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Museum Of Communism
It would be difficult to think of a more ironic site for a museum of communism - it occupies part of an 18th-century aristocrat's palace, stuck between a casino on one side and a McDonald's burger restaurant on the other. Put together by an American expat and his Czech partner, the museum tells the story of Czechoslovakia's years behind the Iron Curtain in photos, words and a fascinating and varied collection of…well, stuff.
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Museum of Czech Cubism
Though dating from 1912, Josef Gočár's House of the Black Madonna (dům U černé Matky Boží) - Prague's first and finest example of Cubist architecture - still looks modern and dynamic. It now houses three floors of Czech Cubist paintings and sculpture, as well as furniture, ceramics and glassware in Cubist designs.
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Museum of Decorative Arts
This neo-Renaissance museum, opened in 1900, arose as part of a European movement to encourage a return to the aesthetic values sacrificed to the Industrial Revolution. Its four halls are a feast for the eyes, full of 16th- to 19th-century artifacts, including furniture, tapestries, porcelain and a fabulous collection of glasswork.
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Museum of Marionette Culture
Rooms filled with a multitude of authentic, colourfully dressed marionettes from the late 17th to early 19th centuries make up the Museum of Marionette Culture. Star attractions are the Czech figures Spejbl and Hurvínek. The museum is upstairs inside the courtyard.
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Museum of the City of Prague
To see how Prague looked before its walled Jewish ghetto was pulled down and St Vitus Cathedral was complete, pop along to see this museum's utterly charming model of the early-19th-century city. The model was an 11-year labour of love for its creator Antonín Langweil. Other displays cover Prague from prehistoric times to the 20th century.
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Museum Of The Infant Jesus Of Prague
The Church of Our Lady Victorious (kostel Panny Marie Vítězné), built in 1613, has on its central altar a 47-cm tall waxwork figure of the baby Jesus brought from Spain in 1628. Known as the Infant Jesus of Prague (Pražské jezulátko), it is said to have protected Prague from the plague and from the destruction of the Thirty Years' War, and is visited by a steady stream of pilgrims, especially from Italy, Spain and Latin America.
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Náprstek Museum
The small Náprstek Museum houses an ethnographical collection of Asian, African and American cultures, founded by Vojta Náprstek, a 19th-century industrialist with a passion for both anthropology and modern technology (his technology exhibits are now part of the National Technical Museum in Holešovice; ).
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National Memorial To The Victims Of Post-Heydrich Terror
In 1942 seven Czech paratroopers that were involved in the assassination of Reichsprotektor Reinhardt Heydrich hid in the crypt of the Church of SS Cyril and Methodius for three weeks after the killing, until their hiding place was betrayed by the Czech traitor Karel Čurda. The Germans besieged the church, first attempting to smoke the paratroopers out and then flooding the church with fire hoses.
Read more about National Memorial To The Victims Of Post-Heydrich Terror
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National Museum
Looming above Wenceslas Square is the neo-Renaissance bulk of the National Museum, designed in the 1880s by Josef Schulz as an architectural symbol of the Czech National Revival.
The displays of rocks, fossils and stuffed animals have a rather old-fashioned feel - serried ranks of glass display cabinets arranged on creaking parquet floors - but even if taxidermy isn't your thing it's still worth a visit just to enjoy the marbled splendour of the interior and the views down Wenceslas Square.
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National Technical Museum
This fun museum has a huge main hall full of vintage trains, planes and automobiles, including 1920s and '30s Škoda and Tatra cars and a couple of Bugattis. The motorcycle exhibit has a 1926 BSA 350-L in perfect nick, and among the vintage bicycles you'll find a 1921 predecessor of the 1970s Raleigh Chopper. Upstairs you can fool around with the cameras in a working TV studio, or head to the basement for a tour down a simulated mineshaft.
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New Town Hall
The historical focus of Charles Square is the New Town Hall, which was built when the New Town was still new. From the window of the tower, two of Wenceslas IV's Catholic councillors were flung to their deaths in 1419 by followers of the Hussite preacher Jan Želivský, giving 'defenestration' (throwing out of a window) a lasting political meaning, and sparking off the Hussite Wars. (This tactic was repeated at Prague Castle in 1618.)
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Petřín
Its odd opening hours (check the website) mean you have to plan ahead if you want to visit this 1920s 'people's observatory', which boasts a double Zeiss astrograph telescope for observation of the sun or the night sky.
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Picture Gallery
In 1648 an invading Swedish army looted Emperor Rudolf II's art collection (as well as making off with the original bronze statues in the Wallenstein Garden). These converted Renaissance stables house what was left plus replacement works, including some by Rubens, Tintoretto and Titian.
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Postal Museum
Philatelists will love this tiny museum with its letter boxes, mail coach and drawers of old postage stamps, including a rare Penny Black. Look for the beautiful stamps created in the early 20th century by Czech artists Josef Navrátil and Alfons Mucha.
Across the street is the Petrská vodárenská věž (Petrská Waterworks Tower), built about 1660 on the site of earlier wooden ones. From here, wooden pipes once carried river water to buildings in Nové Město.
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Prague Castle Gallery
The same Swedish army that looted the famous bronzes in the Wallenstein Garden in 1648 also took Rudolf II's art collection. This gallery, housed in the beautiful Renaissance stables at the northern end of the Second Courtyard, is based on the Habsburg collection that was begun in 1650 to replace the lost paintings. The display of 16th- to 18th-century European art includes works by Rubens, Tintoretto and Titian.
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Prague Planetarium
The Planetarium, in Stromovka park just west of Výstaviště, presents various slide and video presentations in addition to the star shows. Most shows are in Czech only, but one or two of the more popular ones provide a text summary in English. There's also an astronomical exhibition in the main hall.
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Public Transport Museum
The museum at the Střešovice tram depot has a large collection of trams and buses, from an 1886 horse-drawn tram to present-day vehicles. It's great for kids as they can climb into some of the vehicles.
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Smetana Museum
This small museum is devoted to Bedřich Smetana, Bohemia's favourite composer. It isn't that interesting unless you're a Smetana fan, and only has limited labelling in English. There's a good exhibit on popular culture's feverish response to Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride - it seems Smetana was the Andrew Lloyd Webber of his day.
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Square
Hradčany Sq, before Prague Castle's main gates, is dominated by the striking black-and-white sgraffito façade of the 18th-century Schwarzenberg Palace (Schwarzenberský palác). From late 2007 this will house part of the National Gallery, although it's going to be hard to upstage the 3D optical illusion of its own exterior. The nearby Sternberg Palace already hosts National Gallery works by Breughel, Dürer, Goya, Rembrandt and Rubens.
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St George's Convent
Bohemia's first convent, established in 973, now contains yet another branch of the National Gallery. There's an extensive collection of Renaissance and baroque art here.
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Story Of Prague Castle
This is one of the castle's newest and most compelling exhibitions, with displays expertly presented in a low-lit, state-of-the-art environment and explained in English. The collection of armour, jewellery, glassware, furniture and other artefacts traces more than 1000 years of castle history. One outstanding sight is the skeleton of the pre-Christian 'warrior', still encased in the earth where archaeologists found him within the castle grounds.
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Toy Museum
Frivolous but fun, this exhibition runs the gamut from model trains, robots, teddy bears and wooden dolls to colourful German tambourines and tiny tin horses with whistles in their tails. Most strikingly, the upper floor has been invaded and colonised by hundreds of Barbie dolls (including celebrity lookalikes). If taking children, be aware the entire collection is hands-off.
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Veletržní Palace
It takes an hour just to jog through this enormous functionalist building housing the National Gallery's jaw-droppingly impressive collection of 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century Czech and European art. However, if you catch the vertiginous all-glass lift from the Small Hall to the 5th floor you'll get a quick overview of the atrium displays. Otherwise, make sure to circle the 3rd floor for Czech cubist masterpieces and French impressionist works, before popping into the 1958 Expo exhibit on the 2nd.
