Prague Castle

Few castles have been a seat of power for as long as this one. The first walled church on the ridge above the Vltava went up around 870, and more than eleven centuries later the complex is still the office of the Czech head of state. Along the way it served Bohemian dukes and kings, Holy Roman emperors and the presidents of Czechoslovakia, which is why Czechs still say simply "the Castle" when they mean the presidency. Guinness lists it as the largest ancient castle complex in the world: roughly 570 metres long and 130 metres across, close to 70,000 square metres in all.

What makes it extraordinary is that it is not one building but a millennium of them. The Romanesque Basilica of St George, the oldest church still standing inside the walls, sits a few steps from St Vitus Cathedral, a Gothic project begun under Charles IV in the 14th century and only finished in 1929. The Old Royal Palace holds Vladislav Hall, the vast late-Gothic hall that master builder Benedikt Rejt raised for King Vladislaus II after 1485. After a great fire in 1541 the Habsburgs added Renaissance pieces, among them the Belvedere summer palace that Ferdinand I built for Queen Anne, and Rudolf II turned the castle into his main residence and a home for his famous art collections. Maria Theresa ordered the last large rebuilding in the second half of the 18th century, and after 1918 the Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik reworked courtyards and gardens for President Masaryk.

History has happened here, not merely been housed. The Third Defenestration of Prague in 1618, which set off the Bohemian Revolt and with it the Thirty Years' War, took place in the castle; Swedish troops carried off much of Rudolf's collection in 1648. In 1939 Hitler spent a night here after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, and the castle became the headquarters of Reinhard Heydrich until his assassination in 1942. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are still kept in a locked chamber inside.

Most of the grounds are open to visitors: the cathedral, the palaces, the Golden Lane of tiny houses built into the walls, the defence towers, the castle picture gallery built around what survives of Rudolf's collection, and a string of terraced gardens, including the South Gardens with views over the red roofs of the Lesser Town. The castle crowns the historic centre of Prague, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1992, and it draws more visitors than anything else in the country, about 2.6 million in 2024, so arriving early pays off.

Getting there

The castle stands on the Hradčany hill above the Lesser Town, about 1.5 km from the Dejvice district. Václav Havel Airport Prague (PRG) is around 10 km away. Malostranská station on metro line A lies below the eastern slope of the castle hill, with a tram stop of the same name.