Explore Prague

Charles Bridge is a medieval stone bridge across the Vltava, begun in 1357 under King Charles IV and finished in the early 15th century. It is 516 metres long, rests on 16 arches and has bridge towers at both ends; a row of 30 statues, mostly Baroque and now replaced by copies, lines its parapets on the walk between the Old Town and Malá Strana.

The Franz Kafka Museum occupies part of the Hergetova Cihelna, a former brickworks on the Vltava bank in the Lesser Town. Its permanent exhibition follows the Prague-born writer (1883–1924) through first editions, manuscripts, diaries, letters, photographs and audiovisual installations that evoke the city of his time.

The Slivovitz Museum is an exhibition about Czech plum brandy in a late-Renaissance house on U Lužického semináře in Malá Strana, opened in 2019 by the Vizovice distiller Rudolf Jelínek. Projections, period exhibits and a virtual-reality show cover fruit growing and distilling, and tours end with a tasting at the bar.

The Karel Zeman Museum opened in 2012 in Malá Strana, near Charles Bridge, and covers the work of the Czech film-maker Karel Zeman and his trick techniques. Its interactive rooms explain how scenes from Journey to the Beginning of Time, Invention for Destruction and Baron Munchausen were made, with original props and sets.

The Invisible Exhibition is an interactive tour on the second floor of the New Town Hall on Charles Square, in Prague since 2011. Blind and partially sighted guides lead visitors through seven rooms in total darkness, where everyday tasks such as crossing a street or paying in a café are done by touch, hearing and smell.

The Lennon Wall is a graffiti-covered wall on Grand Priory Square in Prague's Lesser Town, opposite the French Embassy. After John Lennon's murder in 1980 an unknown artist painted his portrait here, and the wall became a place for messages against the communist government. It belongs to the Order of Malta, which limited painting to certain sections in 2019.

The National Museum, founded in 1818 by Kaspar Maria von Sternberg, has its main Neo-Renaissance building of 1891 at the top of Wenceslas Square. Reopened in 2018 after restoration, it is joined by an underground passage to the New Building, and its exhibitions cover natural history, Czech history and the Pantheon of national figures.

Wallenstein Palace is a Baroque palace in Malá Strana, built in 1623–1630 for the imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein and now the seat of the Czech Senate. Its Italian-style garden has a large sala terrena, an artificial dripstone wall, an aviary and bronze copies of statues by Adriaen de Vries; the palace halls open for Saturday tours.

The Lobkowicz Palace is a 16th-century palace inside the Prague Castle complex, begun by Jaroslav of Pernštejn and the only building there in private hands. Since 2007 its audio-guided museum has shown the Lobkowicz Collections, with paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Canaletto, arms, instruments and Beethoven and Mozart manuscripts.

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 St. Nicholas Bell Tower in Malá Strana stands beside the dome of St. Nicholas Church but has always belonged to the town. Built with the church by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer and completed by Anselmo Lurago in 1755, it served as a fire watchtower and, from the 1960s to the 1980s, as a State Security observation post; 215 steps lead to a gallery at 65 metres.

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.

The Dancing House is an office building on the Rašín Embankment in Prague, designed by Vlado Milunić with Frank Gehry and completed in 1996. Its glass tower leaning against a solid one recalls a dancing couple, hence the nickname Ginger and Fred. Inside are a gallery, a hotel and a rooftop bar with a terrace over the Vltava.

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.

Prague Castle is a castle complex above the Vltava, founded in the 9th century and the seat of Bohemian kings, Holy Roman emperors and today the Czech president. Its courtyards hold St. Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, St. George's Basilica and Golden Lane; the grounds are open to walk through, the interiors are on circuit tickets.

The Trade Fair Palace in Holešovice is the largest venue of the National Gallery Prague. Built in 1925–1928 to designs by Josef Fuchs and Oldřich Tyl, it was the first large functionalist building in Prague. After a fire in 1974 it was rebuilt for the gallery and shows Czech and international art of the 19th to 21st centuries.

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.

The Žižkov Television Tower is a 216-metre transmitter tower built between 1985 and 1992 to a design by architect Václav Aulický and engineer Jiří Kozák. An observatory at 93 metres looks out over Prague, and David Černý's fibreglass babies crawl up its three steel-and-concrete columns.

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.