Palace sights in Czech Republic
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Wallenstein Palace
Valdštejnské náměstí, a small square northeast of Malostranské náměstí, is dominated by the monumental 1630 palace of Albrecht of Wallenstein, general of the Habsburg armies, who financed its construction with properties confiscated from Protestant nobles he defeated at the Battle of Bílá Hora in 1620. It now houses the Senate of the Czech Republic, but you can visit some rooms on weekends.
The ceiling fresco in the Baroque Hall shows Wallenstein as a warrior at the reins of a chariot, while the unusual oval Audience Hall has a fresco of Vulcan at work in his forge.
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Star Summer Palace
The Letohrádek hvězda is a Renaissance summer palace in the shape of a six-pointed star, built in 1556 for Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol. It sits at the end of a long avenue through the lovely wooded park of Obora hvězda, a hunting reserve established by Ferdinand I in 1530. The palace houses a small museum about its history and an exhibit on the battle of White Mountain. From the Vypich tram stop, bear right across open parkland to the white archway in the wall; the avenue on the far side leads to the palace (a 1.5km walk from the tram).
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Old Royal Palace
The Old Royal Palace is one of the oldest parts of the castle, dating from 1135. It was originally used only by Czech princesses, but from the 13th to the 16th centuries it was the king’s own palace. At its heart is the grand Vladislav Hall and the Bohemian Chancellery, scene of the famous Defenestration of Prague.
The Vladislav Hall (Vladislavský sál) is famous for its beautiful, late-Gothic vaulted ceiling (1493–1502) designed by Benedikt Rejt.Though around 500 years old, the flowing, interwoven lines of the vaults have an almost art nouveau feel, in contrast to the rectilinear form of the Renaissance windows. The vast hall was used for banquets, councils and…
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Přemysl Palace
Pride of place goes to the remnants of the early 12th-century Přemysl Palace, originally built for Bishop Jindřich Zdík. A detailed English text walks you through a cloister with 15th and 16th century frescoes on the original walls up to the archaeological centrepiece, the bishops' rooms with their Romanesque walls and windows (rediscovered in 1867), and artistry unequalled elsewhere in the Czech Republic, even in Prague castle.
Downstairs, surviving 16th century frescoes in the chapel of St John the Baptist (kaple sv Jana Křtitele), completed in 1262, include angels with instruments of torture (a sign of ecclesiastical approval?). To the left of the palace is the St…
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Troja Chateau
Troja Chateau is a 17th-century baroque palace built for the Šternberk family and filled with sculptures and frescoes. It houses collections of the Prague City Gallery. There’s free admission to the palace grounds, where you can wander in the beautiful French gardens, watched over by a gang of baroque stone giants on the balustrade outside the southern door.
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Černín Palace
The late-17th-century early-baroque palace facing the Loreta boasts Prague’s largest monumental façade. This imposing building has housed the foreign ministry since the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, except during WWII when it served as the headquarters of the Nazi Reichsprotektor, and is where the documents that dissolved the Warsaw Pact were signed in 1991. In 1948, Jan Masaryk – son of the Czechoslovak Republic’s founding father, Tomáš Masaryk, and the only noncommunist in the new Soviet-backed government – fell to his death from one of the upper windows. Did he fall, or was he pushed?
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Zbraslav Chateau
Zbraslav is a small town on the western bank of the Vltava, 10km south of the centre, that was only recently incorporated into Greater Prague. As long ago as 1268 Přemysl Otakar II built a hunting lodge and a chapel here, later rebuilt as a Cistercian monastery. In 1784 it was converted into a baroque chateau that now houses the National Gallery’s permanent collection of Asian art, with copies of well-known Czech sculptures in the gardens.
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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 & Industry.
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Archbishop's Palace
Opposite the Schwarzenberg Palace is the rococo Archbishop's Palace, bought by Archbishop Antonín Brus of Mohelnice in 1562, and the seat of archbishops ever since. The exterior was given a rococo makeover between 1763 and 1765.
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Mitrov Summer Palace
In the space between Rybářská and Křížkovského is the quaint Mitrov Summer Palace.
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