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Housed in a grandiose neo-Renaissance structure that dominates the top of Wenceslas Square, the National Museum was built between 1885 and 1890 as a symbol of the Czech national revival. Indeed, the building's exterior is so impressive that invading Soviet soldiers in 1968 mistook it for parliament. The holdings are a cross between natural history and ethnography and include dinosaur bones, minerals, textiles, coins, and many, many other things. There are rotating exhibitions too, and the building itself remains a pretty spectacular draw in its own right. The gift shop has lots of treasures, too, including brooches made of the museum's original parquet flooring.
Václavské nám. 68, 110 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: 250 Kč
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This incredibly moving monument to the seven Czech and Slovak parachutists who assassinated the Nazi "Butcher of Prague," Reinhard Heydrich, in 1942, tells their astonishing story—the movie Anthropoid is based on what took place—and takes visitors into the crypt where they made their last, doomed stand against the occupying authorities, underneath the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.
Resslova 9A, 120 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: Free, Closed Mon.
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This art nouveau palace houses one of the city's many elegant pasáže, in this case a hallway studded with shops, restaurants, a beautiful grand hall, and a music club. It is also home to a gorgeous cinema and a cheeky David Černý sculpture referencing the statue of St. Wenceslas in the square outside (to give you a hint, it's often described as the hanging horse). Even better, in summer you can go onto the roof of the palace, which is a treat for two reasons: one, the makeshift bar at the top, with great views and a good vibe, and two, the chance to ride in an old-school, slightly terrifying paternoster lift to get up there.
Štěpánská 61, 116 02, Czech Republic
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This whimsical building, one of Prague's most popular modern structures, came to life in 1996 as a team effort from architect Frank Gehry (of Guggenheim Bilbao fame) and his Croatian-Czech collaborator Vlado Milunic. A wasp-waisted glass-and-steel tower sways into the main columned structure as though they were a couple on the dance floor—the "Fred and Ginger" effect gave the building its nickname, the Dancing Building. It's notable for a Gehry piece, as it's more grounded in the surrounding area than his larger projects. It now houses a hotel and top-floor restaurant, but even if you aren't staying or eating there, it's worth marveling at the building itself, either from the near side of the river or the far.
Rašínovo nábř. 80, 180 00, Czech Republic
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Buried deep within the walls of Vyšehrad Citadel, this series of long, dark passageways was built by the French army in 1742 and later improved by other occupying forces, including the Prussians and the Austrians. A guided tour leads through several hundred meters of military corridors into Gorlice Hall, once a gathering place for soldiers and now a storage site for six of the original, pollution-scarred statues from Charles Bridge. Tours start at the information center, near the Táborská brána entrance gate.
V Pevnosti 5B, 128 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: 90 Kč
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Recommended Fodor’s Video
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Bedřich Smetana's symphonic poem Vyšehrad opens with four bardic harp chords that echo the legends surrounding this ancient fortress. Today the flat-top bluff stands over the right bank of the Vltava as a green, tree-dotted expanse showing few signs that splendid medieval monuments once made it a landmark to rival Prague Castle.
The Vyšehrad, or "High Castle," was constructed by Vratislav II (ruled 1061–92), a Přemyslid duke who became the first king of Bohemia. He made the fortified hilltop his capital. Under subsequent rulers it fell into disuse until the 14th century, when Charles IV transformed the site into an ensemble including palaces, the main church, battlements, and a massive gatehouse whose scant remains are on V Pevnosti ulice. By the 17th century royalty had long since departed, and most of the structures they built were crumbling. Vyšehrad was turned into a fortress.
Vyšehrad's place in the modern Czech imagination is largely thanks to the National Revivalists of the 19th century, particularly writer Alois Jirásek. Jirásek mined medieval chronicles for legends and facts to glorify the early Czechs, and that era of Czech history is very much in the popular consciousness today.
Today, the most notable attraction within the fortification walls is the Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul, the landmark neo-Gothic church that can be seen from the riverside. Head inside to see the rich art nouveau decorations, including carvings, mosaics, and figural wall paintings. Beside the church is the entrance to Hřbitov Vyšehrad (Vyšehrad Cemetery), the final resting place of some of the country's leading artists and luminaries, including composers Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana.
Traces of the citadel's distant past can be found at every turn and are reflected even in the structure chosen for the visitor center, the remains of a Gothic stone fortification wall known as Špička, or Peak Gate, at the corner of V Pevnosti and U Podolského Sanatoria. Farther ahead is the sculpture-covered Leopold Gate, which stands next to brick walls enlarged during the 1742 occupation by the French. Out of the gate, a heavily restored Romanesque rotunda, built by Vratislav II in the 11th century, stands on the corner of K Rotundě and Soběslavova. It's considered the oldest fully intact Romanesque building in the city. Down Soběslavova are the excavated foundations and a few embossed floor tiles from the late-10th-century Basilika sv. Vavřince (St. Lawrence Basilica, closed to the public). The foundations, discovered in 1884 while workers were creating a cesspool, are in a baroque structure at Soběslavova 14. The remains are from one of the few early medieval buildings to have survived in the area and are worth a look.
On the western side of Vyšehrad, part of the fortifications stand next to the surprisingly confined foundation mounds of a medieval palace overlooking a ruined watchtower called Libuše's Bath, which precariously juts out of a rocky outcropping over the river. A nearby plot of grass hosts a statue of Libuše and her consort Přemysl, one of four large, sculpted images of couples from Czech legend by J. V. Myslbek (1848–1922), the sculptor of the St. Wenceslas monument.
V Pevnosti 5B, 128 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: Grounds and cemetery free, Gothic cellar 70 Kč
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Vyšehrad | Neighborhood/Street
Bordered to the north by Nové Město and to the south by Nusle, Vyšehrad is mostly visited for its citadel high above the river on a rocky outcropping. However, fans of 20th-century architecture—you know who you are—will find cubist gems between the area's riverfront street and the homes that dot the hills on the other side. Prague's cubist architecture followed a great Czech tradition: embracing new ideas, while adapting them to existing artistic and social contexts to create something sui generis. Between 1912 and 1914 Josef Chochol (1880–1956) designed several of the city's dozen or so cubist projects. His apartment house at Neklanova 30, on the corner of Neklanova and Přemyslova, is a masterpiece in concrete. The pyramidal, kaleidoscopic window moldings and roof cornices make an expressive link to the baroque yet are wholly novel; the faceted corner balcony column, meanwhile, alludes to Gothic forerunners. On the same street, at No. 2, is another apartment house attributed to Chochol. Like the building at No. 30, it uses pyramidal shapes and a suggestion of Gothic columns. Nearby, Chochol's villa, on the embankment at Libušina 3, has an undulating effect, created by smoothly articulated forms. The wall and gate around the back of the house use triangular moldings and metal grating to create an effect of controlled energy. The three-family house, about 100 yards away from the villa at Rašínovo nábřeží 6–10, was completed slightly earlier, when Chochol's cubist style was still developing. Here the design is touched with baroque and neoclassical influence, with a mansard roof and end gables.
Neklanova, Prague, Praha, Czech Republic
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A peaceful green space in the heart of the city, the Franciscan Garden was established by monks from the nearby Carmelite Monastery to grow herbs and spices back in the 14th century, around the same time as Nové Mĕsto itself was founded. It remains a small oasis, with benches shaded by rose bushes, low hedges, a playground, and fruit trees and herb gardens that refer back to its original function. There's also a very cute café in the corner, Truhlárna, which does excellent cakes.
Jungmannovo nám., 110 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: Free
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Nové Mesto
This square began life as a cattle market, a function chosen by Charles IV when he established Nové Mĕsto in 1348. The horse market (now Wenceslas Square) quickly overtook it as a livestock-trading center, and an untidy collection of shacks accumulated here until the mid-1800s, when it became a green park named for its patron. Glassy, modern buildings clash with surrounding older architecture, but it's quite representative of Prague's past and present united in one spot.
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Another of Charles IV's gifts to the city, the Benedictine monastery sits south of Charles Square. It's often called Na Slovanech (literally, "At the Slavs"), which refers to its purpose when established in 1347. The emperor invited Croatian monks here to celebrate mass in Old Slavonic and thus cultivate religion among the Slavs in a city largely controlled by Germans. A faded but substantially complete cycle of biblical scenes by Charles's court artists lines the four cloister walls. The frescoes, and especially the abbey church, suffered heavy damage from a raid by Allied bombers on February 14, 1945; it's believed they may have mistaken Prague for Dresden, 121 km (75 miles) away. The church lost its spires, and the interior remained a blackened shell until a renovation was begun in 1998; the church reopened to the public in 2003.
Vyšehradská 49, 128 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: 60 Kč, Open for worship only on Sun.
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This beautiful church with its poetic name (Church of Our Lady of the Snows---one of the titles used for the Virgin Mary in Catholicism) was intended to rival Katedrála sv. Víta (St. Vitus Cathedral), in the castle complex, for grandeur when Charles IV started building it in the 14th century. Alas, it was never finished, and still has a slightly odd shape as a result of that today, taller than it is long. It has the highest vaults and column altar in the city.
Jungmannovo nám. 753/18, 110 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: Free
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For decades it was almost impossible to find an Alfons Mucha original in his homeland, but in 1998 this private museum opened with nearly 100 works from this justly famous Czech artist's long career. Everything you expect to see from the man famed for his art nouveau style is here—the theater posters of actress Sarah Bernhardt, the eye-popping advertising posters, and the sinuous, intricate designs. Also exhibited are paintings, photographs taken in Mucha's studio (one shows Paul Gauguin playing the piano in his underwear), and even Czechoslovak banknotes designed by Mucha.
Panská 7, 110 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: 280 Kč
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The stately red-and-yellow baroque villa housing this museum displays the 19th-century Czech composer's scores, photographs, viola, piano, and other memorabilia. The statues in the garden date to about 1735; the house is from 1720. Check the schedule for classical performances, as recitals are often held in the first floor of the two-story villa.
Ke Karlovu 20, 120 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: 50 Kč, Closed Mon.
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Formerly and perhaps ironically located in the Savarin Palace next to the twin capitalist symbols of the yellow arches of a McDonald's and a casino, the Museum of Communism has relocated into a brightly lit and larger new space in V Celnici, albeit still next to a supermarket. The expanded museum offers a vivid look at life in Prague and then-Czechoslovakia under the totalitarian regime that held power from the coup in February 1948 through the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. Find works of social realist art, original texts and photos from the archives of the Security Services, film, and dozens of exhibits that explore the days of the ČSSR through sport, education, art, propaganda, and censorship. Exhibits tread the line between menacing and enlightening, showing aspects of daily life as well as the terrifying repercussions of noncompliance.
V Celnici 4, 110 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: 380 Kč
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Nové Mesto | Arts/Performance Venue
Statues representing Drama and Opera rise above the riverfront side entrances to this theater, and two gigantic chariots flank figures of Apollo and the nine Muses above the main façade. The performance space lacks restraint as well: it's filled with gilding, voluptuous plaster figures, and plush upholstery. The idea for a Czech national theater began during the revolutionary decade of the 1840s. In a telling display of national pride, donations to fund the plan poured in from all over the country, from people of every socioeconomic stratum. The cornerstone was laid in 1868, and the "National Theater generation" who built the neo-Renaissance structure became the architectural and artistic establishment for decades to come. Its designer, Josef Zítek, was the leading neo-Renaissance architect in Bohemia. The nearly finished interior was gutted by a fire in 1881, and Zítek's onetime student Josef Schulz saw the reconstruction through to completion two years later. Today, it's still the country's leading dramatic stage. Guided tours in English (for groups only) can be arranged by phone or email in advance.
Národní 2, Prague, Praha, 110 00, Czech Republic
-224–901–448-for box office
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Rate Includes: Tours 200 Kč
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At the northern edge of Charles Square, the New Town Hall has a late-Gothic tower similar to that of Staroměstská radnice (Old Town Hall), plus three tall Renaissance gables. The first defenestration in Prague occurred here on July 30, 1419, when a mob of townspeople, followers of the martyred religious reformer Jan Hus, hurled Catholic town councilors out the windows. Historical exhibitions and contemporary art shows are held regularly in the gallery, and you can climb the tower for a view of Nové Mĕsto. As in Staré Mĕsto, this town hall is a popular venue for weddings.
Karlovo nám. 23, 128 00, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: Tower and exhibits on tower premises 60 Kč, gallery shows vary, combination ticket 350 Kč (incl. Old Town Hall), Closed Mon. and 30 min. between noon and 1 daily
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The city's art nouveau showpiece still fills the role it had when it was completed in 1911 as a center for concerts, rotating art exhibits, and café society. The mature art nouveau style echoes the lengths the Czech middle class went to at the turn of the 20th century to imitate Paris. Much of the interior bears the work of Alfons Mucha, Max Švabinský, and other leading Czech artists. Mucha decorated the Hall of the Lord Mayor upstairs with impressive, magical frescoes depicting Czech history; unfortunately, these are visible only as part of a guided tour. The beautiful Smetanova síň (Smetana Hall), which hosts concerts by the Prague Symphony Orchestra as well as international players, is on the second floor. The ground-floor restaurants are overcrowded with tourists but still impressive, with glimmering chandeliers and exquisite woodwork. There's also a beer hall in the cellar, with decent food and ceramic murals on the walls. Tours are normally held at two-hour intervals in the afternoons; check the website for details.
Nám. Republiky 5, 110 21, Czech Republic
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Rate Includes: Guided tours 290 Kč
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"Let's meet at the horse" is the local expression referring to the traditional meeting place that is Josef Václav Myslbek's impressive equestrian representation of St. Wenceslas surrounded by other Czech patron saints. In 1939, Czechs gathered here to oppose Hitler's annexation of Bohemia and Moravia. In 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire near here to protest the Soviet-led invasion of the country a year earlier (there's a moving monument to him in the cobbles). And in 1989, many thousands successfully gathered here and all along the square to demand the end of the communist government.
Václavské nám., 110 00, Czech Republic
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Nové Mesto
This "square"—more of a very long, very thin rectangle—was first laid out by Charles IV in 1348, and began its existence as a horse market at the center of Nové Mĕsto. Today, it functions as the commercial heart of the city center and is far brasher and more modern than Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square). Throughout much of Czech history, Wenceslas Square has served as the focal point for public demonstrations and celebrations. It was here in the heady days of November 1989 that some 500,000 people gathered to protest the policies of the then-communist regime. After a week of demonstrations, the government capitulated without a shot fired or the loss of a single life. After that, the first democratic government in 40 years (under playwright-president Václav Havel) was swept into office. This peaceful transfer of power is referred to as the Velvet Revolution. (The subsequent "Velvet Divorce," when Czechoslovakia was peacefully divided into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, took effect in 1993.)
Look up when you glimpse the Marks & Spencer shop sign—during the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Václav Havel addressed the crowds from this building's balcony.
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