The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in the Czech Republic
9 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful sacred places in the Czech Republic are Church of Our Lady before Týn, St. Vitus Cathedral and Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague. The list covers 9 sacred places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Bohemia's sacred buildings come from two great flowerings and one long survival. Under Charles IV in the 14th century Prague became an imperial capital and Gothic builders such as Peter Parler gave it soaring churches; after 1620 the Counter-Reformation covered the land in Baroque. Prague was largely spared destruction in the 20th century, and its Jewish Town kept synagogues and a cemetery that tell a story of their own.
St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle was begun in 1344 and completed only in 1929, and its chapel of St. Wenceslas is lined with semi-precious stones. The twin spires of the Church of Our Lady before Týn rise over the Old Town Square, while the Church of St. Nicholas in the Lesser Town, built by the Dientzenhofer family, is one of the purest Baroque interiors in Central Europe. In the Old Jewish Cemetery, used for more than three centuries, thousands of tombstones lean against one another in layers.
The Spanish Synagogue dresses its interior in Moorish-style ornament, and the Jubilee Synagogue on Jerusalem Street mixes Art Nouveau with bright Moorish colour. Outside the capital, Kutná Hora shows two faces of medieval silver wealth: St. Barbara's Church with its tent-like roofs, and the Sedlec Ossuary, where the bones of tens of thousands of people form chandeliers and coats of arms. Jan Santini Aichel's pilgrimage church at Zelená Hora is planned around a five-pointed star.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Church of Our Lady before Týn | Church building | |
| 2 | St. Vitus Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 3 | Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague | Cemetery | |
| 4 | St. Nicholas Church | Church building | |
| 5 | Spanish Synagogue, Prague | Synagogue | |
| 6 | Sedlec Ossuary | Church building | |
| 7 | Jubilee Synagogue, Prague | Synagogue | |
| 8 | St. Barbara's Church, Kutná Hora | Church building | |
| 9 | Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at Zelená Hora | Church building | ✓ |
01 Church of Our Lady before Týn
Kostel Panny Marie před Týnem
Czech Republic · 0.1 km from Prague50.088° N 14.423° E
Image by Leonhard_Niederwimmer from Pixabay The present three-aisled Gothic basilica was begun in the mid-14th century, funded by some of the wealthiest burgher families in the city. Its design shows the influence of the two great cathedral workshops of Prague, first that of Matthias of Arras and then that of Peter Parler. Parler's hand is seen above all in the window tracery and the sculpture of the north portal, whose tympanum shows scenes from the Passion.
Did you know? Jan Rokycana, the Hussite archbishop-elect who became parish priest here in 1427, is buried in the church.
02 St. Vitus Cathedral
Katedrála svatého Víta v Praze
Czech Republic · 1.7 km from Prague50.091° N 14.401° E
Image by Duernsteiner from Pixabay The Gothic cathedral was begun on 21 November 1344, when Prague became an archbishopric, and was driven by Charles IV, who wanted a coronation church, a royal burial place and a shrine for St Wenceslaus.
Did you know? For decades church and state fought in court over who owned the cathedral; the dispute ended only with a 2010 agreement on joint administration.
03 Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague
Czech Republic · 0.5 km from Prague50.090° N 14.417° E
Image by Nicolas-Debray from Pixabay Among those buried here are figures of the golden age of Prague Jewry around 1600: Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal, who died in 1609 and whose Renaissance tomb is still a place of pilgrimage; Mordecai Maisel; the chronicler and astronomer David Gans, who worked with Tycho Brahe; and the Chief Rabbi David Oppenheim, whose great library is now at Oxford.
Did you know? The oldest stones are slabs of dark sandstone, while after 1600 white and reddish marble and house-shaped tombs appeared.
04 St. Nicholas Church
Kostel svatého Mikuláše na Malé Straně
Czech Republic · 1.4 km from Prague50.088° N 14.404° E
VitVit · CC BY-SA 4.0 A Gothic parish church of St Nicholas stood here from the 13th century. After the Battle of White Mountain the Jesuits took it over, and in the second half of the 17th century they began a large college complex on the Lesser Town square to designs by Giovanni Domenico Orsi; the cornerstone of the new church was laid in 1673.
Did you know? The main donor, Václav Libštejnský of Kolowrat, gave up a fortune of 178,500 florins to join the Jesuits and died in 1659, long before the cornerstone was laid.
05 Spanish Synagogue, Prague
Španělská synagoga
Czech Republic · 0.4 km from Prague50.090° N 14.421° E
Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 From outside the building is a restrained square block with a dome. The surprise is inside, where between 1882 and 1893 Antonín Baum and Bedřich Münzberger covered every surface in stucco and paint. Stylised arabesques in gold, red, green and blue run over walls, galleries, doors and the ceiling, so dense that the whole room seems woven rather than built.
Did you know? The building became part of the Jewish Museum in Prague in 1955, and an exhibition of synagogue textiles was mounted inside in 1960.
06 Sedlec Ossuary
Kostel Všech svatých
Czech Republic · 34.9 km from Pardubice49.962° N 15.288° E
H2k4 · CC BY-SA 3.0 The origin of the collection is medieval. In 1278 the abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Sedlec returned from the Holy Land with a handful of earth from Golgotha and scattered it over the abbey cemetery, which made the ground a coveted burial place across Central Europe.
Did you know? The bone-filled chapel has served as a film location, appearing in Dungeons & Dragons (2000) and Blood and Chocolate.
07 Jubilee Synagogue, Prague
Jeruzalémská synagoga
Czech Republic · 0.7 km from Prague50.085° N 14.432° E
Image by Laura_Maxim from Pixabay It was built as a consequence of loss. At the turn of the 20th century Prague carried out a sweeping clearance of the old Jewish quarter, Josefov, and three synagogues were demolished in the process. The Jubilee Synagogue was built to replace them, designed by the Viennese architect Wilhelm Stiassny and executed by the builder Alois Richter, and completed in 1906.
Did you know? It replaced three demolished Josefov synagogues: the Zigeuner (Gypsy) Synagogue, the Velkodvorská Synagogue and the New Synagogue.
08 St. Barbara's Church, Kutná Hora
Chrám svaté Barbory
Czech Republic · 37.1 km from Pardubice49.945° N 15.264° E
Thomas Ledl · CC BY-SA 4.0 Seen from the valley, the silhouette is unmistakable: three tent-shaped roofs rising like a cluster of pavilions above a forest of pinnacles and double-arched flying buttresses that brace the choir with its ring of eight radial chapels. The roofs, designed by Ried, were finished by 1588. Inside, Ried's nave is the masterpiece.
Did you know? Until its main vault was finished in 1547, the half-built church stood open to the rain.
09 Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at Zelená Hora
Kostel svatého Jana Nepomuckého
Czech Republic · 32.8 km from Jihlava49.580° N 15.942° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Aqalexor · CC BY-SA 4.0 The church was built from 1719 for Václav Vejmluva, abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Žďár, who worked closely with the architect on its programme.
Did you know? The central space is carried by ten pillars, and a ten-part gallery runs around the foot of the vault.
More about Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at Zelená Hora →
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful sacred places in the Czech Republic?
- On our list, Church of Our Lady before Týn ranks first, followed by St. Vitus Cathedral and Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague.
- Why is the Sedlec Ossuary decorated with bones?
- The Sedlec cemetery became a coveted burial ground after an abbot scattered earth from Golgotha over it in the 13th century, and plague and war filled it further. The excavated bones were stored in the chapel, and in 1870 the woodcarver František Rint arranged them into the present decorations.
- Who is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague?
- Its best-known grave is that of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the scholar who died in 1609 and is linked by legend to the Golem of Prague.
- Why is the church at Zelená Hora shaped like a star?
- Jan Santini Aichel based the whole plan on the number five, after the legend of five stars that appeared over the body of St John of Nepomuk, to whom the church is dedicated.
- How many sacred places are on this list in the Czech Republic?
- The list covers 9 sacred places.