Castles · Tour

Twelve People, Not Twenty-Five with Headsets, and No Stairs Down

Prague Castle inside as well as out, in a group capped at twelve, with the interior tickets included in the price. The group size is the point. Twelve people can stand round a guide in a chapel and hear them; twenty-five cannot, which is why the larger tours hand out headsets. The pace here is unhurried and the walking is kept light. Inside St Vitus: the Last Judgement mosaic, the tomb of St Wenceslas, and the silver sarcophagus of St John of Nepomuk. In the Old Royal Palace, the oldest royal residence in the country: Vladislav Hall, which was built wide enough to hold jousting indoors, the room the Defenestration of Prague happened in, and the medieval courtroom. St George's Basilica is the Romanesque one, and the guide explains who built it, what it did in the layout of the castle, and which centuries are visible in its walls. The Golden Lane comes with more than the street itself: the houses of the people who lived and worked there, the alchemists' chambers, the riflemen's corridor above, and the Mihulka prison tower. Meeting point: Hradčanské náměstí 2, at the Schwarzenberg Palace, on the upper side. Do not go down the stairs. The guide holds a red umbrella with a white 100 on it.