One look at the view from the ramparts of Prague Castle and you'll understand why the capital of the Czech Republic is known as the City of a Hundred Spires. Charles IV's Golden City rises up towards the heavens remarkably unscathed despite war and conflict, a landscape enriched and personified by the vagaries of the Gothic, Neo-Classic, Renaissance, Baroque and Art Nouveau movements.

The castle itself was built in the 9th century on the dominant hilltop home favoured by the Slav tribes. It's changed a bit over the years. Nowadays enclosed within the commanding walls the castle is a slightly disorientating jumble of buildings, a palace, a cathedral, monastery, churches, gardens and stables built loosely around three courtyards of which the newest was completed as late as the 18th century. Formerly home to Kings and Queens the palace retains its countrywide importance now as the offices of the new democratic government, though president Vaclav Havel lives elsewhere.