Prague Unusual Walking Tour in French with a Local Journalist

Wenceslas Square and the New Town

Your Prague walking tour begins under the bronze equestrian statue of Saint Wenceslas, the patron saint of the Czech lands, at the top of the long boulevard named after him. Laid out in 1348 as the horse market of the New Town, Wenceslas Square stretches for about 750 metres and is lined with Art Nouveau hotels, functionalist department stores and grand banks.

This is where modern Czech history happened: crowds gathered here in 1918, in 1968 and again in November 1989, when the peaceful protests that ended communist rule filled the whole square. Your guide, a journalist by trade, explains these events through the stories of the people who lived them, which makes this first stop far more vivid than a plaque or a guidebook paragraph.

Prague's hidden passages and Adria Palace

Behind the facades of the New Town runs a maze of covered passages, or pasáže, built in the early twentieth century to link streets through the middle of the blocks. With glass roofs, marble floors, old cinemas and Art Nouveau details, they are one of the best-kept secrets of Prague and a shortcut locals use every day. One of them hides a famous upside-down horse sculpture hanging from the ceiling.

The walk continues to Adria Palace, a striking 1920s building in the rare rondocubist style, with heavy stone cornices and sculpted figures. In 1989 the opposition movement met in the theatre in its basement during the days of the revolution. These are exactly the off-the-beaten-track corners that make this tour different from a standard Prague city tour.

The rotating head sculpture and the National Theatre

Next to Národní třída metro station stands one of the city's most photographed modern artworks: a giant mirrored head made of 42 rotating stainless-steel layers that turn independently and realign every few minutes. Unveiled in 2014, it shows how contemporary art has found its place among Prague's historic streets, and your guide shares the story behind it.

A short walk away, the National Theatre rises on the Vltava embankment with its golden roof. It was funded by public collections across the Czech lands, carries the motto 'The Nation to Itself', and was rebuilt within two years after a fire in 1881. From the embankment you also get a first view of Prague Castle across the river.

Old Town Square and the Old Town

Crossing into the Old Town, the walk reaches Old Town Square, the heart of Prague since the Middle Ages. Around it rise the Gothic spires of the Church of Our Lady before Týn, the white Baroque Church of St Nicholas, pastel merchants' houses and the Old Town Hall with its astronomical clock, working since 1410.

Many Prague Old Town tours only skim the surface here; your guide adds the political, economic and social context that explains how the square looks today and how Praguers actually live around it. It is also the perfect moment to ask where locals eat nearby, since the tour finishes just off the square at Mikulášská 22.

House of the Black Madonna, Municipal House and the Powder Tower

On Celetná Street, the House of the Black Madonna is a landmark of Czech Cubism, built in 1911–1912 with crystalline windows and named after the small statue of the Madonna on its corner. It is one of the rare places in the world where Cubism was applied to architecture, and it now houses a museum of Czech Cubism.

Close by, the Art Nouveau Municipal House, where Czechoslovak independence was proclaimed in 1918, sits beside the Gothic Powder Tower, a fifteenth-century city gate that once stored gunpowder and marks the start of the old Royal Route to the castle. Together they make a fine finale for this Prague walking tour in French.