Insider's Guide Prague (Summit Hotels Magazine)
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44 VOLUME THREE q SUMMIT P insider’s guide PRAGUE Straddling the banks of the Baltic-bound Vltava, Prague is compact and achingly beautiful. Just dive into the back streets, says Duncan Smith, and let its Bohemian reputation captivate you egendary travel writer Bruce Chatwin will find quite enough to detain them along dubbed Prague ‘one of the most the ancient alleyways of the Castle District curious places in the world’ and it’s a (Hradčany) and Lesser Quarter (Malá Strana) description of the Czech capital that on the west bank, as well as in Old Town (Staré Lmany endorse. The iconic skyline says it all, Město), the Jewish Quarter (Josefov), and New for the ‘golden city of a hundred spires’ (there Town (Nové Město) on the east. are in reality nearer a thousand) was created by a roll call of colourful characters from Saints and sinners evil emperors and firebrand clerics to royal Most visitors start with the city’s two great alchemists and obsessive astronomers. And architectural icons, the Charles Bridge and Prague the city’s later brush with Surrealism, Cubism, Castle. And while no visit would be complete Facism and Communism only added to this without seeing them, if you don’t time it right heady historical brew. you’ll be sharing the experience with a vast throng Although Prague’s modern suburbs today of visitors from all over the world. Visit in early extend right into the rugged Bohemian evening, however, and you’ll be gifted with a sight countryside surrounding the city, most visitors of these ancient structures in their full splendour. ¬ P VOLUME THREE q SUMMIT 45 For me, there is nothing better than a stroll around the castle precincts at night. It really is the only way to tap into the magic of the place. Prague Castle is in reality a walled royal piece of ground created when a canal was bridge back onto the east bank. Jewish palace complex at the centre of which stands cut to power medieval waterwheels. One can settlers arrived here in the twelfth century, the venerable Cathedral of St Vitus, bristling be seen at the northern tip of the island and where they remained until the area was with Gothic gargoyles and containing the was owned by the Knights of St John, whose cleared in the 1890s. What remains today Czech crown jewels. A full day’s ticket is rebuilt monastery can be found in nearby is a cemetery, and a seemingly disconnected quite expensive but it does guarantee access Grand Prior Square. Along the monastery’s handful of synagogues, one of which, the to some stunning buildings, including the perimeter is the John Lennon Wall, a Old-New Synagogue, is Europe’s oldest Vladislav Hall, the largest Gothic vaulted graffiti free-for-all inaugurated by anti- working example. space in Central Europe, and the Basilica Communists after the peace-loving Beatle’s Pařížská, a Parisian-style boulevard of St George, which predates the cathedral death in 1980. that will delight shoppers, feeds directly itself. Golden Lane, a street of tiny artillery During the seventeenth century, the area into Old Town Square. From here you can men’s houses built against the ramparts, is north of Mostecká was transformed by head east along Celetná to the Gothic interesting, too, but permanently overrun Catholic aristocrats into a glittering Baroque Powder Gate and Art Nouveau Municipal with tourists. For me, there is nothing district. Although the royal court and its House, or west along Karlova back to better than a stroll around the castle nobles eventually relocated to Vienna their Charles Bridge. The real delights, however, precincts at night. It really is the only way to ornate palaces remain. Most magnificent are in the back streets, whether it be the tap into the magic of the place. of all was the home of General Albrecht von astronomical tower at Mariánské náměstí 4, Wallenstein, hidden behind a garden gate on the birthplace of surrealist Franz Kafka at Exploring the city districts Letenská. An extraordinary feature is the U Radnice 5, the subterranean art museum Malá Strana nestles in the lee of the castle grotto smothered with artificial stalactites at Husova 19-21, or the Bethlehem Chapel and was founded as a mercantile quarter and stalagmites. on Betlémské náměstí, where Protestant during the ninth century. South of Mostecká Josefov, Prague’s Jewish Quarter, can national hero Jan Hus railed against the street is peaceful Kampa Island, a low-lying be reached by crossing the Mánesův most Catholics in the fifteenth century. 46 VOLUME THREE q SUMMIT insider’s guide GREAT WAYS TO 7 AVOID THE CROWDS Magical Mystery Tour Most visitors make for Prague Castle and they do so en masse along Nerudova, once part of the ‘Royal Route’, the traditional coronation road used by the kings of Bohemia. Very few use the Stag Moat, an unexpected ravine running along the north side of the castle from an unassuming doorway at the top of the Old Palace steps. Pass beneath a trio of Gothic cannon towers and through an eerie tunnel to eventually reach Nový Svět (or ‘New World’), a charming ensemble of ancient houses every inch as fascinating as Golden Lane. q Na Opyši Hidden Baroque Garden The Vrtba Garden is well concealed behind an inconspicuous gateway. This Baroque floral gem is a stunning example of Italianate aristocratic gardening, laid out ingeniously across the hillside in a series of terraces. A mere 3,100 square metres in size it seems much bigger and is crowned with a shell-encrusted gloriette. It is difficult to imagine that under Communism here was a children’s playground! q Karmelitská 25 Prague in Black and White Tucked well away in the courtyard of this apartment building stands a simple wooden bungalow. Now a small museum and gallery, this modest structure was from 1927 until 1958 the studio of Josef Sudek, the father of Czech photography. Despite losing an arm during the Great War, Sudek produced some of the finest panoramic images of the city. q Újezd 30 Quiet Gothic Cloisters Founded by the daughter of the first King of Bohemia, the Convent of St Agnes is Prague’s first Gothic building. Thanks to an authentic restoration necessitated by the great flood of 2003, its plain and simple stonework demands contemplation, and provides a striking riposte to the city’s over-ornate Baroque churches. The surrounding streets are worth exploring, too. q U milosrdných 17 Myths and revolution Henry Tower on Senovážné náměstí, and Old Town’s Literary Hideaway Emperor Charles IV, the ‘father of the the glorious façade of the recently-renovated One of Old Town’s best-kept literary secrets nation’, laid out Nové Město in 1348 Jubilee Synagogue. There is also the Main is Týnská literární kavárna, a literary café and and its original grid plan, fanning out Station, now marooned on the wrong side bookshop, where local writers and students eastwards from Národní třída and Na of Wilsonova, a divisive carriageway driven congregate in a series of cosy arched rooms, as příkopě, continues to exert an influence on through Nové Město during the Communist well as in a quiet courtyard in summer: it is easy to forget that the bustle of Old Town Square lies just the city’s streets. A case in point is the old era. Scheduled for restoration, the station’s beyond its walls. q Týnská 6 horse market, now occupied by non-stop elegant foyer is crowned by a stunning Art The World’s Largest Horse Wenceslas Square. Sights abound, from the Nouveau rotunda. The working class district of Žižkov just outside Peterkův dům, Prague’s first example of Art Returning back along Opletalova, New Town has more bars per head of population Nouveau architecture, to the flamboyant brave Wenceslas Square once again and than anywhere else in the world. It is also where, Grand Hotel Europa opposite – its Titanic head south down Štepánská. A great way in 1420, a charismatic, one-eyed Hussite general famously saw off a superior Catholic force restaurant a copy of the legendary White to explore this part of Nové Město is on behalf of Protestant Bohemia. Reinvented Star Liner’s tea salon. At the top of the by means of its maze of covered 1920s under Communism as an anti-Western hero, square is the brooding National Museum shopping passages (Pasáže). The pasáž an oversized statue of the general was erected fronted by a statue of tenth-century Duke Lucerna, for example, was a part of the on Vitkov Hill in 1950. It remains the largest equestrian statue in the world. q U památníku Wenceslas I, the ‘good king’ recalled in the city’s first concrete building, the Lucerna evergreen Christmas carol. Palace. Its centrepiece is the Moorish- Down in the Sewers It might not sound like fun, but a trip to the Eco- A stroll northwards along Jindřišská tinged first-floor lobby of the Lucerna Technical Museum can be surprisingly exciting. reveals several Prague peculiars, such Cinema, now a stylish bar. Another Installed inside an abandoned wastewater as Maso Tomáš Turek, an intact pre- pasáž connects nearby Vodičkova and treatment plant, designed by an Englishman a revolutionary butchers’ shop stacked with Jungmannova, and includes a magnificent century ago, its chief attraction is a descent into the labyrinth of brick-vaulted tunnels below. You cheap cuts. Just beyond is the Gothic-style stained glass advertisement for Czech ¬ may not wish to be reminded that until 1967, this is where all of Prague’s sewage ended up. q Papírenská 6 VOLUME THREE q SUMMIT 47 insider’s guide UNUSUAL PLaces 7 to eat AND driNK Palffy Palác Hidden away on the first floor of an aristocrat’s palace this is Prague at its most romantic.