Nerudova Street

Street · Malá Strana — Malostranské náměstí to the Castle rampPrague,Czechia

The steep lane climbing to Prague Castle, the one street in the city that kept its full set of carved house signs from before numbering.

Nerudova is the steep lane that climbs from Malostranské náměstí to the Castle ramp, and above the shops on both sides, at first-floor height, hang house signs: the Two Suns, the Golden Horseshoe, the Three Fiddles. They are addresses. Before houses were numbered you told people where you lived by naming the picture over your door, and this is the street in Prague that kept its whole set. It is also the last and steepest leg of the coronation route. Numbering came in February 1770, by decree of Maria Theresa, and most streets in the monarchy lost their signs within a few generations. Two Baroque palaces on the climb are embassies now, and both carry the owner's coat of arms as structure rather than ornament. At the Morzin house a pair of Moors hold the balcony up on their shoulders; at the Thun palace two of Braun's eagles guard the portal. The street was named in 1895 after Jan Neruda, who had lodged at the Two Suns.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Walk it before the shops open or after they close — By day this is the main pedestrian channel to the Castle, and stopping to look up puts you in everybody's way.
Walk down it rather than up — the signs face the street and read better with the light and the slope behind you, and coming down from the Castle you meet the whole set without the climb.
The gradient gets worse at the top — the last stretch before the Castle ramp is the steepest and the cobbles are polished, which matters in rain and in the wrong shoes.

Things to do

1
Collect four signs on the way down
Start at the Castle ramp and walk down with your eyes at first-floor height. Find the Two Suns, the Golden Horseshoe, the Three Fiddles and the Green Lobster. Four is enough to see the pattern: a name, a trade, a pun and a saint, all doing the job a street number does now.
2
Stand under the Moors holding the balcony
Stop at the Morzin palace front and look up at what is carrying the balcony. Two figures from the family's coat of arms are bearing the stone on their shoulders, carved by Brokoff. A few doors along, eagles from Braun's workshop do the same job over another portal. The heraldry is structural.
3
Take the last leg of the coronation route
Walk the street uphill from the square to the Castle ramp without stopping. This was the final climb of the route Bohemian kings rode to be crowned, and the gradient is the whole point. A procession arriving at the Castle had already been made to work for it, in full view of the quarter.