Budget Travel: Guide to the Best Free Sights in Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is a city of vast beauty. Its architecture is enchanting. Of course, this means that many of the most desirable sights are free.

In the Old Town Square, spend some time studying the Horloge. The Horloge is no ordinary clock. In addition to displaying the time of day, it also depicts the path of the sun and moon and contains a calendarium charting months and days of each year. And after centuries of use, its calculations remain precise.

Also on the Old Town Square, the House at the Minute, No. 2/3, is an artistic wonder. The façade is covered in figural graffito of Biblical scenes. Franz Kafka once lived here. This house is considered part of the Old Town Hall, at No. 3/1 Staromìstká radnice, a pink stucco building, decorated with an ornate Renaissance window and a variety of colorful shields.

The Old Town Square has been party to some of the saddest, ugliest and proudest moments in Prague's political history. Twenty-seven members of the anti-Hapsburg uprising were executed here in 1621; the Nazis burned the east wing of Town Hall in retribution for the Prague Uprising in 1945; and in 1990, after the fall of the communism, demonstrations in support of Vaclav Havel, who became the Czech Republic's President took place here. Wenceslas Square is another locale associated with political protest; there a young philosophy student set himself on fire in protest of the Warsaw Pact countries' invasion of what was then Czechoslovakia to forestall developing political reforms during the Prague Spring in 1968; again in 1989-90 demonstrations in support of democratic reforms occurred there amid impromptu memorials honoring those who lost their lives challenging the communist regime.