Here, you will find beggars, junkies, prostitutes and homeless people β but no Robin Hoods. Here, everybody steals off everybody.
So begins one of Europe's less family-friendly walking tours. Provided by homeless organisation Pragulic, these tours aren't your typical jaunts around Charles Bridge and the castle.
They're an altogether darker affair, shepherding tourists around seedier, lesser-known crevices of the Czech capital. Each of the nine employed guides is either homeless or has spent a large proportion of their lives on the streets, and their tours explore the triumvirate of homelessness, drugs and prostitution β with a bit of police corruption and the occasional Mafia killing thrown in along the way.
Our guide β the most popular of the lot, according to Pragulic β is Karim. A former male prostitute and heroin addict, he has spent 25 of his 40 years living β and working β on Prague's streets. Dressed in a leather duster that sweeps theatrically around every corner, his eyes are caked in thick eyeliner and he wears a jumble of pendants and trinkets around his neck.
His hands β an inky mess of tattoos and elaborate gothic rings β don't stop moving throughout the tour, drawing attention to every crack den, brothel or homeless hotspot he refers to. There was a balcony in the station where people used to have sex, and others just used the park.
