Prague Guide
Prague
Nové Město
NOVÉ MĔSTO is the city's main commercial and business district, housing its long-established big hotels, cinemas, nightclubs, fast-food outlets and department stores. Architecturally, it comes over as big, bourgeois and predominantly late nineteenth century, yet Nové Město was actually founded way back in 1348 by Emperor Charles IV as an entirely new town – three times as big as Staré Město – intended to link the southern fortress of Vyšehrad with Staré Město to the north.
The obvious starting point, and probably the only place in Prague most visitors can put a name to, is Wenceslas Square, known to the Czechs as Václavské náměstí, hub of the modern city and somewhere you'll find yourself passing through again and again. The two principal, partially pedestrianized, streets which lead off it are Národní třída and Na příkopě, which together form the zlatý kříž (golden cross), Prague's commercial axis. The zlatý kříž, and the surrounding streets, also contain some of Prague's finest late nineteenth-century, Art Nouveau and twentieth-century architecture. The rest of Nové Město, which spreads out northeast and southwest of the square, is less explored and, for the most part, heavily residential.