Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
OLD TOWN ORIGINS
The origins of Staré Město (Old Town) date back to the 10th century, when a
marketplace and settlement grew up on the east bank of the river. In the 12th
century this was linked to the castle district by Judith Bridge, the forerunner of
Charles Bridge, and in 1231 Wenceslas I honoured it with a town charter and
the beginnings of a fortification.
The town walls are long gone, but their line can still be traced along the
streets of Národní třída, Na příkopě (which means 'on the moat') and Revoluční,
and the Old Town's main gate - the Powder Gate - still survives.
GALLER
ALLERY
KINSKÝ PALACE
150/80Kč; 10am-6pm Tue-Sun; Staroměstská)
The late-baroque Kinský Palace
sports Prague's finest rococo facade, completed in 1765 by the redoubtable Kilian Di-
entzenhofer. Today, the palace is home to a branch of the National Gallery, housing its
collection of ancient and oriental art, ranging from ancient Egyptian tomb treasures
and Greek Apulian pottery (4th century BC) to Chinese and Japanese decorative art
and calligraphy.
Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, once stayed in the palace; his
crush on pacifist Bertha von Suttner (née Kinský) may have influenced him to estab-
lish the Nobel Peace Prize (she was the first woman laureate in 1905). Many older
Praguers have a darker memory of the place, for it was from its balcony in February
1948 that Klement Gottwald proclaimed communist rule in Czechoslovakia. There are
Kafka connections here, too - young Franz once attended a school around the back of
the building, and his father ran a shop in the premises next to the House at the Stone
Bell, now occupied by the Kafka Bookshop.
GALLER
ALLERY
HOUSE AT THE STONE BELL
child 120/60Kč; 10am-8pm Tue-Sun; Staroměstská)
During restoration in the 1980s
the baroque stucco facade was stripped away from this elegant medieval building to
reveal the original 14th-century Gothic stonework; the eponymous stone bell is on the
