Na Švihance 1527/9
Na Švihance — an architecturally rich street in Prague 2 close to Riegrovy sady (Rieger Park) — captures very well the blend of historical styles popular in the first decade of the twentieth century. Three...
Tagged: animals
Lány Chateau
The village of Lány, twenty miles from Prague, stands in a region of fields and forests used for hunting since at least the tenth century. But it was in 1587 that Emperor Rudolf II forged...
Veltrusy Chateau
Situated on the banks of the river Vltava about twenty miles north of Prague, the chateau of Veltrusy was commissioned in 1704 for the counts of Chotek. Work began around the year 1706 to a...
Liliová 17 and Karlova 18: The Golden Snake
By common consent, the first coffee-seller appeared in Prague in 1714. Originally from Damascus, the lively Armenian entrepreneur Gorgos Hatalah worked the streets of Malá Strana selling ‘Turkish’ coffee heated on a portable brazier, and...
Malé náměstí 456/14: The Black Pony
The Black Pony stands in the heart of the Old Town, one of a row of attractive renaissance town-houses which in the early fifteenth century were home to the city’s first pharmacies. Its neighbours include...
Václavské náměstí: Statue of Saint Wenceslas
Prince Václav I – known to the English-speaking world as ‘Good King Wenceslas’ – was one of Bohemia’s first Christian rulers. On 28 September in the year 929 (some say 935) he was murdered by...
Štulcovy sady, Vyšehrad: Statue of St Wenceslas
Originally erected at the centre of Prague’s Horse Market (Koňský trh) this statue of Bohemia’s tenth-century ruler is the work of the prolific Baroque artist Jan Jiří Bendl, who sculpted it in 1678 in exchange...
Ovocný trh 567/15: U České orlice
‘Mír a štěstí buď pod touto střechou’: ‘May peace and happiness reign under this roof’ AD 1897. The House of the Bohemian Eagle (U České orlice) stands in the historic fruitmarket, near to the House...
Gröbe Villa (Grébovka)
In 1871, a kilometre-long train tunnel was constructed under the high ground of this historic district on the southern side of the city. Moritz Gröbe, the railway magnate whose company was responsible for digging it,...
Polská 1352/32
The complex patterns on the facade of this 1905 house by Jan Majer and Jan Bláha are suggestive of natural designs such as those of the spider’s web, one reason for including the creature itself....
