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This company was the main proponent behind Black-Light theatre, a genre in which black-clad actors, working against a black background, manipulate objects. See for yourself what all the fuss is about at their stage next to the National Theatre.

Enjoy an espresso and croissant in the stylish bistro for a snack or sit down to a marvellous French dinner in the dining room proper.

Jean Valjean, played by Liam Neeson, fled from the gendarme on Hradčanské náměstí through Prague sewers in the 1998 re-make of this classic tale. Neeson also fled from fans at Molly Malone’s Irish pub.

A grand staircase leads from the Vltava riverbank opposite the Josefov quarter (see Josefov) to an unexpected giant metronome. The needle marks time where a mammoth statue of Joseph Stalin once stood before it was demolished in the 1960s (see Letná Plinth). The surrounding park echoes with the clatter of skateboards and barking dogs. Travelling circuses sometimes set up in the open fields, but Letná’s popular beer garden is probably its biggest draw.

Where sculptor David Černý’s giant metronome now swings once stood a 14,000-ton statue of Joseph Stalin – the largest in the world – backed by a queue of admiring citizens, which was visible from all over the city. His successor Nikita Khrushchev had the statue destroyed by a series of dramatic dynamite explosions in 1962. Pop star Michael Jackson launched his 1996 World Tour in Prague, unwisely erecting a statue of himself on the spot.

Originally several houses, Lichtenstein Palace fused in the 16th century. Today, it is home to Prague’s Academy of Music and numerous concerts and recitals.

This pleasant and smart restaurant offers light lunches and suppers with a view of the city. The café in the courtyard is the place to end your tour of the castle.

Home to the German Embassy; in 1989 hundreds of East Germans found their way to the West by scrambling over the embassy’s back fence.

At the heart of this elaborate shrine to the Virgin Mary is the Santa Casa – a reproduction of the house where Mary received the Angel Gabriel. The Loreto treasury holds scores of priceless monstrances as well as other religious artifacts (see The Loreto).