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Prago / Walks in Prague

Evening and night

Castle Square at dusk, the Old Castle Steps, Charles Bridge after the crowds, the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square.

6 stops, about 60 minutes of walking, about 4 km. Charles Bridge is quieter after the vendors leave.

Map of the route Evening and night with the 6 stops numbered in order
The route and its stops. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

1 Hradčanské náměstí

Hradčany and Prague Castle · Czech name: Castle Square

Castle Square is where Hradčany began, around 1320, right outside the castle gate. The families who built palaces here wanted to stand as close to royal power as they could. Look at the Schwarzenberg Palace, the grey-and-white one. Its stonework is flat: it is sgraffito, a painted illusion of cut stone, first finished in 1567. In the middle stands a plague column by Ferdinand Brokoff, consecrated in 1736 as thanks for the end of the plague.

2 Old Castle Steps

Hradčany and Prague Castle · Czech name: Staré zámecké schody

The Old Castle Steps are the shortest way up to the Castle from the Lesser Town, about 230 metres and 121 steps. The staircase took its present form in 1835 to 1837. Painters and buskers often sit along it, and the terrace at the top has a wide view of the roofs. A monument at the bottom remembers the songwriter Karel Hašler, whose song is about these steps. He died in a concentration camp in 1941.

3 Saint Nicholas Church, Malá Strana

Malá Strana (Lesser Town) · Czech name: Kostel svatého Mikuláše

Saint Nicholas in the Lesser Town is often called the finest baroque church in Prague. Three generations of one family built it between 1704 and 1755: Christoph and Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer, and Anselmo Lurago. The dome is about seventy metres high, and the nave ceiling carries a huge fresco of Saint Nicholas. Mozart played the organ here in 1787. In the communist era the bell tower was used by State Security to watch nearby embassies.

4 Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge and the River · Czech name: Karlův most

Charles Bridge was begun in 1357 by Charles the Fourth, after a flood destroyed the older Judith Bridge in 1342, and it was finished around 1402. It is 516 metres long, with sixteen arches, and until 1841 it was the only bridge in Prague. The thirty statues were added between 1683 and 1714. It was called simply the Stone Bridge until 1870. Cars were banned in 1965. Come early in the morning for the best experience.

5 Old Town Square

Staré Město (Old Town) · Czech name: Staroměstské náměstí

Old Town Square has been the market and stage of Prague history for a thousand years. The Gothic towers belong to the Týn Church, and on the Old Town Hall is the astronomical clock. On the twenty-first of June 1621, twenty-seven Czech lords were executed here after the defeat of the Protestant uprising, and crosses in the pavement mark the spot. The big monument in the centre is of the reformer Jan Hus, unveiled in 1915.

6 Wenceslas Square

Nové Město (New Town) · Czech name: Václavské náměstí

Wenceslas Square is a boulevard, 750 metres long and 60 wide, founded in 1348 as the Horse Market of Charles the Fourth's New Town. The National Museum closes its upper end, with the statue of Saint Wenceslas in front. Here Czechoslovak independence was celebrated in 1918, Soviet tanks arrived in 1968, and in January 1969 the student Jan Palach set himself on fire. In November 1989 about three hundred thousand people gathered here, jingling keys.

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