Prague’s royal heart and hidden corners

The historic city comprises the Old Town, the Lesser Town and the New Town. With its burghers’ houses, palaces and towers it belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage.

Above the Vltava lies Prague Castle, once the seat of the Bohemian kings and later of the presidents. Within the complex stand St Vitus Cathedral, St George’s Basilica and the Old Royal Palace. In the Royal Palace, Vladislav Hall combines a Gothic rib vault with tall windows that are among the early evidence of the Renaissance in the Czech Republic. In the Royal Garden stand the Ball Game Hall and Queen Anne’s Summer Palace, both Renaissance buildings. The Ball Game Hall burned out down to its outer walls in the fighting at the end of the war and was rebuilt after the war.

The Charles Bridge connects the Old Town with the Lesser Town. It is built of sandstone blocks, with bridge towers at both ends and statues of saints on the parapets. Damaged figures were replaced by copies; some of the originals now stand in the casemates on the Vyšehrad. On the Old Town Square lies the town hall with the astronomical clock. At the end of the Second World War it was severely destroyed and afterwards rebuilt, the neo-Gothic east wing, however, never. In the Jewish quarter of Josefov stands the early Gothic Old New Synagogue.

Besides the Gothic buildings, works of the High Baroque and of the emerging modernism after 1900 shape the cityscape. Beside the Powder Tower stands the Municipal House, an Art Nouveau building. The House of the Black Madonna in the Old Town is a work of Czech Cubism. On the first floor lies the Grand Café Orient; the café was closed for decades, and its Cubist furnishings were restored on the basis of old photographs.

On Letná lie park meadows, groups of trees and an avenue of plane trees above the Vltava. The cast-iron Hanavský Pavilion offers a view over the city. The Vyšehrad lies on a rocky spur above the Vltava; in its park grounds stands the Romanesque Rotunda of St Martin.