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Palace Gardens Beneath Prague Castle
These beautiful terraced gardens on the steep southern slope of the castle hill date from the 17th and 18th centuries, when they were created for the owners of the adjoining palaces. They were restored in the 1990s and contain a Renaissance loggia with frescoes of Pompeii and a baroque portal with sundial that cleverly catches the sunlight reflected from the water in the triton fountain in front of it.
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Peček Palace
This gloomy neo-Renaissance palace served as the wartime headquarters of the Gestapo. A memorial on the corner of the building honours the many Czechs who were tortured and executed in the basement detention cells. Today, it is home to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
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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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Petřín Funicular
While you can walk up Petřín along several routes - from Hradčany via Strahov or directly from Újezd - by far the most fun way to arrive is on this funicular railway from Újezd. Services leave every 15 to 20 minutes. Ordinary public transport tickets are valid, but drivers always seem keen to help if you need it.
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Petřín Hill
Most attractions atop this lookout point were built in the late 19th to early 20th century, creating a slightly innocent, fun-fair atmosphere. The huge stone fortifications that run from Újezd to Strahov, cutting across Petřín's peak, are different. This so-called Hunger Wall was built in 1362 under Charles IV, constructed by the city's poor in return for food under an early job-creation scheme.
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Petřín Lookout Tower
To the north of the observatory is Petřínská rozhledna, a 62m-tall Eiffel Tower lookalike built in 1891 for the Prague Exposition. You can climb its 299 steps for some of the best views of Prague; on clear days you can see the forests of Central Bohemia. On the way to the tower you cross the Hunger Wall (Hladová zed'), running from Újezd to Strahov.
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Petřín Mirror Maze
Also built for the 1891 Prague Exposition, this mirror maze isn't exactly cutting-edge, but it is good for a laugh, especially for kids. Adjacent is a diorama of a famous battle between Prazaks and invading Swedes on Charles Bridge in 1648.
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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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Pinkas Synagogue
The handsome Pinkas Synagogue was built in 1535 and used for worship until 1941. After WWII it was converted into a moving memorial, wall after wall inscribed with the names, birth dates, and dates of disappearance of the 77,297 Czech victims of the Nazis. It also has a collection of paintings and drawings by children held in the Terezín concentration camp during WWII.
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Plečník Monolith
A noteworthy feature near St Vitus Cathedral is a huge granite monolith dedicated to the victims of WWI, designed by Slovene architect Jože Plečník in 1928. Nearby is a copy of the castle's famous statue of St George slaying the dragon; the original 14th-century bronze statue is now in the Story of Prague Castle exhibition.
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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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Powder Gate
The 65m-tall Powder Gate was begun in 1475 on the site of one of Staré Město's original 13 gates. Built during the reign of King Vladislav II Jagiello as a ceremonial entrance to the city, it was left unfinished after the king moved from the neighbouring Royal Court to Prague Castle in 1483. The name comes from its use as a gunpowder magazine in the 18th century. Josef Mocker rebuilt, decorated and steepled it between 1875 and 1886, giving it its neogothic icing.
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Powder Tower
A passage to the north of St Vitus Cathedral leads to the Powder Tower (also called Mihulka), built at the end of the 15th century as part of the castle's defences. Later it became the workshop of the cannon- and bell-maker Tomáš Jaroš, who cast the bells for St Vitus Cathedral. Alchemists employed by Rudolf II also worked here. Today the first floor houses a rather dull exhibition of 17th- and 18th-century weaponry.
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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 Main Train Station
What? The train station is actually a tourist attraction? Perhaps not all of it, but it's worth heading up to the top floor for a look at the grimy, soot-blackened splendour of the original Art Nouveau building designed by Josef Fanta and built between 1901 and 1909. The domed interior is adorned with two nubile ladies framing a mosaic with the words Praga: mater urbium (Prague, Mother of Cities) and the date '28.října r:1918' (28 October 1918 - Czechoslovakia's Independence Day).
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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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Prague Zoo
Prague's attractive zoo is set in 60 hectares of wooded grounds on the banks of the river. Pride of place, at the top of the hill, goes to a herd of Przewalski's horses, little steppe-dwellers that still survive in the wilds of Mongolia and are successfully bred in captivity here.
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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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Radio Free Europe Building
During the Cold War, US-financed Radio Free Europe was the most famous voice broadcasting from the capitalist West to the communist East. After 1989 it moved from Munich to Prague, into this former stock exchange and then communist parliament. In late 2008 the radio will be departing for Prague's outskirts, leaving this brutalist, 1970s glass-fronted building to the neighbouring National Museum.
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Rotunda Of St Martin
Vratislav II's little chapel, the 11th-century Rotunda of St Martin, is Prague's oldest surviving building. In the 18th century it was used as a powder magazine. The door and frescoes date from a renovation made about 1880.
Nearby are a 1714 plague column and the baroque St Mary Chapel in the Ramparts (kaple Panny Marie v hradbách), dating from about 1750, and behind them the remains of the 14th-century Church of the Beheading of St John the Baptist (kostelík Stětí sv Jana Křtitele).
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Royal Garden
The Powder Bridge (Prašný most; 1540) spans the Stag Moat (Jelení příkop) en route to the spacious, Renaissance-style Royal Garden. This started life in 1534 and its most beautiful building is the Ball-Game House (Míčovna; 1569), a masterpiece of Renaissance sgraffito where the Habsburgs once played an early form of badminton. To the east is the Summer Palace (Letohrádek; 1538-60) and to the west the former Riding School (jízdárna; 1695).
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Schwarzenberg Palace
The Renaissance Schwarzenberg Palace, acquired by the powerful Schwarzenberg family in 1719, sports a striking black-and-white sgraffito façade. It is being re-fitted by the National Gallery, and is due to re-open in November 2007.
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Slav Island
If you simply must take to the Vltava River, you'll probably find it more fun to do so under your own steam, in a small boat, rather than on a larger cruise. Several places have rowboats, but on this leafy island you'll find both rowboats ( Kč75 per half hour) and pedalos ( Kč100 per half hour) for hire between April and October (depending on weather). No reservations are taken, but you'll need to present your passport or similar ID.
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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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Southern Gardens
The three gardens lined up below the castle's southern wall - Paradise Garden, the Hartig Garden and the Garden on the Ramparts - offer superb views over Malá Strana's rooftops. The two main gardens, Paradise Garden and the Garden on the Ramparts, were landscaped in the 1920s by Slovene architect Jože Plečník, and Paradise Garden has an obelisk marking where the victims of the second defenestration of Prague fell.
