Goltz-Kinský Palace

Fronting the late-baroque Goltz-Kinský Palace is probably Prague’s finest rococo façade, finished in 1765 by the redoubtable Kilian Dientzenhofer. Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, once stayed here; his crush on pacifist Bertha Kinský may have influenced him to establish the Nobel Peace Prize. Many living Praguers have a darker memory of the place, for it was from its balcony in February 1948 that Klement Gottwald proclaimed communist rule in Czechoslovakia. There are Kafka connections here, too – young Franz once attended a school around the back of the building, and his father ran a shop in the premises now occupied by the Kafka Bookshop. Today, the palace is home to a branch of the National Gallery, housing a collection of 17th- to 20th-century Czech landscape art and temporary art exhibitions.