UBC July 2026 - Laundry, Czech Style

If you've been following me for a while, you already know that at some point during almost every trip, we end up doing laundry. One memorable example was our outdoor gas station self-laundry experience in Scotland last fall.

Now, I mentioned before that I only joined hubby and son for four days in Prague. Personally, I didn’t have to worry much about running out of clothes, but the men, being men, waited until almost the last possible moment to research their laundry options.

Our hotel, unsurprisingly, didn’t have a guest laundry. They did offer dry-cleaning services, but at boutique hotel prices, which immediately ruled that out.

Luckily, they discovered that the Palladium Mall, literally a three-minute walk from our accommodation, had a “Čistírna / Prádelna”, a dry-cleaning and laundry shop.

Now, dry cleaning sounds a bit excessive for a bag full of T-shirts, shorts, socks and underwear, doesn’t it? But thankfully they also offered regular washing services, charging by the kilogram.

Photo Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels

The only downside was that even with the express option, the turnaround time was still two days. Frankly, by that point, this was absolutely not my problem anymore.

So on Friday we dropped off a 5 kg bag, that’s over ten pounds of dirty laundry, and paid CZK 498 (about USD 24) upfront. The guys picked it up on Sunday. Sunday! Completely unimaginable in Switzerland.

Honestly, the convenience was amazing. Thanks to the mall opening hours, they could collect it anytime between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. I loved that.

But wait, I still have to tell you about one funny little detail.

We received a receipt, not primarily as proof of payment, but because it contained the transaction number identifying our clothes. The lady working there, whose English was fairly basic, insisted: “Take picture.”

We were confused. Why were we supposed to take a picture of the receipt? Weren’t we allowed to keep it?

Then her colleague, whose English was slightly better, explained:

“You know tourists… stupid. They lose receipt. Then we don’t know which clothes to give.”

Aha.

Apparently this happens often enough that they have developed a whole creative system around it. Honestly? I thought it was clever.

So naturally, we obediently took a picture of our receipt.

And only today did I notice that the yellow tag apparently identifies German-speaking stupid tourists.

How thoughtful ;-)