Prague is situated in the centre of Europe, many times called the heart of Europe or the city of thousands spires. Since the medieval epoch this location, transformed Prague in a great centre of attractions to merchants and cosmopolitan foreigners.
Throughout the centuries different architectures styles and their creators shaped the city’s unique atmosphere. That is why the city centre was included in UNESCO’S world cultural heritage list.

There are thousands of historical valuable churches in Prague and all through the Czech Republic, form quit small wooden ones, to baroque churches, to huge cathedrals build of stone. The Czech Republic has the highest density of castles in the smallest territory. It’s like a fairytale, romantic castles and mysterious châteaux, hidden among forests or reflected in the waters of ponds and lacks.

The history of Bohemia dates as early as the 500 B.C. where Celts lived, in fact the name of the area come from this ancient culture: Boi-Heim “home of the Boii”, the Celtic people. In the I century A.C. the Marcomanni form Germanic lands arrived to Bohemia. Next to these tribes the Slovaks come to stay in the VI century. But it is between 623 and 658 that the Czech tribe turns into an empire settled in Central Bohemia.

In the beginning of the IX century Prague was already a crescent prosper city with one great market, today called the Old Town Square and still an undeniable centre of the Czech culture. Prague was, along the centuries a city of Czech and foreigner kings, therefore there are two important citadels: the Prague Castle, located in the Hradcany hill, and Vysehrad. This last location is extremely important in the History of the region of Bohemia. Vysehrad was the centre of the Prmyslids, the family that founded the Kingdom of Bohemia, starting the first royal Czech dynasty. This family orchestrated all the land disputes protecting Bohemia from other families, always with extremely bloody battles. The most important saint patron of the city, until today, was a member of this family, the prince Wenceslaus who was brutally murdered by his own bother, Boleslau I, the cruel, in the year of 935.

In the Medial Age, Prague has lived under a golden aura, the time of the ruling of the great King Charles IV, he was the imperator of the early Holly Roman-Germanic Empire. This cultural and wise man made the city of Prague the centre of the Empire. Therefore Prague becomes an important city for the whole Europe, a great city, bigger then Paris or London. Not happy with the great growing of Prague, Charles IV wanted to bring intelligent and scholar men to Bohemia so he stimulated and founded many important institutions like the first University in Central Europe, named after him, the Charles University of Prague.

Jan Huss was the first master of the Charles University a religious thinker, philosopher and reformer. Hus was extremely influenced by John Wycliffe’s ideas and also proposed the reform of the Bohemian Church. After him two groups of followers were born: the Husseites, and the most radicals Taborites (later, Bohemian Brethren), who rejected all the ideas of the Roman church whish were not Biblically founded. As a result the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated Hus in 1411 and in 1415 the Council of Constance condemned Hus to be burned alive at the stake. In the year of 1434 the radicals Taborites lost the battle of Lipan and consequently desegregated. Nonetheless Jan Hus opened the doors to the Protestant movement all over Europe and also to Martin Luther.

During the XVI century the rising of Prague have stagnated with a simple suction between ordinary kings, making life easy to the Austrian Habsburgs that took the power over the city, starting a new dynasty. King Rudolf II of Bohemia, also commanded Hungry, was Archduke of Austria and ruled the Holy Roman Empire. He was a great patron of art, in love with the Renaissance and the Humanism and inspiring the Scientific Revolution. Therefore he made the spirit of arts and sciences to reach Prague. Nevertheless his mistakes governing such a vast territory culminated, after his death in 1618, in the Thirty Years’ War. This immense war happened between 1618 and 1648, principally in the territory that today is Germany and its surroundings evolving great part of the European powers of the epoch. At first the motives were religious, between Protestants and Catholic but soon old rivalries between some powers like the French and the Habsburg, the Swedish and the Danish started to also be a purpose of the conflict. Although the Kingdom of Bohemian has its particularly history in Thirty Years’ War, named by the Second Defenestration of Prague. After Rudolf II, who had given to its people a royal letter granting the Rights of Freedom of Religion, Ferdinand II raised to the power. However he was not physically in Prague and so he sent three men, of his confidence, to Bohemia to forbid anything that over shipped Protestant content. Three men, who had been sent by Ferdinand II, faced a judgment by the Protestants assemble and after considered guilty they were thrown out of the window of the Prague Castle. Religious reasons impulse the Thirty Years’ War in Bohemia later the war arrived also to Silesia, Lusatia, and Moravia. After this devastating War, Bohemia was significantly poorer. Great part of its patrimony had gone with this conflict.

Only during the XVIII century with Joseph II, Prague would reborn, becoming again a cosmopolitan city full of rich merchants. In 1784 this king enclosed, under the same entity, the municipalities of Malá Strana, Nové Město, Staré Město and Hradcany. However only in the next century the Jewish district was included in this very entity.

The XIX century brought the Czechs a nationalist pried and the greatest public monuments like The National Theatre, the National Museum and the Rudolfinu.
By the start of the next century the World War I was ending with a great lost for the Austrian-Hungarian Empire opening the doors for the formation of the Czechoslovakia, Prague being the Capital. This country had everything to become a successful and prosper nation in the centre of Europe, the population raised, the industry was growing.

Nevertheless Hitler’s planes of the III Reich blocked the Czech prosperity. In the 15th of March of the year 1939 the German army invaded the country declaring Bohemia and Moravia as part of the Reich. Therefore Prague, which had always been a cosmopolitan city, full of different cultures and religions, such has Judaism, become a sad and stagnate city. When the rest of Europe and the U.S. decided to put an end to Hitler’s conception, Prague was bombed by accident by the American forces, Dresden was the target, 83miles away. This mistake killed hundreds of people and destroyed many important buildings of the city.

In the 5th of May of the year 1945 known as the Prague Uprising the Czechs tried to set Prague free from the German occupation, here 1700 Czech died fighting. Although four days later the Soviet army, the Red Army, entered Prague to set the country free form the Germans. These events took Czechoslovakia to be under Soviet Union control and consequently behind the Iron Curtin, suffering the Russian totalitarian impositions for long years.

Alexander Dubček, the secretary of he Communist Party, who had been able to make a new deal in his city’s and country’s life, starting the short-lived season of the “socialism with a human face”, wanted to go further. Like this, he commanded the Prague Spring in 1968 he wanted to grant additional rights to the citizens in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. Somehow Russia found that too much and invaded Czechoslovakia putting an end to the demonstration and spreading fear among the population.

In 1989 the Velvet Revolution started to be a peaceful student demonstration and ended as a non-violent revolution that saw the overthrow of the Communist government as a threat. The protests and demonstrations occurred between November and December. In the same year Alexander Dubček was elected speaker of the federal parliament on December 28 and Václav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia one day later. In June of the next year Czechoslovakia was finally free and turned into a democracy, marked by the first democratic election since the end of the II World War.

In 1993 Czechoslovakia become two different countries: Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. Prague was the capital again, but this time of the new born Czech Republic. Since then this country have been growing and become again a promising land to live, and visit with some of the most sophisticated hotels.
The Czech Republic is a beautiful country with a rich history, a huge amount of landmarks and sites. It has given the world many famous personalities. For many centuries the city of Prague has been and still is heart of Europe and a rebounded cultural centre.