The 14 essential things to see and do in Prague

Prague Castle has overlooked the left bank of the Vltava since the 9th century. Seat of the kings of Bohemia, of Holy Roman emperors and then of Czechoslovak and Czech presidents, it is still the official residence of the President of the Republic. Guinness lists it as the largest ancient castle complex in the world, with nearly 70,000 m² of courtyards, palaces and gardens.

The main circuit takes in St. Vitus Cathedral, whose Gothic construction stretched from 1344 to 1929, the Old Royal Palace with its Vladislav Hall, the Romanesque St. George's Basilica and Golden Lane, where Kafka wrote in house no. 22. The grounds, courtyards and gardens are free to walk; only the interiors are ticketed.

Charles Bridge has linked the Old Town to Malá Strana since the 14th century: Charles IV laid the first stone in 1357, and it replaced the Judith Bridge swept away by a flood. It is 516 m long and 10 m wide, rests on sixteen sandstone arches and remains closed to traffic.

Its two gate towers, including Peter Parler's Old Town Bridge Tower, frame a gallery of thirty Baroque statues added between 1683 and 1714, most of them now replaced by copies. The best known, St. John of Nepomuk, bears a bronze plaque polished by visitors' hands.

The heart of Staré Město since the 12th century, Old Town Square gathers on one perimeter the Old Town Hall with its astronomical clock, the two Gothic spires of the Church of Our Lady before Týn, the Baroque St. Nicholas Church and the Rococo Kinský Palace. The Jan Hus monument, unveiled in 1915, stands at its centre.

The square is pedestrian and crossed in minutes, but the lanes leading off it, Celetná to the Powder Tower, Karlova to Charles Bridge, Pařížská to Josefov, hold most of the historic centre listed by UNESCO in 1992. The Christmas and Easter markets set up here every year.

Mounted on the south face of the Old Town Hall, the astronomical clock is first recorded in 1410, the work of clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň and astronomer Jan Šindel. It is the oldest astronomical clock still running. The upper dial shows the positions of the Sun and Moon, Old Bohemian time and Babylonian time; the lower calendar dial, painted by Josef Mánes in 1866, runs through the months and zodiac signs.

On the hour, from 9am to 11pm, the twelve apostles parade at the two windows while Death rings his bell, flanked by Vanity, Greed and the Turk. The mechanism was badly damaged by fire in May 1945, restored in 1948 and again in 2018.

Josefov fills the northern corner of the Old Town, between the square and the Vltava. Jewish presence here is documented from the 10th century; the walled 16th-century ghetto was razed during the 1893-1913 slum clearance, but six synagogues, the Jewish Town Hall and the old cemetery were preserved.

The Jewish Museum in Prague runs the Maisel Synagogue, the Pinkas Synagogue, whose walls carry the names of nearly 80,000 Holocaust victims, the Klausen Synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue and the Old Jewish Cemetery, where 15th- to 18th-century graves are stacked twelve layers deep. The Old-New Synagogue, completed around 1270 and still in use, is Europe's oldest working synagogue.

Malá Strana, the "Lesser Town", climbs the left bank between Charles Bridge and the castle. Founded in 1257 and rebuilt after the fire of 1541, it has kept an almost intact Baroque fabric: embassy palaces, terraced gardens, pastel façades and painted house signs on Nerudova Street, which leads up to the castle.

St. Nicholas Church, the Dientzenhofers' masterpiece completed in 1755, dominates Malostranské náměstí with its 20-metre dome; Mozart played the organ here in 1787. A short walk away, the Church of Our Lady Victorious houses the Infant Jesus of Prague, a wax statuette venerated worldwide.

Petřín Hill rises to 327 m above Malá Strana, covered in orchards and gardens that run down to the Hunger Wall, a rampart built by Charles IV in 1360-1362. At the top, the 63.5-metre Petřín Tower was erected in 1891 for the Jubilee Exhibition on the model of the Eiffel Tower; its 299 steps lead to two platforms overlooking the city and, on clear days, the Bohemian hills.

Around the tower are the mirror maze, the Church of St. Lawrence, the Štefánik Observatory and the rose garden. The path down towards Strahov Monastery lets you continue on to the castle.

The National Museum, founded in 1818, closes off the top of Wenceslas Square with its neo-Renaissance façade designed by Josef Schulz and opened in 1891. The historic building reopened on 28 October 2018, for the centenary of Czechoslovakia, after seven years of restoration; a tunnel now links it to the neighbouring New Building, the former headquarters of Radio Free Europe.

Inside are the natural history collections (minerals, whale and dinosaur skeletons), the exhibition on the history of the Czech lands from the 9th century to today and the Pantheon, a domed hall dedicated to the nation's great figures. Bullet marks from the 1968 Soviet invasion are still visible on the façade columns.

Český Krumlov lies in South Bohemia, about 170 km from Prague by road, in a tight bend of the Vltava. Its historic centre, a UNESCO site since 1992, has come through five centuries largely untouched: cobbled lanes, Renaissance houses with sgraffito façades and, above them, the country's second-largest castle after Prague's, with its painted round tower and a Baroque theatre of 1766 preserved with its original stage machinery.

It fills a whole day: the castle and its courtyards, the garden terrace, the view from the covered bridge, then the old centre and a canoe or raft run down the Vltava in summer.

Vyšehrad sits on a rock above the Vltava, 3 km south of the centre. Legend has it that Princess Libuše prophesied the birth of Prague from here; historically, the Přemyslid dynasty made it their seat in the 11th century before Prague Castle regained the upper hand. The 17th-century Baroque ramparts enclose the Rotunda of St. Martin, Prague's oldest church (around 1100), the neo-Gothic Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul and the national cemetery where Dvořák, Smetana, Mucha and Čapek are buried.

The park is free and far less crowded than the castle; from the bastions the view runs along the Vltava to the castle and the hills. The casemates and the Gorlice hall, which holds the original statues from Charles Bridge, are ticketed.

Kampa is the island running along Malá Strana between the Vltava and the Čertovka channel, a mill-lined stream that earned the district its nickname of "Prague's Venice". You reach it by the stairs from Charles Bridge; the park, the Museum Kampa of modern art in the former Sova Mills and David Černý's giant babies make it one of the nicest walks in the centre.

From Kampa the embankments continue south to the Rašín embankment (Rašínovo nábřeží), where vaulted former warehouses (Náplavka) hold floating cafés and a Saturday farmers' market. This is also where the one-hour Vltava cruises leave from, with the castle, Charles Bridge and the National Theatre seen from the water.

Kutná Hora, 70 km east of Prague, was the second city of Bohemia in the Middle Ages thanks to its silver mines: the kingdom's coin, the Prague groschen, was struck at its Italian Court. The historic centre, St. Barbara's Church and Sedlec Cathedral have been a UNESCO site since 1995. St. Barbara's, begun in 1388 by Peter Parler's workshop, is one of the finest Gothic churches in the country, with petal vaults and frescoes of miners at work.

Two kilometres away in the suburb of Sedlec, the ossuary of All Saints' Chapel displays the bones of some 40,000 people, arranged in 1870 by the woodcarver František Rint into a chandelier, the Schwarzenberg coat of arms and garlands. It is the town's most visited site, hence the limited capacity and timed entry.

The Wallenstein Garden was laid out between 1623 and 1630 for Albrecht von Wallenstein, generalissimo of the imperial armies, together with the palace that now houses the Czech Senate. It is Prague's first great Baroque garden: an avenue of bronze statues (copies, the originals having been carried off by the Swedes in 1648), a pond with a statue of Hercules, an aviary and an artificial dripstone wall in which visitors look for hidden faces.

The sala terrena, a monumental loggia opening onto the garden, hosts concerts in summer. Peacocks wander freely along the paths.

Lobkowicz Palace is the only privately owned building within the Prague Castle grounds. Returned to the Lobkowicz family after 1989, it displays collections assembled since the 16th century: paintings by Bruegel the Elder, Canaletto and Velázquez, armour, porcelain and above all scores annotated by Beethoven and Mozart, the family having been Beethoven's patron.

The audio-guided visit, narrated by family members, takes about an hour and ends on the café terrace, which looks straight down onto the rooftops of Malá Strana and Charles Bridge.