Prague´s Attractions

The Mirror Maze is a popular touristic attraction on the Petřín Hill, whose history starts in 1889 year. The construction is wooden, some surface parts are made of backing plaster making impression of the stone work and vaults. In interior there is a big attraction - dioramic picture „ Fight of people of Prague against Swedish on the Charles Bridge in 1648 from the brothers K. and A. Liebscher and V.Bartoněk with dimensions 11m x10 m.The Mirror Maze (from 1893) is the first attraction of its kind in the former Austria-Hungary. There are in all 45 mirrors, 14 of them are convex.

The Czech Crown Jewels are one of two Prague national cultural remembrancers that are no immovables (the second one is the Archive of the Czech Lands). Their main part is St.Wenceslas Crown – made on the order of Charles IV. St.Wenceslas Crown is one of four royal crowns surviving in Europe until today. The crown is made of gold with a purity 21-22 carats and weights 2,368 kg, and it is adorned by 96 gemstones (sapphires and rubie) and by 20 pearls. The gemstones are not cut but burnished only, they have the original shape and dimensios of the natural round stones. Of nine king-sized sapphires in the world the Czech Crown is adorned by six of them, among them  there is the third and fourth in the world.  Further part  of the Czech Crown Jewels are: the beaten orb with a weight of 780 grams and a height of 22cm made of red gold (18 carats) adorned by 14 gemstones and by 31 pearls and  the sceptre long 67 cm with a weight of 1,013 kg adorned by 9 gemstones and by 62 pearls.

There is no other European city in which you can find so many nice-looking house signs as in Prague. Their history goes back to the 14th century when the orientation in the medieval Prague quarters (very extensive in this time) - was continually more and more difficult. At the beginning the house signs appeared on the well-built patrician houses in the market center, later on these symbols decorated pracically all objects on the markets and main routes. Originally the house signs marked not only buldings but also their inhabitants and as a matter of fact they replaced surname. In the medieval documents appeared names for example John by the Bell or Jeshek by the White Bear. Sometimes house signs has been changed into ancestry name. The house signs were placed above entrance portals, at the corners but also at the will on the facades.

Golem is an esence which is inherently connected with the former Jewish Quarter. Golem was created by a learned rabbi Jehuda Löv ben Bezalel, who lived during the reign of the emperor Rudolf II. Golem was a statue of muscular man made of clay who was brought to live on the basis of a deep knowledge of Jewish sciencies. Golem worked as a servant in the household of rabbi Löw.  Each time Golem was brought to live  by inserting of  a clay plate into his mouth. This magic facilitation was called the "shem". Nevertheless an aggressiveness of Golem gradually grew, so that it was not possible to take kontrol of him and rabbi Löw decided not to revive him any more. For centuries people beleive that statue of Golem occurs on the attic of the Old New Synagogue.