Prague Castle Downhill

You are in the courtyard of Strahov Monastery, a short stroll from the Pohořelec tram stop on line 22 — the easy way up the hill. Take a moment to look around. The church in front of you is the Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and this is still a living monastery. The Premonstratensians, a religious order also known as the Norbertines, have been here since 1143, when a community arrived from Steinfeld in the Rhineland. The idea for a house of canons in Prague had come a few years earlier from Henry Zdík, the bishop of Olomouc, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. What began as wooden buildings and a Romanesque church has been rebuilt many times, especially after wars and a fire, but the community is still here, and the grounds of the courtyard are free to walk. If you have time later, the monastery’s great library is just off this courtyard, behind a ticket desk. You can look into two historic halls: the Theological Hall, completed in 1672, and the larger Philosophical Hall, finished in 1797. The basilica vestibule is often open around service times, but the library, the picture gallery, and the guided abbey rooms are visitor facilities with an admission charge. None of that is required for this tour. We’re going to stay on streets and public courtyards all the way. From here the walk runs downhill through Hradčany, the district in front of Prague Castle, and then through the Castle’s own courtyards, finishing at a terrace with a wide view over the city. It’s about 2.2 kilometres and, with the audio and time to look around, usually around 70 minutes. The Castle courtyards are free to enter; check the official castle website, hrad.cz, for current hours. The cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, St. George’s Basilica, and the houses on Golden Lane need a Main Circuit ticket, sold at the information centres inside the Castle and valid for two days. This route is planned so that it works without that ticket. If you already have one, you can step inside at the relevant stops and rejoin us afterwards. When you’re ready, walk back out to Pohořelec and follow the street toward Loreta. In a few minutes you’ll come to a small square, and a beautiful Baroque facade will be looking back at you. That’s our next stop.

This elegant facade now fills the square. This is Loreta, one of Prague’s most important pilgrimage sites, standing on Loreta Square — Loretánské náměstí. What you’re looking at is a Baroque front, with a clock tower in the centre. Behind that facade is a little chapel known as the Santa Casa, or Holy House: a copy of the Holy House of Loreto in Italy. The first patron and founder was Benigna Kateřina of Lobkowicz. Building began in 1626, and the Holy House was consecrated in 1631. Cloisters and the church of the Nativity were added around it in the decades that followed. You don’t need to go inside to enjoy this stop. The treasury, the Holy House, and the cloisters are ticketed; the square and the facade are free, and they are what this walk is built around. Now listen, if you can, for the bells. Loreta is famous for its carillon, a set of twenty-seven signed playing bells made in Amsterdam by the founder Claude Fremy between 1683 and 1691. They were a gift from Eberhard von Glauchau, a merchant from the Lesser Town. A Prague clockmaker, Peter Neumann, linked them to the clock in the tower, using a metal cylinder with pegs that can be set for different tunes, and also a keyboard for live playing on church holidays. The bells rang out over Prague for the first time on 28 September 1695, and the mechanism still works in the same way. They play every hour, so if you’re here at the right moment, stay and listen. Turn around and you’ll see a very different building across the square: the long, severe front of Černín Palace, one of the largest Baroque palaces in the city, and today the seat of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The contrast is part of the character of Hradčany — pilgrimage church on one side, a great noble palace on the other, both looking onto the same cobbles. When you’re ready to move on, take Loretánská Street, the road that leaves this square toward the Castle. In a few minutes the street opens into a much larger space, lined with palaces, with the Castle gates at the far end. That’s Hradčany Square, and that’s where we’ll stop next.

This is Hradčany Square, the great open space in front of Prague Castle. This was the heart of Hradčany, the little town that grew up outside the Castle gates in the fourteenth century. Stand in the middle for a moment and turn slowly. Almost every side is a palace. On the south side, the one with the high gables and the black-and-white patterned walls, is Schwarzenberg Palace. Those patterns are sgraffito, a Renaissance technique of scratching through a top layer of plaster to show a darker layer underneath. The palace was begun in 1545 for Jan of Lobkowicz, and the facades, including the sgraffito, were finished in 1567. It now belongs to the National Gallery Prague, which shows old master paintings here — a separate ticket, and not part of our walk. On the north side, facing it, is the Archbishop’s Palace, still the official seat of the Archbishop of Prague. Beside it, Sternberg Palace also holds National Gallery collections. In the middle of the square stands a Marian plague column, with a statue of the Virgin Mary at the top. It was made between 1724 and 1736. Ferdinand Maxmilián Brokoff sculpted the Virgin and some of the saints; after his death the work was finished by František Ignác Weiss. The column was consecrated on 13 May 1736, after a plague that struck Prague in 1713 and 1714. Near Salm Palace, at the corner toward the Castle ramp, you’ll find a bronze statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia. It was unveiled in 2000, on the 150th anniversary of his birth, with President Václav Havel present. The figures were modelled by Josef Vajce and Jan Bartoš after a smaller sculpture by Otakar Španiel from 1931. Before you go through the Castle gates, walk over to the southern edge of the square, onto the ramp. The view there, out over the rooftops of the Lesser Town toward the river, is one of the best free panoramas in Prague. Prague City Tourism describes Prague Castle as the largest castle complex in the world: about 45 hectares of churches, palaces, gardens, and courtyards, developing without a break since the late ninth century. Since 1918 it has been the seat of the Czechoslovak, and now the Czech, president. When you’re ready, walk toward the eastern end of the square, where the Castle begins. You’ll pass under a monumental gateway with wrestling giant figures above the opening — often called the Gate of the Titans — and step into the First Courtyard. We’ll stop just inside, in front of Matthias Gate.

You’re now standing in the First Courtyard of Prague Castle, the ceremonial courtyard that opens straight off Hradčany Square. Behind you is the gateway you just came through, with those wrestling giants above the arch — replicas of eighteenth-century originals. Ahead of you is Matthias Gate, the stone triumphal arch that leads on into the rest of the Castle. Look up at the Latin inscription. It records that Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, ordered the gate to be built in 1614. It has been the ceremonial entrance to the Castle for more than four hundred years. The courtyard around it is later. In the 1750s and 1760s, during the reign of Maria Theresa, the Viennese architect Nicolo Pacassi rebuilt this front of the Castle as a formal palace facade, and Matthias Gate was set into that new composition. Heads of state are still received here, and newly appointed ambassadors come through this court on their way to present their credentials. If you can, time this stop for noon. Every day at twelve o’clock, the Castle Guard holds a ceremonial changing of the guard in this courtyard, in front of Matthias Gate, with a fanfare and a changing of the standard. At the outer gates — here at the Gate of the Titans, and also at the Powder Bridge on the north side — the guard also changes every hour. Even if you miss the ceremonial noon version, you may catch one of the hourly changes as you arrive or leave. A practical word before we go deeper in. The Castle courtyards are public. Check the official castle website, hrad.cz, for current opening hours and for the times of the hourly guard change. You may be asked to go through a security check at the entrance, and bulky luggage is discouraged. Information centres, where you can buy a Main Circuit ticket if you want one, are in the Second and Third Courtyards just ahead. Remember: you do not need that ticket for the rest of this walk. It only becomes necessary if you want to go inside the cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, St. George’s Basilica, or the houses on Golden Lane. When you’re ready, walk through Matthias Gate into the Second Courtyard, and keep going until you come out into a larger court, with the south side of a great Gothic cathedral rising in front of you. That’s the Third Courtyard, and our next stop is at the foot of St. Vitus Cathedral.

Here we are in the Third Courtyard, standing before the Cathedral of St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert — the metropolitan cathedral of Prague, and the building that dominates every view of the Castle from the city below. From this courtyard you’re looking at the south side. The ceremonial entrance here is the Golden Door, and above it is a Gothic mosaic of the Last Judgement, made in 1370 and 1371 from about a million pieces of glass and stone. If you look closely, you can find Charles IV and his wife Elisabeth of Pomerania among the figures. To the right, the Great South Tower rises to 96.5 metres, with a Renaissance gallery and a later Baroque cupola. The tower was left unfinished in the early fifteenth century and completed in the 1560s. A climb of 287 steps, on a separate ticket, takes you up to a viewing gallery if you want that later. The cathedral has taken almost six centuries to become what you see. A rotunda of St. Vitus was founded here around the year 925 by Prince Wenceslas, who had received a relic of the saint. A larger basilica followed in the eleventh century. Then, in 1344, when the Prague bishopric was raised to an archbishopric, Charles IV and his father, John of Bohemia, laid the foundation of this Gothic church, intended as a coronation church, a royal burial place, and a treasury. The first master builder was Matthias of Arras; after his death in 1352, the work passed to Petr Parléř, who shaped much of the choir and the south tower. Construction stalled for generations. It was only completed in 1929, under the architects Josef Mocker and then Kamil Hilbert, and consecrated on 12 May that year, during the millennium of St. Wenceslas. The interior is ticketed as part of the Castle’s Main Circuit, and on Sundays the tourist entrance usually opens only at noon. If you go in, you’ll find the Chapel of St. Wenceslas, the royal crypt, and, among the modern stained glass, a window designed by Alfons Mucha. The Bohemian crown jewels are kept in the Crown Chamber, behind a door in the Wenceslas Chapel; they are not on regular display. People attending a service may enter without a tourist ticket, but sightseeing during services is not allowed. You can also walk around to the west front, with its twin towers and rose window, for another view from the public courtyard. When you’re ready, follow the courtyard around the eastern end of the cathedral. You’ll come out into a quieter square with a striking red facade and two pale stone towers. That’s St. George’s Basilica, and the Old Royal Palace stands right beside it.

This quieter square is náměstí U Svatého Jiří, St. George’s Square, and the building with the terracotta-red west front and the two pale towers is St. George’s Basilica. It is one of Prague’s most important Romanesque churches, and the Castle’s second church, founded around the year 920 by Prince Vratislaus I. In 925 the remains of Princess Ludmila, grandmother of St. Wenceslas, were laid to rest here. In 973, when the first monastery in Bohemia was founded next door, the church was enlarged into a basilica. After a fire in 1142 it was rebuilt close to the form you can still trace in the towers and the Romanesque fabric. The two steeples are about 41 metres high. The wider southern one is called Adam; the narrower northern one is Eve, and it leans by about 40 centimetres. The red facade facing the square is much later: an early Baroque front, added in the seventeenth century. The interior, including the Přemyslid tombs, is part of the Main Circuit ticket, and the basilica is also used as a concert hall. Now look at the large palace range along the south side of the square. This is the Old Royal Palace, the historic residence of the princes and kings of Bohemia. From the outside you can read its layers — Romanesque foundations, Gothic rebuilding under Charles IV, and a late-Gothic hall that marks the arrival of the Renaissance in Prague. That hall is Vladislav Hall, built in the late fifteenth century for King Vladislav Jagiellon by the architect Benedikt Ried. It is the largest secular space in medieval Prague, some 62 metres long, and it was used for coronation feasts, assemblies, and even knights’ tournaments: the riders came in on horseback up the Riders’ Staircase. State ceremonies are still held there, including the presidential oath of office. All of that is inside, on the same Castle ticket. One more piece of history, also behind those walls. In 1618, in the offices of the Bohemian Chancellery in the palace’s Ludwig Wing, two royal governors, Jaroslav Bořita of Martinice and Vilém Slavata of Chlum, and their secretary, Filip Fabricius, were thrown from a window. All three survived the fall. The event, known as the Defenestration of Prague, set off the Bohemian Estates’ uprising and helped to begin the Thirty Years’ War. Our next stop is just down Jiřská Street, the lane that leaves this square toward the east. About halfway along, on the left, is the turning into Golden Lane. We’ll pause at that entrance.

You are on Jiřská Street, at the turning into Golden Lane — Zlatá ulička u Daliborky on the map. A clear word about access, because this is the one stop on our walk that sits right at the edge of a ticketed area. During the hours the Castle’s historical buildings are open, Golden Lane and the houses along it are part of the Main Circuit ticket. After those buildings close — check the official castle site for today’s hours — the lane itself is usually free to walk through, but the interiors of the houses stay shut. Daliborka Tower, at the far end, is also on the ticket. You can do this stop from where you’re standing, at the public entrance on Jiřská. If you have a ticket, or if you’ve come back after closing time, you can walk the lane itself and then rejoin the route as it continues east. The colourful little houses are built into the arches of the Castle’s northern fortifications. Those walls were raised around 1500 by Benedikt Ried. The dwellings were added in the sixteenth century and were lived in by castle marksmen, goldsmiths, and later by poorer tenants, right up until the mid-twentieth century. The last residents moved out in 1953. The name “Golden Lane” is often linked to goldsmiths; the idea that Rudolf II’s alchemists lived here is a later legend. The Castle’s own displays are clear on that point: the alchemists are fictitious in this street. What you see today owes a lot to the 1950s, when the facades were painted to designs by the artist Jiří Trnka, and the present appearance of the lane dates from around 1955. Among the real residents, the best known is Franz Kafka, who lived and worked in house number 22 in 1916 and 1917. At the eastern end of the lane stands Daliborka, a round cannon tower built in 1496, also by Ried, as part of the Jagiellonian fortifications. It takes its name from its first prisoner, the knight Dalibor of Kozojedy, who was held here in 1498. A later legend says that he learned to play the violin in his cell, and that story inspired Bedřich Smetana’s opera Dalibor. The tower was used as a prison until 1781. You can see it from the public path as you continue, even if you don’t go into the lane. When you’re ready, stay on Jiřská Street and keep walking east, past the Lobkowicz Palace, toward the Castle’s eastern gate. Just beyond it, the ground opens onto a terrace at the top of a long stairway, with the city spread out below. That’s our last stop.

You’re standing at the top of the Old Castle Stairs, on the terrace by the Castle’s eastern gate, with the Black Tower close by. Below you are the rooftops of the Lesser Town, the palaces stepping down the hillside, the Vltava, and, on a clear day, Charles Bridge and the Old Town beyond. This terrace is public, and it’s open whenever the Castle grounds are open; check the official castle site for today’s hours. If you have come in the warmer months, you may also find a gate nearby into the South Gardens, the terraces along the Castle’s southern ramparts, reshaped in the 1920s and 1930s by the Slovenian architect Josip Plečnik. Those gardens are a beautiful extra, but they are seasonal: they usually close from November through February, which is why our tour finishes here, on a viewpoint you can use all year. The stairway in front of you is the Old Castle Stairs, a public flight of 121 steps, in its present form from the 1830s, leading down toward Klárov and the Malostranská metro station. It’s the shortest way back to the river, and a lovely descent if your knees are happy with the steps. As you go down, you’ll pass a statue of the songwriter Karel Hašler, unveiled in 2009, but the main pleasure is the view that stays with you almost to the bottom. We’ve walked about 2.2 kilometres, from a living monastery at Strahov, past Loreta and the palaces of Hradčany Square, through the Castle’s ceremonial courtyards, and along the walls to this terrace. We’ve stayed on streets and public courts the whole way. If you still have a Castle ticket and some energy, you can of course turn back for the cathedral, Vladislav Hall, or Golden Lane. If you’re heading down the hill, you’re on your way into the Lesser Town — Malá Strana — where Charles Bridge, St. Nicholas Church, and the hidden Vrtba Garden are waiting, and where our “Prague Essential Highlights” walk spends its second half. Thank you for joining me on this walk through Hradčany and Prague Castle. Enjoy the view a little longer if you can; the Old Castle Stairs lead down to the river when you’re ready to go.