Prague Gas Lamps Since 1723 the city had maintained oil-lit street lighting on the Royal Road between Republic Square and Prague Castle. In 1846 within the fortified city walls of Prague you would still have found thousands of other private street lamps lighting roads, junctions and the entries to buildings. These all had to be … Read More
Prague ST Vitus Cathedral If you’ve read the post about Legend of ST Vitus then we arrive at the year 925 and Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia (later to be known as Good King Wenceslas) is gifted a relic (bones) of ST Vitus by Henry the First, King of Germany (if you thought that was nice … Read More
Slavonic Island and Sophies Palace If you visit the Dancing House then when you look down into this part of the river you’ll see a weir. You may think that this is a fairly recent thing to control the river but actually there has been a weir here for at least 600 years. It’s a … Read More
Prague Tourism Sign Posts In the age of Google Maps you’d be forgiven for thinking that physical sign posts planted in the ground is all a bit 1990s. But once you get used to what they show you they are a useful aid to exploring the city especially if your data connection breaks. So you’re … Read More
Prague National Museum, Architectural and Cultural Icon I could tell you that it is a neo-renaissance building that opened in 1891 but as thousands of other sites will tell you the same thing wouldn’t you like to hear something new like how the museum ended up being built here, what it replaced, why in the … Read More
St Nicholas Church Old Town Some buildings in Prague are so old that nobody is really sure exactly how old they are. St Nicholas Church Old Town is one of them. The best we can say is that the original church is “likely” to have been built in the 12th Century but the oldest documented … Read More
St James Basilica If you have come from the Old Town Square and you’ve walked through the Tyn Courtyard then as you emerge onto the street at the far end (Mala Stupartska) you’ll see the church 30 metres to your left. The church, to be accurate it was made a “Basilica Minor” in 1976, has … Read More
Troja Chateau In Czech it has the name “Zámek” which usually means it’s a castle so some people call it Troja Castle. But when you see pictures it looks more like a chateau or a villa so again some people call it Troja Chateau or Troja Villa or Troja Palace. For me it’s Troja Chateau. … Read More
Jan Hus Monument The period from 1850 to 1918 is known as the Czech National Revival. All aspects of “what it was to be Czech” from an ethnic, cultural, political and religious point of view were being investigated and highlighted. Famous Czechs of the past were being honoured and by the early 20th Century it … Read More
