41 historic places
Historic Places in Czechia
Golden Prague, Bohemian castles, and the Velvet Revolution
A curated guide to historic places to visit in Czechia — Prague Castle and the Old Town, the Sedlec bone church, Bohemian castles, and the sites of 1968 and 1989.
Historical880Prague Castle
The largest ancient castle complex on earth, seat of Bohemian kings, emperors and presidents for over a thousand years.
Historical1000Vyšehrad
The legendary cliff-top fortress where Princess Libuše is said to have prophesied the glory of Prague.
Historical1096Josefov Jewish Quarter
One of Europe's oldest Jewish ghettos, preserved by the Nazis as a chilling 'museum of an extinct race'.
Historical1100Old Town Square
The medieval heart of Prague, where 27 Protestant leaders were executed and crowds later toppled a monarchy.
Historical1135Old Royal Palace
The castle palace where the 1618 Defenestration of Prague threw officials from a window and sparked a European war.
Heritage1143Strahov Monastery Library
A baroque monastery whose ceiling-frescoed halls hold 200,000 volumes and a wall of curiosities.
Heritage1240Český Krumlov
A perfectly preserved medieval town looped by the Vltava, crowned by a castle with a baroque theatre.
Historical1249Špilberk Castle
The hilltop fortress above Brno that became the Habsburgs' most feared political prison.
Heritage1270Old-New Synagogue
Europe's oldest active synagogue, said to hide the clay Golem of Prague in its attic.
Historical1338Old Town Hall
The Gothic town hall whose tower gives Prague's best rooftop view and whose east wing lies in wartime ruins.
Heritage1344St Vitus Cathedral
The Gothic cathedral that took nearly 600 years to finish and guards the crown jewels of Bohemia.
Heritage1348Karlštejn Castle
The Gothic hill castle Charles IV built to guard the imperial crown jewels and holy relics.
Historical1348Wenceslas Square
The grand boulevard where the Prague Spring was crushed, a student burned himself, and the Velvet Revolution triumphed.
Heritage1357Charles Bridge
The 14th-century stone bridge, lined with baroque saints, whose foundation was laid at a numerologically perfect moment.
Heritage1370Karlovy Vary
The grand thermal spa town where Europe's emperors, composers and writers came to take the healing waters.
Heritage1388St Barbara's Church
A soaring Gothic cathedral funded by silver miners and dedicated to their patron saint.
Heritage1400Sedlec Ossuary
The 'Bone Church' where the skeletons of some 40,000 people are arranged into chandeliers and coats of arms.
Heritage1410Prague Astronomical Clock (Orloj)
The oldest astronomical clock still running, whose maker was legendarily blinded so he could never build another.
Heritage1439Old Jewish Cemetery
A cramped medieval graveyard where the dead were stacked twelve layers deep beneath 12,000 leaning stones.
Historical1475Powder Tower
The Gothic gate where the royal coronation route began, later used to store gunpowder.
Heritage1509Kroměříž Archbishop's Palace and Gardens
The archbishops' baroque residence and its perfect geometric flower garden, a UNESCO showpiece.
Heritage1519Pardubice Castle
A Renaissance moated château in the gingerbread city famous for its brutal steeplechase.
Heritage1530Telč
A jewel-box Renaissance town of pastel arcaded houses circling a single perfect square.
Heritage1556Klementinum
A vast Jesuit college holding a dazzling baroque library and one of Europe's longest weather records.
Historical1600Nový Svět
A hidden lane of tiny golden-house cottages where astronomer Tycho Brahe once lived.
Heritage1631Loreta
A baroque pilgrimage shrine with a bejewelled diamond monstrance and 27 chiming bells.
Heritage1743Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul, Brno
The twin-spired cathedral on Petrov hill whose bells ring noon at eleven o'clock.
Heritage1754Holy Trinity Column, Olomouc
The largest baroque plague column in Central Europe, so grand it has a chapel inside its base.
Historical1805Slavkov (Austerlitz) Battlefield
The rolling Moravian fields where Napoleon crushed two emperors in his greatest victory.
Heritage1871Hluboká Castle
A white neo-Gothic fairy-tale castle modelled by the Schwarzenbergs on England's Windsor.
Heritage1881National Theatre
The 'golden chapel' of Czech culture, built by public donation and reborn after a fire weeks after opening.
Historical1887Konopiště Castle
The home of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose 1914 assassination lit the fuse of the First World War.
Cultural1891Petřín Tower
A 63-metre iron lookout, Prague's answer to the Eiffel Tower, built for an 1891 exhibition.
Heritage1912Municipal House
The Art Nouveau palace where Czechoslovak independence was declared in 1918.
Heritage1930Villa Tugendhat
Mies van der Rohe's modernist masterpiece, later the site where Czechoslovakia's split was negotiated.
Historical1941Terezín (Theresienstadt)
The garrison town the Nazis turned into a ghetto and 'model camp' to deceive the world about the Holocaust.
Historical1942Church of Sts Cyril and Methodius
The crypt where the parachutists who killed Heydrich made their last stand against 800 SS troops.
Historical1942Ležáky
The tiny hamlet destroyed after Lidice for sheltering the resistance radio, now nine stone crosses in a meadow.
Historical1942Lidice
The village the Nazis erased in reprisal for Heydrich's assassination, now a field of remembrance and roses.
Cultural1980Lennon Wall
A graffiti wall of peace that defied the Communist secret police in the 1980s and is repainted daily.
Cultural1996Dancing House
A deconstructivist office building shaped like a dancing couple, nicknamed 'Fred and Ginger'.