Prague Guide
Prague
Zámek Zbraslav
Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–6pm
Price: 80Kč
Website: www.ngprague.cz
One of Prague's more intriguing museums is situated in the little-visited village of ZBRASLAV, 10km south of the city centre, though within the municipal boundaries. Přemyslid King Otakar II built a hunting lodge here, which was later turned into a Cistercian monastery. Nowadays, Zámek Zbraslav shelters the Národní galerie's remarkably extensive Asian art collection. Downstairs you can see Japanese art from seventeenth-century travelling altarpieces and cracked glaze porcelain to late nineteenth-century lacquerwork and exquisite landscapes on silk. Upstairs, there's a vast array of Chinese exhibits from Neolithic axes and ancient funerary art to Ming vases, dishes and even roof tiles. Highlights include an incredibly naturalistic eleventh-century wooden statue of one of the Buddha's aged disciples, a large standing gilded and lacquered Burmese Buddha, and an erotic Yab-Yum, a central icon of Tantric Buddhism.
Appropriately enough, the museum has a tea-house (čajovna) in the cloisters, and plenty of grass outside on which to picnic. To reach the gallery, take bus #129, #241, #243, #255 or #360 from metro Smíchovské nádraží or the local train from Smíchovské nádraží to Praha-Zbraslav.