Prague Castle

Prague Castle is less a castle than a walled hilltop town that has run Bohemia for over a thousand years: Guinness lists it as the largest ancient castle complex in the world (seven hectares), and it has housed dukes, kings, emperors, Nazi administrators, Communist presidents and — since Havel arrived in 1989 with a scooter for the corridors — the Czech presidency. Its windows are historically load-bearing: both Defenestrations of Prague, the 1419 and 1618 out-the-window ejections of officials, started wars here, giving the world a word it never needed twice.

The essential circuit runs on one ticket: St Vitus Cathedral, the Gothic heart, six centuries in the building — the Mucha stained-glass window (Art Nouveau gate-crashing the 14th century, gloriously) and the tomb of St John of Nepomuk in two tonnes of silver are the interior's show-stoppers, and the南 tower climb its earned view. The Old Royal Palace holds Vladislav Hall's vaulting — ribbed stone flowing like textile, big enough for indoor jousting, still used for presidential inaugurations — plus the actual defenestration window, casually labelled. St George's Basilica is the Romanesque palate-cleanser, and the Golden Lane the crowd-pleaser: a doll-scale street of 16th-century marksmen's cottages built into the wall, one of which (No. 22, blue) Kafka borrowed from his sister to write in — the alchemists the lane's name promises were mostly never here, a very Prague ratio of legend to fact.

Logistics decide the experience: the complex opens at 6 AM and the COURTYARDS ARE FREE — walking the grounds at 7, before the ticket buildings open at 9, has the hilltop to yourself with the city fogged below. Then buy the timed circuit ticket for the interiors as gates open, do Vitus first, and exit down the Old Castle Stairs toward Malá Strana. Noon brings the changing of the guard (fanfare version) and the tour-group tide; by then you should be descending toward lunch. Allow security-queue slack at the entrances, and layers — the hill makes its own wind.