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“The Locomotive” (1922– 2000) won three long-distance gold medals at the 1952 Olympic Games.

A one-stop shop for glass and jewellery. Erpet sells Bohemian lead crystal, garnet jewellery, enamel glass and chandeliers, as well as fine goods from the Moser, Goebel and Swarovski manufacturers. Shoppers can ponder the purchases they’re about to make over coffee in the shop’s comfortable lounge area.

If you like your drinks tall and fruity, your bartenders chatty and your disco music loud, this is the cocktail bar for you. Escape is popular with a bold and beautiful crowd, all of whom seem to know each other. Bring a local celebrity magazine with you and the likelihood is you’ll be able to identify some of them.

Swaddled in the Four Seasons trademark luxury, guests may forget where they are. A quick stroll on the riverside terrace should remind them. The restaurant Allegro is one of Prague’s best. Top-notch, all around.

Stop here after pounding the Wenceslas Square pavement and join the pensioners and office workers at lunch, quietly filling the benches behind the Church of Our Lady of the Snows.

The Franciscans moved into this area near Wenceslas Square in 1603, reclaiming the former Carmelite monastery. The grounds and nearby Church of Our Lady of the Snow had fallen into decay following the Hussite civil war, but the monks beautifully restored them. The gardens remained closed to the public until 1950, when the Communists thought they were worth sharing. Although there’s little love lost for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the gardens remain popular with young kissing couples and pigeon-feeding pensioners.

Prague’s best-known author (1883–1924) was largely unpublished in his lifetime.

Although he wrote in German and almost none of his work was published in his lifetime, Franz Kafka is Prague. Many of his disturbing novels seem to foresee the Communist years. His peripatetic wanderings across this city, brooding features and death by tuberculosis all add to the mystique.