Mala Strana

Mala Strana, the Lesser Town, was founded in 1257 on the left bank below the castle, burned almost entirely in 1541, and was rebuilt through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the quarter where the Catholic nobility and the imperial administration built their town palaces - which is why it is so consistently baroque and why so much of it is walled gardens. The Wallenstein Palace, built in the 1620s for Albrecht von Wallenstein on the site of twenty-three demolished houses, has a garden with a loggia, a grotto wall and bronzes, open free. Terraced palace gardens climb the castle hill and are linked as a route. Nerudova street runs up to the castle lined with houses carrying the emblems that served as addresses before numbering. Kampa island sits between the Vltava and the Certovka mill stream, with the Lennon Wall nearby.

History

Malá Strana was founded by King Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1257 as a royal town with many privileges, created by joining a number of settlements beneath Prague Castle into one unit, and the king invited mostly German craftsmen and merchants to live there; from the 16th century Italians settled too, and many noble palaces stood here. In the second half of the 14th century Charles IV extended the town and built a new defensive wall, the Hunger Wall. The Hussites burned the Lesser Town in 1419-1420, and in 1541 a fire that killed fifty people badly damaged it again, after which it was rebuilt in Renaissance style and many palaces of the nobility went up. The market place, now Lesser Town Square, was the centre of the town, divided into upper and lower parts with St Nicholas Church in the middle (Wikipedia, Malá Strana).

What to look for

• A baroque quarter - rebuilt from 1541 as the nobility's palace district.
• Wallenstein garden - loggia, grotto wall and bronzes, open free.
• Terraced palace gardens - climbing the castle hill as a linked route.
• House emblems on Nerudova - the signs that served as addresses before numbers.

When to go

April to October. A day.

What to expect

Extremely crowded on the Charles Bridge approach and on Nerudova. Terraced gardens are seasonal and ticketed. Restaurants on the main routes are tourist-priced - go a street back.

Nearby

Prague Castle is above; Charles Bridge crosses to the old town.

Key facts