Showing 1-17 of 17 results
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Basilica of St George
The striking, brick-red, early-baroque façade that dominates the square conceals the Czech Republic's best-preserved Romanesque church, established in the 10th century by Vratislav I (the father of St Wenceslas). What you see today is mostly the result of restorations made between 1887 and 1908.
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Bethlehem Chapel
On Bethlehem Square (Betlémské náměstí) is one of Prague's most important churches, the Bethlehem Chapel, true birthplace of the Hussite cause. In 1391, Reformist Praguers won permission to build a church where services could be held in Czech instead of Latin, and proceeded to construct the biggest chapel Bohemia had ever seen, able to hold 3000 worshippers.
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Břevnov Monastery
Břevnov Monastery is the Czech Republic's oldest Benedictine monastery, founded in 993 by Boleslav II and Bishop Vojtěch Slavníkovec (later to be canonised as St Adalbert). The two men, from powerful and opposing families intent on dominating Bohemia, met at Vojtěška spring, each having had a dream that this was the place where they should found a monastery. Its name comes from břevno (beam), after the beam laid across the spring where they met.
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Church Of Our Lady Victorious
When a miracle-working 'Bambino di Praga' statue appears in classic Czech novel I served the King of England , it sounds purely fictional. Yet this church really does contain a 400-year-old, wax 'Baby Jesus of Prague', said to have protected the city for centuries. The tradition of dressing the 47cm-tall figure from a wardrobe of 70 costumes continues today, with nuns changing his robes according to a religious calendar.
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Church Of SS Peter & Paul
Vratislav II's Church of SS Peter and Paul has been built and rebuilt over the centuries, culminating in a neogothic workover by Josef Mocker in the 1880s. The twin steeples, a distinctive feature of the Vyšehrad skyline, were added in 1903. The interior is a swirling acid trip of colourful Art Nouveau frescoes, painted in the 1920s by various Czech artists.
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Church Of St Giles
With stocky Romanesque columns, tall Gothic windows, and an exuberant baroque interior, St Giles is a good place to ponder the architectural development of Prague's religious buildings. The church was founded in 1371. The proto-Hussite reformer Jan Milíč of Kroměříž preached here before the Bethlehem Chapel was built. The Dominicans gained possession during the Counter-Reformation, built a cloister next door and 'baroquefied' it in the 1730s. Václav Reiner, the Czech painter who created the ceiling frescoes, is buried here.
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Church Of St James
The great Gothic mass of kostel sv Jakuba, to the east of Týnský dvůr, began in the 14th century as a Minorite monastery church, but was given a beautiful baroque facelift in the early 18th century. Pride of place inside goes to the over-the-top tomb of Count Jan Vratislav of Mitrovice, an 18th-century lord chancellor of Bohemia, in the northern aisle.
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Church Of The Most Sacred Heart Of Our Lord
This church was built in 1932 and is one of Prague's most original and unusual pieces of 20th-century architecture. It's the work of Jože Plečník, the Slovenian architect who also raised a few eyebrows with his additions to Prague Castle. Inspired by Egyptian temples and early Christian basilicas, the glazed-brick building sports a massive, tombstone-like bell tower pierced by a circular glass clock-window.
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Convent of St Agnes
In the northeastern corner of Staré Město is the former Convent of St Agnes, Prague's oldest surviving Gothic building, now restored and used by the National Gallery. The first-floor rooms hold the National Gallery's permanent collection of medieval art (1200-1550) from Bohemia and Central Europe.
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Convent of St George
The very ordinary-looking building to the left of the basilica was Bohemia's first convent, established in 973 by Boleslav II. Closed and converted to an army barracks in 1782, it now a houses a branch of the National Gallery, with an excellent collection of Renaissance and baroque art.
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Loreta
The square's main attraction is the Loreta, a baroque place of pilgrimage founded by Benigna Kateřina Lobkowicz in 1626, and designed as a replica of the supposed Santa Casa (Sacred House; the home of the Virgin Mary). Legend says that the original Santa Casa was carried by angels to the Italian town of Loreto as the Turks were advancing on Nazareth. The duplicate Santa Casa, with fragments of its original frescoes, is in the centre of the courtyard
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Old Jewish Cemetery
Founded in the early 15th century, the Old Jewish Cemetery is Europe's oldest surviving Jewish graveyard. It has a palpable atmosphere of mourning even after two centuries of disuse (it was closed in 1787). Some 12,000 crumbling stones (some brought from other, long-gone cemeteries) are heaped together, but beneath them are perhaps 100,000 graves, piled in layers because of the lack of space.
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Old-New Synagogue
Completed around 1270, the Old-New Synagogue is Europe's oldest working synagogue and one of Prague's earliest Gothic buildings. You step down into it because it predates the raising of Staré Město's street level to guard against floods. Men must cover their heads (a hat or bandanna will do; paper yarmulkes are handed out at the entrance). Around the central chamber are an entry hall, a winter prayer hall and the room from which women watch the men-only services.
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Orthodox Cathedral Of Ss Cyril & Methodius
In 1942 seven Czech partisans involved in assassinating Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich took refuge from the Nazis in this church. It's incredibly moving to visit the wreath-bedecked crypt where they resisted attempts to smoke and flood them out and then were either killed or took their own lives. Among multilingual explanations and bullet and shrapnel holes, you can see the Czechs' last desperate efforts to dig an escape route.
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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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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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Strahov Monastery
Apart from magnificent views over Prague, Strahov Monastery's main draw is the baroque Strahov Library (Strahovská knihovna). It's divided into two magnificent book-lined halls - the two-storey high Philosophy Hall (Filozofický sál; 1780-97), with its grandiose ceiling fresco, and the stucco-encrusted Theology Hall (Teologiský sál; 1679). You can only peek through the doors; the connecting hall has a Cabinet of Curiosities full of sea creatures.
Showing 1-17 of 17 results
