Church Of Our Lady Before Týn

Lonely Planet review

The distinctive, spiky-topped Týn Church is early Gothic, though it takes some imagination to visualise the original in its entirety because it's partly hidden behind the four-storey Týn School (not a Habsburg plot to obscure this 15th-century Hussite stronghold, but almost contemporaneous with it). The church's name originates from a courtyard called Týnský dvůr, or just Týn, behind the church on Štupartská. Originally a sort of medieval caravanserai for visiting foreign merchants, the attractively renovated courtyard now houses shops, restaurants and hotels.

Though Gothic on the outside, the church's interior is smothered in heavy baroque. Two of the most interesting features are the huge rococo altar on the northern wall, and the tomb of Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer who was one of Rudolf II's most illustrious 'consultants' (he died in 1601 of a burst bladder following a royal piss-up - he was too polite to leave the table to relieve himself). On the inside of the southern wall of the church are two small windows - they are now blocked off, but once opened into the church from rooms in the neighbouring house at Celetná 3, where the teenage Franz Kafka once lived (from 1896 to 1907).

As for the exterior of the church, the north portal overlooking Týnská ulička is topped by a remarkable 14th-century tympanum showing the Crucifixion, carved by the workshop of Charles IV's favourite architect Petr Parler.

The entrance to the church is along a passage from the square, through the second (from the left) of the Týn School's four arches. It's only open for services and occasional concerts, not ordinary tourist visits, but you can peer at the interior through the glass doors. The Týn Church is an occasional concert venue and has a very grand-sounding pipe organ.