bombing, learn about the circumstances of the occupation and, using an audio guide, go through events from Operation Anthropoid to the Prague Uprising. The section dedicated to communism also provides an overview of police surveillance, interrogation, prison and life in an unfree regime.

For older children and teenagers, this section can be one of the most powerful. Events that sometimes seem abstract in school take on a concrete form. Suddenly, it’s not just about the year something started or ended. What matters is what historical changes meant to ordinary people.

Third floor: the time that parents themselves remember

The third floor brings visitors closer to the present. It is dedicated to the Velvet Revolution and Václav Havel, Czech successes in the world, the wild 1990s, Prague trams, floods and the crown jewels. It also includes a cinema with tips on what to see in Prague.

This is where the roles can be reversed for a moment. Children start asking their parents if they remember certain things, what life was like without today’s technologies or why the 1990s were so special. A museum tour naturally becomes a family conversation.

History does not have to end with kings and battles. It also continues with events experienced by parents or grandparents. Story of Prague thus connects several generations and shows that the current appearance of the city did not come about by itself.

How to prepare for a family visit

To fully use the interactive elements, it is advisable to have a phone or tablet with the Story of Prague application installed. It is also practical to bring your own headphones so that each family member can hear the audio guide well and proceed at their own pace. Headphones are also available at the reception if needed.

To ensure convenient entry without unnecessary waiting, purchase tickets in advance online. For families with children, there is also a discounted family ticket, thanks to which you can enjoy your joint journey through Prague’s history more conveniently.