CASTLE, Cathedral (Interior)

The inside of the Cathedral is an unforgettable sight, with all the spectacular, airy grandeur of the finest Gothic architecture.

The front part, with the naves and the side chapels, was completed between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but the rest of the Cathedral maintains its fourteenth-century allure, thanks to the genius of the architect Peter Parler, whose system of flying buttresses on the outside gave the walls their slender, incredibly elegant appearance.

The Cathedral’s history is inextricably linked with that of the dynasties of the Bohemian monarchs, and many kings or members of their courts are buried here: in the crypt under the choir, for instance, is the modern-day tomb of Charles IV and the original coffin of Rudolf II.

There is a large funeral monument right in the center of the Cathedral: the Royal Mausoleum, a Renaissance sculpture by the Flemish artist Alexander Colyn featuring statues of the Emperors Maximilian II and Ferdinand I of Habsburg. It was created in 1564 for the Court Church in Innsbruck, in Austria, but was moved to Prague in 1589....