Praha/Prag/Prague/Praga [antikvár]

THE ART-HISTORICAL JEWEL of Central Europe. Its history is remarkable. Soon after its foundation at the end of the 9th century it became the centre of the state of Bohemia, the seat of the Bohemian princes, kings and presidents ever since, down to our own days. By the continuity of its role in the land and the state Prague goes beyond the ranks of other European cities and as the "Head of the Kingdom" it has played the role of the true "mother of Czech towns", as the historic motto on its coat-of-arms proclaims.But the city above the curving River Vltava is something more for Central Europe: a flourishing and colourful centre of culture, which from the Middle Ages to this day has captured and retained political, artistic and cultural events with a capacity that far exceeds the horizon of the city walls. It was in the seat of the Archbishop of Bohemia that the Emperor Charles IV, King of Bohemia, founded the first university north of the Alps already in the year 1348. From the end of the 15th century Prague became the main town of book printing in the Czech Lands; beginning in the 17th century it won fame as one of the metropolises of secular and church music.Prague, a city that spreads far and wide out of the basin of the River Vltava, re-mained, for centuries, a collection of separate towns. To the west of the festive en-trance to the Castle lies Hradcany, a town of splendid palaces, while downhill from the Castle in the direction of the river spreads ancient Malá Strana, the Lesser Town, whose houses line the streets as far as the stone bridge, Charles Bridge. Beyond it, on the right bank of the Vltava, lies the symbol of the burghers' power of long agothe Old Town of Prague. To it used to belong the mysterious, unlucky and splendid Jewish ghetto. Outside the walls of the Old Town Charles IV founded the immense New Town, which stretches as far as the smallest of the Prague towns, to Vysehrad. In 1784 the en-lightened Emperor Josef II merged the Prague agglomeration into one unit.The century of steam and iron saw the growth of a wreath of industrial suburbs where by the year 1900 more people lived than in the inner city. The establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918 brought an impulse for the growth of a rapidly developing metropolis, which had one millión inhabitants by the early forties and today offers to visitors the experience of its ancient beauty and the dawn of its modern life.PRAGUE