Prague: worth seeing

6000 diamonds, monastic brewery and forbidden dance – Prague tourist route that you should know about. "My Planet" publishes a fragment of the book of Sergei Choban "Three Days in Prague" publishing house "Ripol Classic".

Prague Loret

Tram №22, stop PohoRelec.
09: 00-17: 00 (April-October), 09: 30-16: 00 (November-March).

Loretansky Monastery – one of those architectural monuments, which Prague is obliged to their glory baroque pearls. The Church of the Nativity of the Lord with a spectacular bell tower was created by the outstanding masters of Czech Baroque Cristofo Dinknichofer and his son Kilian Ignatz, the authors of the Church of St. Mikulas in a small country. The complex received its name from the Italian city of Loreto, where one of the greatest shrines of the Catholic world is located – the hut of the Virgin Mary.

According to legend, the Virgin Mary has grown in this hut, and when Muslims came to the Holy Land, the angels decided to postpone the hut into the laurel grove near Loreto. On the way, the angels did prigela, and in every place where they rested, there were particles of the hut, from which the new shrines "grew up".

Geographically, Prague, of course, was located away from the route Nazareth – Loreto, but at the beginning of the XVII century, when the Catholic Church was required to significantly strengthen their positions in Eastern Europe, the eyes were closed on this inconsistency.

The most valuable exhibit is the casket for the gifts "Prague Sun" (1698), the masterpiece of the Viennese jewelers, decorated it with more than 6000 diamonds

Prague Holy Huts almost instantly became the place of mass pilgrimage. Already in 1631, the church rose next to her, and in the following years, internal courtyards of the clubs were built to accommodate pilgrims, which the architects of Dinknuxer were built by the century were built by the arcade floor. In 1721, they developed a project of the main facade of the loreta, designed to assemble in a single whole complex of spontaneously developed structures. His dominant became the tower of the bell tower – a tetrahedral basis and acquiring a more sophisticated eight-marched form in the upper two floors. 30 bells for her were made in Holland, and Prague watchmaker Peter Neumanov created a special mechanism of ringing music, with which on bells can be executed in the two octave range.

On Sundays and in the days of the church holidays, the laurea bells are performed by real concerts, on weekdays, the church anthem of the Virgin Mary "Milestly I Slobil You" is aroused.

In the XVIII century there was a Loret Treasury – the repository of precious items and various significant cultural and historical artifacts, many of which were brought to the gift of pilgrims. The most valuable exhibit is the casket for the gifts "Prague Sun" (1698), the masterpiece of the Viennese jewelers, decorated it with more than 6000 diamonds.

dancing House

Karlovo Náměstí Metro Station (line B); Trams Nos. 5, 17, stop Jiráskovo náměstí.
Located in the building restaurant Ginger & Fred works daily from 11:30 to midnight. On the roof of the dancing home there is an observation deck, to climb to which anyone who will acquire a drink from the bar located here.

Deconstructivism building building – architectural metaphor of the dancing couple, since 2013 is officially called "Ginger and Fred". This is a very rare example of modern architecture for Prague, emphasized contrasting with respect to its historical surroundings. It is built at the intersection of the street Resslova (RESLOVA) and Rashinsky Embankment (Rašínovo nábřeží), in the area, the appearance of which was formed at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries under the strongest influence of the architecture of neoclassicism and modern.

Located here mansions like compete with each other in the sophistication and wealth of the decor, and probably the emergence of a deconstationist building among these refined "Gorders" and it would be impossible to imagine if it were not for the personal intervention of Waclav Gavel, the last President of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and First President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003).

The fact is that in the house, in the place of which in 1996, a deconstationist masterpiece appeared, at the very end of World War II, a bomb was hit by American aviation, and until the end of the 1960s it was possible to see only unattractive ruins that every day and contemplated Havel, who lived opposite.

Then the dilapidated building was demolished, but the wasteland in his place was still retained for a long 20 years. And only in the early 1990s, the city finally decided to build this wasteland.

The overwhelming majority of officials and citizens led to the idea of recreating a mansion destroyed by a bomb, but Havel, by that time became the head of the country, well remembered the original and suggested instead to build something modern capable of becoming a symbol of an updated Czech Republic.

For the implementation of the idea, the famous Croatian architect Vlado Milunich was invited to realize the idea, but the developer of the Ing Group was insisted on the fact that such an ambitious project should be developed with the participation of the world star. So Mylunich became co-author of the laureate of the Pritzkerovsky Prize (the most honorable award in the world for the creative achievements of the architect) Frank Geri, and its initial idea about a combination of the building of the static and dynamic began (which should have symbolized the transition of the Czech Republic from the communist regime to parliamentarism) transformed into an elegant Metaphor of the Male and Women Slowing in Dance. Appeals to the intersection of the street and the embankment the angle of the building is resolved in the form of two cylinders, one of which is made of concrete and expands upwards, and the second is completely glazed and expands, on the contrary, the book, reminding the skirt fluttering. "Dancing" facade is collected from pre-manufactured concrete panels, each of which has an individual shape. Frank Geri himself told that, designing this house, represented the Dancing Fred Aster and Ginger Rogers, whose duet largely predetermined the development of the genre of a musical comedy.

For several years after the end of the construction, the building was undergoing a super criticism from the Prague public, which was considered that it was "his drunk" insults the city

In 2013, the dancing house was officially renamed "Ginger and Fred" – this wanted his new owner, the collector Waclav Rock. In mid-2016 in the building that was originally designed as an office, a four-star hotel opened. By the way, for several years after the end of construction, the building was experiencing a super criticism on the part of the Prague public, which was considering that it was "his drunk species" insults the city and especially nearby mansions. However, after two decades, the dancing house can be safely ranked among the most famous attractions of Prague: Magnets with its image are sold everywhere, the rooms in the hotel located in it are reserved a few months ahead, and its observation deck is never empty.