Landmarks in Prague

Charles Bridge

1357 · Peter Parler

A long, low sandstone bridge with 16 arches over the water, a fortified tower standing at each end, and a continuous alley of dark statues, most of them Baroque, running the full length of the parapets.

A stone arch bridge across the river connecting the fortified hill to the old town, its construction begun in 1357 to replace an earlier bridge destroyed by a flood fifteen years before. It carried the only crossing of the river until 1841 and lay on the route used for royal coronation processions. Its 16 arches are shielded by ice guards, and it is closed at both ends by fortified towers.

• It replaced an earlier bridge that had stood since 1158–1172 until a flood destroyed it in 1342.
• It was the only way to cross the river on foot or by cart until 1841.
• It was called Stone Bridge or Prague Bridge and has only been known by its current name since 1870.

Photo: Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Prague Castle

9th century

A long, high perimeter wall enclosing about 570 metres of hilltop ground, with building phases from different centuries visible side by side inside it: round-arched Romanesque remains, a Gothic cathedral's spires, and later Renaissance and Baroque palace facades.

A fortified hilltop complex begun in the 9th century that grew into the seat of the kings of Bohemia, of Holy Roman Emperors, and later of the country's presidents, whose official residence it remains. A set of crown jewels is kept in a hidden room inside it. According to Guinness World Records it is the largest ancient castle complex on Earth, covering nearly 70,000 square metres.

• Guinness World Records lists it as the largest ancient castle in the world, at almost 70,000 square metres.
• A set of crown jewels is kept in a hidden room inside the complex.
• It drew 2.59 million visitors in 2024, making it the most-visited attraction in the country.

Photo: Tony Hisgett (CC BY 2.0)

Prague Astronomical Clock

1410

A round dial marked out for 24 hours instead of the usual twelve, set into the stone face of a bell tower attached to a civic hall rather than a church.

A medieval astronomical clock built in 1410 and fixed to the tower of the old town hall, where it has remained ever since. In place of an ordinary twelve-hour face, it shows time on a 24-hour analog dial, the feature that marks it as astronomical rather than a standard timepiece. The clock and its tower are protected under two overlapping national heritage listings.

Photo: Jorge Royan (CC BY-SA 3.0)

St. Vitus Cathedral

1344 · Matthias of Arras

A large Gothic church with two front towers around 82 metres tall flanking a taller central tower near 103 metres; the west facade, added centuries after the choir behind it, is noticeably crisper Gothic Revival stonework next to older, weathered medieval masonry.

The seat of the local archbishop and the largest and most important church in the country, standing inside a castle complex under state ownership. Building began in 1344 and the west front was not finished until a Gothic Revival campaign completed it in 1929. It holds the tombs of numerous Bohemian kings and Holy Roman Emperors, and until 1997 was dedicated to a single saint rather than the three it now honours.

• Construction ran from 1344 to 1929, nearly six centuries, because the west front was left unfinished for most of that time.
• Until 1997 it was dedicated only to one saint; two more names were added since.
• Its main tower is 102.8 metres tall, with the two front towers reaching about 82 metres.

Photo: o¬. (CC BY 2.0)

Powder Tower

1475

A tall, dark, freestanding stone tower with pointed Gothic detailing, standing alone at a street junction rather than attached to any surrounding wall, now open inside as a museum.

A Gothic tower raised in 1475 as one of the original gates into the old town, marking the boundary where it meets the newer town built beyond it. It now operates as a museum and is protected as a cultural monument, as well as being part of a wider heritage listing covering the historic area around it. Like many historic sites in the city, it undergoes periodic preservation work, and a restoration begun in the summer of 2024 was scheduled to finish that same October.

• It is one of the original gates that once marked the boundary between the old town and the newer town beside it.
• A restoration begun in summer 2024 was scheduled for completion that October.

Photo: Ank Kumar (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Church of Our Lady before Týn

1380 · Peter Parler

Twin dark Gothic towers roughly 80 metres tall, each capped by a cluster of eight slender corner spires arranged in two tiers of four, framing a stepped Gothic gable between them.

The main church of the old town since the 14th century, it replaced two earlier churches on the same plaza, the second built in 1256 to replace an 11th-century Romanesque church raised for foreign merchants trading nearby. Its design shows the influence of Matthias of Arras and later Peter Parler; the nave and gable were largely finished by the 1450s, but the south tower was not completed until 1511, under architect Matěj Rejsek. Hussite clergy controlled it for two centuries before Counter-Reformation changes altered its decoration.

• The astronomer Tycho Brahe is buried inside, his 1601 tombstone set into the first pillar on the south side of the nave.
• A golden chalice symbolising the Hussites once topped its gable; after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 it was melted down and recast as the halo of a Virgin Mary statue that replaced it.
• Its Baroque organ, built between 1670 and 1673, is one of the three oldest surviving pipe organs in the city.

Photo: Gerd Eichmann (CC BY-SA 4.0)

St. Nicholas Church

1673–1756 · Christoph Dientzenhofer

A brownish Baroque facade beneath a massive central dome over 70 metres high inside, paired with a tall, separate bell tower standing directly beside it and reaching 79 metres.

Built for the Jesuit order on the site of a 13th-century Gothic parish church dedicated to the same saint, its cornerstone was laid in 1673 to a design by Giovanni Domenico Orsi. Christoph Dientzenhofer later reworked the plan and built the nave with its interlocking elliptical vaulting; after his death in 1751 his son Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer finished the chancel and copper cupola, while Anselmo Lurago completed the belfry in 1756. After the Jesuit order was suppressed in the 1770s, the church became the district's main parish church.

• Mozart played the church's organ, which has over 4,000 pipes, in 1787; his Mass in C had its premiere there shortly afterward.
• During the Communist era, the tower doubled as a surveillance post for the state security service, watching the American and Yugoslav embassies and the route to the West German embassy.
• The coat of arms on the facade actually belongs to Count František Karel Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky, the uncle of the true patron, Count Václav Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky, who was too modest to want his own name attached to the building.

Photo: VitVit (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Dancing House

1996 · Vlado Milunić and Frank Gehry

Two contrasting towers standing side by side: one glass and twisted, tapering as it rises, the other solid-looking with a wavy, rippling facade and irregular, protruding window frames, topped by a tangled metal structure nicknamed Medusa.

An office building on a riverside plot left vacant after wartime bombing destroyed the apartment building that once stood there. Designed in 1992 by Vlado Milunić together with Frank Gehry and completed in 1996, it is built from 99 differently shaped concrete panels and topped by a tangled metal structure nicknamed Medusa. Its two towers, one glass and twisted, the other solid and undulating, were conceived to represent a dancing pair, symbolising the country's transition from a communist government to a parliamentary democracy.

• Frank Gehry initially nicknamed the building Ginger and Fred, after dancers Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, but later dropped the idea himself, saying he was afraid of importing American Hollywood kitsch.
• The plot next door once belonged to the family of future president Václav Havel, who discussed the project with Milunić years before the Velvet Revolution and hoped the site would become a cultural centre.
• The building's shape appears on a gold 2,000 Czech koruna coin issued as part of a series called Ten Centuries of Architecture.

Photo: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul

1887–1903 · Josef Mocker

Twin 58-metre neo-Gothic towers with hollow, slender-holed spires resembling budding flowers, rising above a carved stone entrance mosaic and a triangular gable showing the two patron saints with Christ and his apostles.

Founded in 1070–1080 as a Romanesque church, it was rebuilt in Gothic style after a fire in 1249 and replaced by an 18th-century Baroque church with no towers. Its present neo-Gothic form dates from 1887 to 1903, begun by Josef Mocker and finished after his death by his partner František Mikš, who altered the facade and towers. Its 58-metre twin towers stand above a stone entrance mosaic and a triangular gable carved with the two patron saints, beside a cemetery holding the graves of Karel Čapek and Antonín Dvořák. It was raised to basilica status in 2003.

• Its hollow spires are pierced with slender openings meant to echo the shape of budding chestnut flowers.
• The interior's green-and-brown murals, painted by František Urban and his wife Marie Urbanová-Zahradnická, were inspired by the work of Alfons Mucha.
• A roof restoration begun in the 2020s is not scheduled to finish until 2029, using replacement slate tiles imported from the United States and Spain.

Photo: Enfo (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Žižkov Television Tower

1985–1992 · Václav Aulický

Three tall grey tubular columns joined by pods partway up and near the top, one column rising well above the other two for a rocket-and-gantry silhouette, with ten small dark sculptures of crawling infants fixed to the columns.

Built between 1985 and 1992 to a design by architect Václav Aulický and structural engineer Jiří Kozák, the tower rises 216 metres on three concrete-filled steel-tube columns, one considerably taller than the other two, joined by nine equipment and viewing pods and three broadcast decks. It doubles as a meteorological observatory and, since 2013, holds a single luxury hotel room. Its construction cut through part of a centuries-old Jewish cemetery beneath its foundations. Since 2000, ten crawling infant sculptures by artist David Černý have been mounted on its columns, replaced with identical duplicates in 2019 after inspection.

• Its foundations were dug straight through a centuries-old Jewish cemetery, crushing tombstones and sending the remains to landfill.
• Critics nicknamed it after a Soviet rocket-launch site and, separately, after the surname of the ruling Communist Party's last general secretary.
• Since 2013 one of its pods has held a single luxury hotel room with a freestanding bathtub facing the view.

Photo: ŠJů (cs:ŠJů) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Lennon Wall

A long wall densely layered with colourful graffiti, poems and portraits, centred on a reflective metal outline of a musician's face added in a 2019 repaint, with only certain marked white sections still open for the public to add chalk or marker messages.

A wall in a secluded square began collecting love poems and messages against the communist government from the 1960s; the first image tied to John Lennon appeared after his 1980 murder, when an unknown artist painted his portrait, prompting secret police to repeatedly paint over it. After the fall of communism the wall kept changing through later works, including an all-white 2014 repaint marking the Velvet Revolution's anniversary and a 2019 climate-protest repaint. A 2019 restoration, directed by designer Pavel Šťastný, added a reflective metal portrait of Lennon and restricted future additions to designated, impermanent-material zones.

• The first Lennon portrait was painted on the stone slab foundation of a former public fountain and was scrubbed off with green paint by the secret police within a day, only for the wall to be immediately covered again in political slogans.
• The 1988 crackdown on messages written there triggered a clash between students and security police on a nearby bridge, in a movement dubbed 'Lennonism.'
• Its design has been copied abroad, including a Hong Kong wall of protest messages that reappeared during both the 2014 and 2019–20 pro-democracy demonstrations.

Photo: Marie Čcheidzeová (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Vyšehrad

A historic fort likely founded in the 10th century on the east bank of the Vltava. It holds the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, a cemetery with graves including Dvořák and Smetana, and Prague's oldest surviving building, the 11th-century Rotunda of St. Martin.

Old New Synagogue

Europe's oldest active synagogue, completed in 1270 in the Josefov district and among the earliest Gothic buildings in Prague. It is also the oldest surviving medieval synagogue built in the twin-nave design.

Spanish Synagogue

A former Reform Jewish synagogue completed in 1868 in the Moorish Revival style, on the site of the presumed oldest synagogue in the city. Repurposed as a Jewish museum in 1955, it stands near a small park with a modern statue of Franz Kafka.

Old Jewish Cemetery

One of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe, in use from the first half of the 15th century until 1786. It holds the graves of notable figures such as Rabbi Jehuda Liva ben Becalel, known as the Maharal (c. 1526–1609), and the historian David Gans.

Old Town Hall

One of the city's most visited monuments, located in Old Town Square.

National Theatre

A historic opera house regarded as the alma mater of Czech opera and a national monument of Czech history and art. Its three ensembles—opera, ballet and drama—perform not only here but also at the State Opera, Estates Theatre and Kolowrat Theatre.

National Museum

A public museum of natural science and history, founded in 1818 by Kašpar Maria Šternberg. Its main hall on Wenceslas Square, built in neo-Renaissance style in 1891, was restored between 2011 and 2018 to mark the centennial of Czechoslovak independence.

Wallenstein Palace

A Baroque palace in Malá Strana, built as the residence of Imperial Generalissimo Albrecht von Waldstein. It now houses the Senate of the Czech Republic.

Clementinum

A historic complex of buildings housing the National Library of the Czech Republic, which until recently also held the university and technical libraries. The adjacent Municipal Library on Mariánské Náměstí displays the well-known Idiom installation, known as the book tower, in its foyer.

Marian Column

A column topped with a statue of the Virgin Mary in Old Town Square, first erected in 1650 shortly after the Thirty Years' War ended. It was demolished in November 1918 as Austria-Hungary fell, and was reconstructed, completing on 15 August 2020.

St. George's Basilica

The oldest surviving church building within Prague Castle, founded by Vratislaus I of Bohemia in 920 and dedicated to Saint George. Primarily Romanesque in style, it forms part of the collection of buildings that make up the castle complex.

Strahov Monastery

A Premonstratensian abbey founded in 1143 by Jindřich Zdík, Bishop John of Prague, together with Vladislaus II, Duke of Bohemia.

Stone Bell House

A building on Old Town Square, standing next to the Kinský Palace at the corner of Týnská street.

Head of Franz Kafka

An outdoor kinetic sculpture by artist David Černý depicting Franz Kafka, installed on 31 October 2014 outside the Quadrio shopping mall. It cost 30 million crowns, paid by investor CPI Property Group, and stands near the building where Kafka once worked at a savings bank.

Church of Our Lady of Victories

A church run by the Discalced Carmelites, known chiefly as the shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague. The 16th-century statue, originally from Spain, was donated to the friars in 1628 and granted a canonical coronation by Pope Leo XII in 1824.

Convent of Saint Agnes

A monastery of the Poor Clares and Franciscans on the right bank of the Vltava, founded in 1231 by Agnes of Bohemia, who became its abbess.

Estates Theatre

A historic theatre annexed to the National Theatre in 1948. Its opera, ballet and drama ensembles perform here as well as at the National Theatre and the Kolowrat Theatre.

Petřín funicular

A funicular railway normally linking the Malá Strana district with the top of Petřín hill, run by Prague's public transit system. It is currently out of service for a complete refurbishment, with service expected to resume in summer 2026.

Jubilee Synagogue

An active Orthodox Jewish synagogue on Jerusalem Street in the Nové Město district, also known as the Jerusalem Synagogue. It has been the largest synagogue in the city since the nearby Vinohrady Synagogue was destroyed in 1951.