Things to Do in Czech Republic

The Jewish Museum (or Židovské muzeum) operates over several sites, including the Old Jewish Cemetery, the Spanish Synagogue and the Maisel Synagogue. Together this cluster of sites - which you can visit as a tour with an English-speaking guide - gives you a rounded picture of the history of the Jewish people in Prague.

The various exhibitions center on Jewish customs, artifacts such as Torah covers and synagogue silver, and memorials to those lost in the Holocaust. The Old Jewish Cemetery, with its ancient tombstones all packed in together, is a reminder of the ghettoization of Jews in the medieval city.

Karlovy Vary (also known as Carlsbad) is a charming spa town located about two hours west of Prague and full of Art Nouveau buildings and wealthy Russian tourists. Legend has it that Charles IV discovered the spring while out hunting with his dogs and founded the town, hence the name. 

Sitting 45 miles (73 km) east of Prague in Bohemia, Kutná Hora is an intriguing town immersed in history. Its origins stretch back to 1142 with the foundation of a Cistercian monastery at Sedlec, and after the discovery of silver in the hills around the region, the town quickly became a wealthy enclave and competed with Prague in the Middle Ages for political and economic power.

Much of the town center is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, filled with gently dilapidated Baroque buildings. Visitors should see the Roman Catholic Cathedral, glimpse the exterior of St James’s Church with its mishmash of Baroque and Renaissance architecture and landmark 282-foot (86-meter) tower. Additionally, the Italian Court, which started life as the Royal Mint to the kings of Bohemia and eventually became their palace, has a small museum of coins.

The Gothic St Barbara’s Church (Barbara was the patron saint of silver miners) serves as the city's proud symbol. The flamboyant architecture, complete with bristling spires, flying buttresses and eight chapels, reflects the wealth and power of the mining city, while the interior is richly decorated with a series of Renaissance frescoes featuring mining and the minting of coins. The medieval mine shafts way below the present-day city at Hradek Castle also house the Czech Museum of Silver.

But it is the ossuary at the monastery in Sedlec that really grabs attention in Kutná Hora; allow at least an hour for your visit and a 20-minute walk each way from the town center. The chapel is partly below ground, lit only by candlelight and entirely decorated and furnished with human bones. The candelabras, coats of arms, monstrances, pillars and wall decorations are all made of bone; skulls adorn dark corners of the chapel, and leg bones hang in garlands from the vaulted ceiling. The remains of more than to 40,000 people have gone into the macabre, but strangely beautiful 19th-century decorations were created here with the use of thousands of victims of the Black Death and the Hussite Wars in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Malá Strana is the area that meanders down from the Castle Hill to the Vltava River. A literal translation of its name would be 'Small Side' but its most often called the Lesser Side. Unfair? Well, while it might not have the grandeur of the Old Town across the river, many find it more charming. 

Because the area was razed by fires in the 16th century, the architecture here is mainly baroque. Its finest site is the Wallenstein Palace with its fabulous walled garden full of fountains and statues. There's also the Church of Saint Nicholas and, high on Petřín Hill, a miniature replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Built in the 13th century, the Konopiště Chateau was originally built in the Early Gothic era on the model of a French castellum near Prague. Renaissance and Baroque reconstruction changed the castle into a grand stately home. At the end of the 19th century Konopiště Chateau was refurbished in the Romantic style for Franz Ferdinand d'Este, successor to the Habsburg throne, and famous for his death in 1914 which acted as a pretext for the start of WWI.

The chateau offers a fine display of furniture, drape tapestries, sculptures, paintings and a cornucopia of hunting trophies. There is also a baroque rose garden and a greenhouse.