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This pink stucco palace and the John Lennon Wall are separated by only a few steps, but they are miles apart aesthetically. However, the French Ambassador helped preserve the graffiti opposite his offices in the 1980s.

Nazi Reichsprotektor Reinhard “The Hangman” Heydrich’s assassins (see Karlovo náměstí) took refuge in this Eastern Orthodox Cathedral’s crypt. The Gestapo executed the bishop who sheltered them.

The Gothic towers of Týn loom over Old Town Square’s dainty houses. During the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits melted down the gold Hussite chalice that stood between the towers and recast it as the Madonna seen today.

Opposite Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Teresa in the nave is the famed Infant Jesus of Prague. The wax baby doll is credited with miraculous powers. The resident Order of English Virgins look after the little man and change his clothes.

The Baroque façade is awash with cherubim and scenes from the lives of saints Francis of Assisi, James and Antony of Padua. It’s an active house of worship, so gaze respectfully at the mummified arm hanging above the door inside.

The Malá Strana church’s cartoon-like clock tower and dome upstage its namesake across the river. The splendid Baroque sanctuary was meant to impress Catholic sceptics of the might of Rome (see St Nicholas’s Church).

The Yugoslav Embassy sat quietly in its pink and yellow stucco for more than 300 years until war made it a popular spot for protests.

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.

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).