5 Prague Hotels with a Hidden Secret

Why it made the list

While the spa at the Emblem is hardly a secret, the sheer loveliness of its rooftop hot tub has to be at least not very well-known--otherwise, surely everyone would be in it?

Rivaling the best design hotels in capital cities around the Read More

Why it made the list

Sure, it's a Best Western, but this is Prague, so it also hosts a 14th-century wine cellar in the basement.

Though this hotel shares a street with the fancy-pants Grand Read More

Why it made the list

This former convent was also once the headquarters of the communist secret police. Many older Czechs still dislike even walking down the street because of the fear this building invoked; cell no P6 is the room where the future Czech president, Václav Havel, was once detained.

The large rooms in this former convent once served as interr Read More

Why it made the list

Another basement surprise lurks at the Grand Hotel Bohemia. Here, it's the ridiculously opulent neo-Baroque Boccaccio ballroom, which hosts gorgeous dinners beneath glittering chandeliers. There's another layer of history here though, too; during the Communist era in Prague, the hotel was used as a residence for high-ranking party members, and that same glittering ballroom was the location for wild parties held by the party elite during tough times for ordinary Czechs.

This art nouveau palais dominates a picturesque corner near Read More

Why it made the list

This smart hotel on Wenceslas Square has a nuclear fallout shelter in its basement, which is now a museum that you can visit with an English-speaking guide in afternoon tours (check with reception). During the Cold War, the bunker was primed to become the military headquarters of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries in a worst-case scenario, and could apparently accommodate 150 people for two weeks.

The Jalta is arguably the smartest, most interesting hotel o Read More