Prague
Self-guided audio walking tour of Prague
50 hand-checked places and 2 walking routes. aiGuide notices where you are and tells you each place's story as you walk past, so you can keep your phone in your pocket.
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The Royal Route
The most rewarding 90 minutes in Prague, following the old coronation path: from the Municipal House and the Powder Tower through Old Town Square, past the astronomical clock and the Klementinum, across the Charles Bridge to St Nicholas in Malá Strana, and up to Prague Castle and St Vitus Cathedral.
1.Obecní dům
Prague's great Art Nouveau civic house, built from 1905 to 1912 on the site of the medieval Royal Court. Czechoslovak independence was proclaimed here on 28 October 1918, and Smetana Hall still hosts concerts.
2.Prašná brána
A Late Gothic gate tower begun in 1475 where the Old Town meets the New Town. Coronation processions passed under it, and it marks the start of the Royal Route to Prague Castle.
3.Kostel Panny Marie před Týnem
The Old Town's principal Gothic church, begun in the mid-14th century, with twin towers 80 metres high. A Hussite stronghold for two centuries, it holds the tomb of the astronomer Tycho Brahe.
4.Staroměstské náměstí
Prague's medieval market place, ringed by Gothic, Baroque and Rococo fronts. Its pavement marks where 27 leaders of the Bohemian Estates were executed in 1621, and Jan Hus stands at its centre.
5.Staroměstská radnice
Founded in 1338 as the Old Town's council house and pieced together from Gothic houses beneath a 69.5-metre tower. Its south wall carries the Prague Orloj, an astronomical clock first recorded in 1410.
6.Klementinum
A vast former Jesuit college, second only to Prague Castle among the city's building complexes. It houses the National Library, a Baroque library hall and an observatory tower with weather records since 1775.
7.Staroměstská mostecká věž
The Old Town Bridge Tower is the Gothic gate at the eastern end of Charles Bridge, built by Peter Parler's workshop in the later 14th century and decorated as a triumphal arch for Charles IV.
8.Karlův most
Charles Bridge is Prague's medieval stone crossing of the Vltava, begun in 1357 under Charles IV. Lined with thirty mostly Baroque statues, it was the city's only bridge until 1841.
9.Kostel svatého Mikuláše na Malé Straně
The Church of Saint Nicholas on Lesser Town Square is often called the finest Baroque church in Prague, built for the Jesuits in two phases between 1703 and 1752 by the Dientzenhofer father and son.
10.Pražský hrad
The seat of Bohemian princes, kings, emperors and presidents since the 9th century, listed by Guinness World Records as the largest ancient castle in the world, about 570 metres long.
11.Katedrála svatého Víta
Prague's Gothic cathedral and the coronation church of the Bohemian kings, begun in 1344 under Charles IV and completed only in 1929, holding the tomb of Saint Wenceslas and the crown jewels.
Josefov to Wenceslas Square
Through the Jewish Quarter's synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetery, past Kafka's monument and the Estates Theatre where Don Giovanni premiered, to Wenceslas Square and the National Museum, scene of 1968, 1969 and 1989.
1.Rudolfinum
Neo-Renaissance concert hall and gallery on the Vltava, designed by Josef Zítek and Josef Schulz and opened in 1885. Home of the Czech Philharmonic, it housed Czechoslovakia's parliament from 1919 to 1939.
2.Pinkasova synagoga
Prague's second-oldest surviving synagogue, built in 1535. Its walls carry the hand-lettered names of nearly 80,000 Jews from Bohemia and Moravia murdered in the Shoah, one of Europe's earliest such memorials.
3.Starý židovský hřbitov
One of Europe's oldest surviving Jewish burial grounds, used from 1439 to 1787. More than 12,000 gravestones stand crowded together, because the walled ghetto had no room to grow. Rabbi Judah Loew rests here.
4.Klausová synagoga
The largest synagogue of the former Prague ghetto and its only early Baroque one, completed in 1694 after the great fire. It stands at the exit of the Old Jewish Cemetery.
5.Staronová synagoga
Europe's oldest synagogue still in regular use, built in the last third of the 13th century. Its twin-nave Gothic hall and stepped brick gable have outlasted fires, pogroms and the Nazi occupation.
6.Španělská synagoga
The youngest synagogue of the former Jewish Town, built in 1868 for Reform worship. Its gilded Moorish Revival interior, inspired by the Alhambra in Granada, gave it the Spanish name.
7.Pomník Franze Kafky
Jaroslav Róna's bronze monument to Franz Kafka, unveiled in 2003 beside the Spanish Synagogue. A small Kafka rides on the shoulders of an empty, headless suit, after his story Description of a Struggle.
8.Stavovské divadlo
A Neoclassical theatre opened in 1783 by Count Franz Anton Nostitz-Rieneck. Mozart conducted the premiere of Don Giovanni here in 1787, and the song that became the Czech anthem was first sung here.
9.Václavské náměstí
A 750-metre boulevard laid out as the Horse Market of Charles IV's New Town in 1348, and the stage for Czech national moments from independence in 1918 to the Velvet Revolution of 1989.
10.Národní muzeum
The neo-Renaissance main building of the Czech National Museum, designed by Josef Schulz and opened in 1891, closing the top of Wenceslas Square beneath its great dome.
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