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Aircraft Museum
The Kbely airfield in northeastern Prague is home to this aircraft museum where you can have a close look at Russian MiG fighter planes and a host of exhibits on aeronautics and space flight. The impressive collection amounts to no less than 275 aircraft.
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Army Museum
On the way up Žižkov Hill you will find this grim-looking barracks of a museum, which displays a courtyard full of rusting tanks, and exhibits on the history of the Czechoslovak army and resistance movement from 1918 to 1945. There is also a fascinating exhibition on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, with pride of place going to the Mercedes in which Heydrich was travelling when the attack took place.
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Bílek Villa
In the deep south of Dejvice, near the northeastern edge of Hradčany, is the striking, red-brick villa designed by the sculptor František Bílek in 1911 as his own home. It now houses a museum of his unconventional stone and wood reliefs, furniture and graphics.
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Casemates
At the 19th-century Brick Gate (Cihelná brána) on the northern side of the fortress is the entrance to the vaulted casemates beneath the ramparts. The chambers now house a museum exhibit explaining the history of Prague's fortifications.
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Czech Museum of Fine Arts
Housed in three beautifully restored Romanesque and Gothic buildings, this often-overlooked little gallery stages temporary exhibitions of 20th-century and contemporary art, though it's worth the admission fee just for a look at the architecture.
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Ecotechnical Museum
Prague's former Waste Water Treatment Plant was built between 1895 and 1906 following a design by the English architect WH Lindley. Surprisingly, as the plant was designed to service a city of 500,000 people, it remained in service until 1967, by which time Prague had a population of over a million.
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Emmaus Monastery
Founded for a Slavonic Benedictine order at the request of Charles IV, and originally called Na Slovanech, the Emmaus Monastery dates from 1372. During WWII the monastery was seized by the Gestapo and the monks were sent to Dachau concentration camp, then in February 1945 it was almost destroyed by a stray Allied fire-bomb.
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Franz Kafka Museum
This much-hyped exhibition on the life and work of Prague's most famous literary son opened here in 2005 after three years in Barcelona and three years in New York. Entitled 'City of K', it explores the intimate relationship between the writer and the city that shaped him through the use of original letters, photographs, quotations, period newspapers and publications, and video and sound installations.
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Futura Gallery
The Futura Gallery focuses on all aspects of contemporary art, ranging from painting, photography and sculpture to video, installations and performance art. The gallery spaces, which include two floors of 'white cube' halls, a more intimate brick-vaulted cellar, and a garden with children's play area, host changing exhibitions by both Czech and international artists.
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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 (see the boxed text, ). 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.
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Historical Pharmacy Exhibition
Hradčany's first pharmacy was opened here in 1749; the building now houses the Historical Pharmacy exhibition, with a small collection of pharmaceutical paraphernalia and original furnishings dating from the 19th century.
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House at the Golden Ring
The restored Renaissance House at the Golden Ring, on the corner of Týnská just outside the western entrance to Týn courtyard, is another branch of the Prague City Gallery, with a fine collection of 20th-century Czech art. Note the original painted ceiling beams in some rooms.
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House at the Stone Bell
Next door to the Goltz-Kinský Palace is this elegant medieval building, its 14th-century Gothic dignity rescued in the 1960s from a second-rate baroque renovation (the stucco façade stripped to reveal the original stonework). Inside, two restored Gothic chapels now serve as branches of the Prague City Gallery, with changing exhibits of modern art, and as chamber-concert venues.
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Kampa Museum
Housed in a renovated mill building, this gallery is devoted to 20th-century and contemporary art from Central Europe. The highlights of the permanent exhibition are extensive collections of bronzes by Cubist sculptor Otto Gutfreund, and paintings by František Kupka, a pioneer of abstract art. The most impressive canvas is Kupka's Cathedral, a pleated mass of blue and red diagonals suggesting a curtain with a glimpse of darkness beyond.
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Klaus Synagogue & Ceremonial Hall
Both the baroque Klaus Synagogue and the nearby Ceremonial Hall contain exhibits on Jewish ceremonies and other traditions, most interesting for the historian or devout visitor.
The hall was formerly the Old Jewish Cemetery mortuary and is now part of the Jewish Museum. Built in 1912, the Ceremonial Hall is the site of an interesting exhibition on Jewish traditions relating to illness and death and is a good complement to a visit to the Old Jewish Cemetery (especially if you're feeling slightly morbid).
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Kobylisy Anti-Fascist Resistance Memorial
This grassy quadrangle of earthen embankments, ringed by trees and overlooked by apartment blocks, was once the Kobylisy Rifle Range. More than a hundred Czechs were executed here by firing squads during WWII. Today it's the site of a national memorial; a huge bronze plaque lists all the names of the dead, and - such was Nazi bureaucracy - the dates and times of their executions. Take tram No 10, 17 or 24 to the terminal at Ďáblická, then walk west for 10 minutes along Žernosecká.
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Lapidárium
An outlying branch of the National Museum, and an often overlooked gem, the Lapidárium is a repository for some 400 sculptures from the 11th to the 19th centuries. The exhibits include the Lions of Kouřim (Bohemia's oldest surviving stone sculpture), parts of the Renaissance Krocín Fountain that once stood in Old Town Square, ten of Charles Bridge's original statues, and many other superb sculptures.
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Lobkowicz Palace
Built in the 1570s, this aristocratic palace now houses a branch of the National Museum, with a good collection on Czech history from prehistoric times until 1848. Exhibits include the sword of executioner Jan Mydlář (who lopped off the heads of 27 rebellious Protestant nobles in Old Town Square in 1621) and some of the oldest marionettes in the Czech Republic, but to be honest this is a place for history buffs only.
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Maisel Synagogue
The neogothic Maisel Synagogue replaced a Renaissance original built by Maisel and destroyed by fire. It houses another exhibit of ceremonial silver, textiles, prints and books.
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Mánes Gallery
Beneath the tower is the Mánes Building (1927-30), which houses an art gallery founded in the 1920s by a group of artists headed by painter Josef Mánes, as an alternative to the Czech Academy of Arts. It still has one of Prague's better displays of contemporary art, with changing exhibits. The building itself, designed by Oskar Novotný, is considered a masterpiece of Functionalist architecture.
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Miniature Museum
The 'write your name on a grain of rice' movement may have undermined the respectability of miniature artists, but Siberian technician Anatoly Konyenko will restore your faith with his microscopic creations. Konyenko used to manufacture tools for eye microsurgery, but these days he'd rather spend seven-and-a-half years crafting a pair of golden horseshoes for a flea. See those, plus the world's smallest book and strangely beautiful silhouettes of cars on the leg of a mosquito. Weird.
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Mirror Maze
Below the lookout tower is the Mirror Maze, also built for the 1891 Prague Exposition. As well as the maze, which is good for a laugh, is a diorama of the 1648 battle between Praguers and Swedes on Charles Bridge. Opposite is the Church of St Lawrence (kostel sv Vavřince), which contains a ceiling fresco depicting the founding of the church in 991 at a pagan site with a sacred flame.
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Mozart Museum
Mozart stayed at the elegant 17th-century Vila Bertramka during his visits to Prague in 1787 and 1791, as guest of composer František Dušek. Here he finished his opera Don Giovanni . Today, the house is a modest Mozart museum. Regular concerts are held in the salon (see for more details), and in the garden (April to October only).
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Mucha Museum
This fascinating (and busy) museum features the sensuous Art Nouveau posters, paintings and decorative panels of Alfons Mucha (1860-1939), as well as many sketches, photographs and other memorabilia. The exhibits include countless artworks showing Mucha's trademark Slavic maidens with flowing hair and piercing blue eyes, bearing symbolic garlands and linden boughs.
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Musaion
This recently renovated summer palace houses the National Museum's ethnographic collection, with exhibits covering traditional Czech folk culture and art, including music, costume, farming methods and handicrafts. There are regular folk concerts and workshops demonstration traditional crafts such as blacksmithing and wood-carving.
