St Vitus Cathedral

Few cathedrals have taken so long to finish. Charles IV laid the foundation stone in 1344, the year Prague became an archbishopric. The Frenchman Matthias of Arras began it and, after his death, a young Peter Parler continued it, giving it its daring vaults. The Hussite wars halted the work, and the cathedral stood half-built for centuries. Only in 1929, for the millennium of St Wenceslas, was it declared complete.

1The heart of Bohemia

The kings of Bohemia were crowned here and many are buried here, Charles IV among them. The Chapel of St Wenceslas, lined with semi-precious stones, holds the patron saint's tomb. Above it, in a chamber with seven locks whose keys are held by seven different people, including the president and the archbishop, the crown jewels are kept.

Tradition says that whoever puts on the crown without the right to it will die within a year.

The warning is often linked to Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi official killed in Prague in 1942, but there is no evidence that he ever tried the crown on.

2The Golden Gate

The cathedral's ceremonial entrance is on the south side. Above its three arches shines a mosaic of the Last Judgement from 1370–1371, made of more than a million pieces of glass and gold. In the centre, Charles IV and his wife Elizabeth of Pomerania kneel in prayer.

3What to look for

• The Golden Gate mosaic, with the dead rising from their graves.
• The gargoyles on the facade, some of them from the 20th century.
• The great south tower, with its clock and green Renaissance cap.