Prague Private Tour – The Golden City in All Its History

Location and Character

Prague lies at the heart of Bohemia, on the Vltava (Moldau), 350 kilometres east of Munich, 280 kilometres southeast of Berlin and 300 kilometres north of Vienna. The city is built on several hills; the Hradschin (Castle Hill) on the left bank of the Vltava dominates the panorama. The historic city centre – Old Town, New Town, Malá Strana (Lesser Town) and Hradschin – has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992.

Prague Castle: The World's Largest Castle Complex

The Hradschin (Czech: Pražský hrad) is the largest coherent castle complex in the world – 570 metres long, 130 metres wide, a skyline in itself when seen from the Vltava. Continuously inhabited since the 9th century, it served as the residence of Bohemian princes and kings, of Holy Roman Emperors (Charles IV), and of Czechoslovak presidents. Today it is the official residence of the Czech head of state.

Inside: St. Vitus Cathedral (under construction from 1344, not completed until 1929), whose stained glass windows Alfons Mucha designed; the Treasury with the Bohemian Crown Jewels; the Golden Lane with its tiny craftsmen's houses from the 16th century – Franz Kafka lived at No. 22 in 1916–1917. The view from the castle hill over the Prague Old Town and the bridges of the Vltava is one of Europe's great urban panoramas.

Charles Bridge: 30 Saints at Dawn

Charles Bridge (Karlův most), begun by Emperor Charles IV in 1357 and completed in 1402, spans the Vltava for 516 metres between the Old Town and Malá Strana. 30 Baroque saint sculptures line the balustrade; most are copies (originals in the National Museum), but the effect at dawn, when the Hradschin lies in mist and no tourist crowds yet fill the bridge, is one of quiet beauty. We begin the first day's visit at 6:30 in the morning on the bridge – that is Prague as very few see it.

Josefov: Prague's Jewish Heritage

The former Jewish quarter of Josefov (named after Emperor Joseph II, who abolished the most severe anti-Jewish laws in 1782) is one of the most significant sites of Jewish memory in Europe. Six synagogues from the 13th to 18th centuries – the Maisel, Pinkas, Spanish, Klaus, Old-New Synagogue and Ceremonial Hall – are accessible and convey a thousand years of Jewish life in Bohemia. The Old Jewish Cemetery, with graves layered on top of each other over 500 years, is a place of unique atmosphere.

The Pinkas Synagogue is today a memorial to the Shoah: inscribed on its walls are the names of all 77,297 Bohemian and Moravian Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Prague 1968: The Spring and Its End

On 21 August 1968, Warsaw Pact troops marched into Prague and brought the "Prague Spring" to an end – the attempt by the Czechoslovak leadership under Alexander Dubček to create "socialism with a human face." The image of a young man standing before a Soviet tank on Wenceslas Square became a symbol for a generation. The history of that square – where the Republic was proclaimed in 1918, the Nazis marched in 1939, tanks rolled in 1968, and the Velvet Revolution began in 1989 – is compressed into a single urban image.