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This is where Prague’s old statues go when they retire. Among the 700-plus items are the original St Wenceslas from Wenceslas Square.

Jean-Baptiste Mathey created Count Sternberg’s 17th-century palace when Classical Italian was all the architectural rage. Inside is a collection of 19th-century Czech art.

Prague’s zoological gardens, dating from 1924, are catching up with western zoos, but still lack some creature comforts. The most popular exhibits are the big cats and gorillas.

St Adalbert founded this Benedictine monastery in 993. You can see remains of the Romanesque church, and the 18th-century church of St Margaret.

The house where Mozart and his wife stayed while the composer worked on Don Giovanni has been turned into a small museum on his life.

The Nazis turned Prague’s film studios into a propaganda mill during World War II, as did the Communists, but today they are thriving as western filmmakers discover Prague (see Film Locations).

Plague victims were interred here when the site was still far from the city. Notable residents include Jan Palach, a student who burned himself alive in protest at the 1968 Warsaw-Pact invasion.

The writer Franz Kafka’s memorial is here, as are those of many other Prague Jews who perished in the Holocaust (see The Jews in Prague).

The dam in the Vltava not only helps prevent flooding, it makes a nice swimming and boating reserve.

The majority of Prague’s residents still live in these avowedly ugly prefab estates. Have a look around and consider yourself lucky.