DK Travel : Prague : History & Culture

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Karel Vachek

Vachek creates rambling documentaries which capture the absurdity of Czech politics.
Karlova

You will inevitably get lost trying to follow “Charles Street” from Old Town Square to Charles Bridge; relax and enjoy the bewildering, twisting alleys choked with shops and cafés.
Karlovo náměstí

Charles IV had his city planners build New Town’s central square to the same dimensions as Jerusalem’s. Originally a cattle market, it’s now a park popular with dog-walkers. Among the trees are monuments to such luminaries as Eliška Krásnohorská, who wrote libretti for Smetana’s operas. To the west, on Resslova, is the Church of Sts Cyril and Methodius. The members of the Czech resistance, responsinble for the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich (1904–42), took refuge here (see Cathedral of Sts Cyril and Methodius).
Kaunitz Palace

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.
Klausen Synagogue

Abutting the Old Jewish Cemetery, this Baroque single-nave building was constructed in 1694 on site of a school and prayer hall (klausen ) where Rabbi Loew taught the cabala . Like most of the synagogues in the area, it is now houses Jewish exhibitions, including prints and manuscripts.
Kolya

In 1996 Jan Svěrák cast his father Zdeněk as the grumpy, philandering cellist who restores Olšanská cemetery tombstones in his free time. The five-year-old title character gets lost in Anděl metro station (see Anděl Metro).
Laterna Magika

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.
Les Misérables

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.
Letná Park

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.
Letná Plinth

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.