Smetana Hall All guidebooks about Prague will mention the Municipal House but the Smetana Hall inside the building gets much less coverage probably because it’s not a place that you can just walk into. Strange, when you think that the Smetana Hall was to be the beacon of the celebration of Slavic culture and the … Read More
Jan Palach Square – Namesti Jana Palacha If ever there was a place in the city that highlights why names of locations change over the years it’s the current Jan Palach Square. The names used here include it’s location, its function, a prince, an empress, two composers, a communist name and a memorial. It’s a … Read More
The Darth Vader Statue Long before George Lucas (1976 Star Wars director) was born, actually even before his father was born, a statue was erected in Prague and it looks a lot like Darth Vader so what’s going on? It’s another example of a mixture of fact and legend for which Prague is famous. To … Read More
Koruna Palace The Koruna Palace at the base of Wenceslas Square is not really a place you aim for but it’s a lovely place to walk through especially if you are an architecture fan. It was a commission by a Czech Insurance company and text on the upper part of the building still refers to … Read More
Women’s Only Hostel Apart from the grammatical destruction of the English language in the name I welcome this new addition to the Prague Hostel scene. For the first time you don’t just have a female dorm or private room etc, the whole place is designed to be for women, hence the name. What triggered my … Read More
Prague Streets – Národní Národní or “National Street” was formed almost by accident. Back in the mid-13th Century a fortified wall surrounded the Old Town with a moat in front of the wall. Later the New Town would be defined as the area on the opposite side of that moat. The fortified wall stands there … Read More
Famous Czechs – Jan Zajic To set the scene you have to understand that the August 1968 invasion of Prague by Warsaw Pact countries extinguished the Prague Spring freedoms. Any political or social reforms were cancelled and Czechoslovakia regressed to its 1950’s state. As was increasingly common in the late 1960s, the method of the … Read More
Prague Streets – Na Prikope As you can see in the picture below there are several special Czech characters so in it’s simple phonetic form it’s like saying “na pri-copy-yay”. Currently Na Příkopě is one of the most expensive streets for renting commercial property but historically there are a number of interesting points. I cover … Read More
The Prague Fake News Lamp – Taken down for repair in April 2023 The latest piece of interactive art in the city can be found attached to one of the arcades of the Municipal Library and to be honest unless you are looking for it you WILL walk right by it without noticing. To be … Read More
Prague UNESCO There are signs in the city like the one pictured that say you are entering the Prague Monument Reserve and hence, 95% of what a regular tourist would visit is in this area. As an old historic city you might expect several Prague UNESCO sites but you might not know that during the … Read More