4 Best Sights in Prague, Czech Republic

Bordered to the north by Nové Město and to the south by Nusle, Vyšehrad is mostly visited for its citadel high above the river on a rocky outcropping. However, fans of 20th-century architecture—you know who you are—will find cubist gems between the area's riverfront street and the homes that dot the hills on the other side. Prague's cubist architecture followed a great Czech tradition: embracing new ideas, while adapting them to existing artistic and social contexts to create something sui generis. Between 1912 and 1914 Josef Chochol (1880–1956) designed several of the city's dozen or so cubist projects. His apartment house at Neklanova 30, on the corner of Neklanova and Přemyslova, is a masterpiece in concrete. The pyramidal, kaleidoscopic window moldings and roof cornices make an expressive link to the baroque yet are wholly novel; the faceted corner balcony column, meanwhile, alludes to Gothic forerunners. On the same street, at No. 2, is another apartment house attributed to Chochol. Like the building at No. 30, it uses pyramidal shapes and a suggestion of Gothic columns. Nearby, Chochol's villa, on the embankment at Libušina 3, has an undulating effect, created by smoothly articulated forms. The wall and gate around the back of the house use triangular moldings and metal grating to create an effect of controlled energy. The three-family house, about 100 yards away from the villa at Rašínovo nábřeží 6–10, was completed slightly earlier, when Chochol's cubist style was still developing. Here the design is touched with baroque and neoclassical influence, with a mansard roof and end gables.

This museum is dedicated to the history of the city, and though it's technically in Nové Město, it's relatively easy to reach from Old Town because it's near the Florenc metro and bus stations. The highlight here is a cardboard model of the historic quarter of Prague; it shows what the city looked like before the Jewish ghetto was destroyed in a massive fire in 1689 and includes many buildings that are no longer standing.

Statues representing Drama and Opera rise above the riverfront side entrances to this theater, and two gigantic chariots flank figures of Apollo and the nine Muses above the main façade. The performance space lacks restraint as well: it's filled with gilding, voluptuous plaster figures, and plush upholstery. The idea for a Czech national theater began during the revolutionary decade of the 1840s. In a telling display of national pride, donations to fund the plan poured in from all over the country, from people of every socioeconomic stratum. The cornerstone was laid in 1868, and the "National Theater generation" who built the neo-Renaissance structure became the architectural and artistic establishment for decades to come. Its designer, Josef Zítek, was the leading neo-Renaissance architect in Bohemia. The nearly finished interior was gutted by a fire in 1881, and Zítek's onetime student Josef Schulz saw the reconstruction through to completion two years later. Today, it's still the country's leading dramatic stage. Guided tours in English (for groups only) can be arranged by phone or email in advance.

This 19th-century neo-Renaissance monument has some of the cleanest, brightest stonework in the city. Designed by Josef Zítek and Josef Schulz and completed in 1884—it was named for then Hapsburg Crown Prince Rudolf—the low-slung sandstone building was meant to be a combination concert hall and exhibition gallery. After 1918 it was converted into the parliament of the newly independent Czechoslovakia until German invaders reinstated the concert hall in 1939. Now the Czech Philharmonic has its home base here. The 1,200-seat Dvořákova síň (Dvořák Hall) has superb acoustics (the box office faces 17 Listopadu Street). To see the hall, you must attend a concert.