Explore Prague

The Church of Our Lady before Týn is the Gothic parish church on the east side of Prague's Old Town Square, built from the 14th century on the site of an earlier church. Its two towers rise about 80 metres, each crowned by a cluster of small spires. Inside lies the tomb of the astronomer Tycho Brahe.

The Church of St. Nicholas on Old Town Square is a Baroque church built in 1732–1737 by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer on the site of a 13th-century Gothic church. Its white facade with two towers faces the square; since 1920 it has been the main church of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, and it also hosts concerts.

The Spanish Synagogue on Dušní Street was built in 1868 for Prague's Reform congregation on the site of the Old Shul, to plans by Vojtěch Ignác Ullmann and Josef Niklas. Its Moorish Revival interior of gilded stucco and stained glass dates from 1882–83; today it shows Jewish Museum exhibitions and is on the Jewish Museum ticket.

The Old New Synagogue in Josefov, completed around 1270, is the oldest synagogue in Europe still in use and the main synagogue of Prague's Jewish community. Built by masons from the royal workshop, it has an early Gothic twin-nave hall and a tall brick gable. Legend places the remains of Rabbi Loew's Golem in its attic.

St. Nicholas Church on Lesser Town Square is a Baroque church built for the Jesuits in two stages in the 18th century, to plans by Kryštof Dientzenhofer and his son Kilián Ignác; Anselmo Lurago finished the 79-metre belfry in 1756. Inside are a ceiling fresco in the 70-metre dome and an organ with over 4,000 pipes that Mozart played in 1787.

The Church of Our Lady of Victories in Malá Strana was built in 1611–1613 by German-speaking Lutherans and given to the Discalced Carmelites, who rededicated it in 1624 and rebuilt it in early Baroque style. It houses the Infant Jesus of Prague, a wax-coated wooden statue from 16th-century Spain donated in 1628, and a small museum of its robes.

Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral on Resslova Street is the main church of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands and Slovakia. Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer designed it as a Catholic church, built in 1730–1736; it became Orthodox in 1935. In June 1942 the paratroopers who killed Reinhard Heydrich made their last stand in its crypt, now a national memorial.

St. Vitus Cathedral is the Gothic cathedral of the Archbishop of Prague, in the third courtyard of Prague Castle. Begun in 1344 under Charles IV, it was completed only in 1929; it holds the tombs of Bohemian kings and the Chapel of St. Wenceslas, and its main tower is 102 metres high. The front of the nave can be entered without a ticket; the rest is on the castle circuit.

Loreta is a Baroque pilgrimage site in Hradčany, begun in 1626 around a copy of the Santa Casa of Loreto that was blessed in 1631. Cloisters, the Church of the Nativity and a clock tower whose carillon of 1694 still plays surround it, and the treasury shows liturgical objects, mainly monstrances. The facade is by Christoph and Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer.

Strahov Monastery is a Premonstratensian abbey above Hradčany, founded in 1143 by Bishop Jindřich Zdík and Duke Vladislav II. Visitors look into the Baroque Theological and Philosophical Halls of its library from the doorways, and see the Strahov Picture Gallery and the Basilica of the Assumption, where St Norbert's remains have lain since 1627.