Country code: 420. There are plenty of public telephone booths; international calls can be made from any of them. Most of the public telephone booths take phonecards, which can be purchased at hotels, tourist information offices, newsagents and tobacconist shops. Surcharges can be quite high on long-distance calls from hotels.

The Czech Republic uses the GSM 900 system, and is 3G compatible. Roaming agreements exist with most international mobile phone companies. Coverage is excellent.

There are lots of Internet cafes in Prague and other cities.

Airmail takes a couple of days to reach other European destinations; allow up to a week to North America.

Post office hours: Mon-Fri 0800-1800, 0800-1200 Sat.

Private media in the Czech Republic mushroomed in the 1990s, and private radio and TV stations provide stiff competition for public broadcasters. Public TV broadcaster Česká Televize (CT) operates two networks and a 24-hour news channel. Czech public radio, Český Rozhlas (CRo), operates three national networks as well as local services. Two major private television channels broadcast nationally and there are more than 70 private radio stations.

• The Prague Post newspaper and Czech Business Weekly magazine (both weekly) are published in English.
• The main Czech dailies include Mladá Fronta Dnes, Právo and Lidové Noviny.

• Česká Televize is public and operates mainstream channel CT1 and cultural channel CT2.
• CT 24 is a public news channel.
• TV Nova and Prima are commercial channels.

• Public broadcaster Český Rozhlas operates national and regional networks.
• Radio Prague has programmes in a number of languages including English.
• Frekvence 1 and Rádio Impuls are private national stations.