Outside Franciscan Gardens
First, go out the back entrance, down the walkway and around the church entrance. From the outside, the Franciscan Church looks nothing like so many grandiloquent churches throughout other European cities (including the many in Prague—why do you think it’s called “City of a Hundred Spires”?). Inside are some of the most beautiful religious figure carvings found worldwide. The sight is simply stunning.

Wenceslas Square (really a long boulevard) is what’s outside the garden. This is Prague’s public meeting place for all things political, and so it’s a good place to find art installations, street theater at the pedestrian-only south end, and the city’s crystal emporiums.

The statue of Good King Wenceslas (“Saint”) overlooks the square at the top of the boulevard. Behind it the Czech National Museum shows pock marks from Soviet bullets during the infamous dismantling of 1968’s Prague Spring.

A half block from the park, at the northeast corner of Jindrisska and the Square, stands the office building that housed the insurance company where Franz Kafka spent his working life while he wrote his eerily prescient novels on man v. labyrinthine government entanglements.

For more complete information about what you’ll find and can do in Prague, jump to its city page.

Directions to Franciscan Gardens
The front entrance to the garden park is on the west side of Wenceslas Square, between Vodickova and Národni streets. It’s a bit tricky because you have to go into an unnamed shopping corridor, and when it turns left, you turn right and down an open-air alleyway that leads to the park. It’s not nearly as difficult to find than if you don’t have any directions at all.

The park’s rear entrance is less spectacular, but probably easier to find. The Mustek metro stop for the “yellow” and “green” lines has a west entrance/exit. You come up from the underground onto a modern square. Walk towards the church and then turn right down the back walkway. This leads you into the park. Really, it does.

(return to the Franciscan Gardens main page)

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