St Vitus Cathedral

St Vitus Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

The front section of the nave is free to enter, and the view from there is the one most visitors get; going beyond the barrier into the choir, the chapels and the crypt requires a Prague Castle circuit ticket, which also covers the Old Royal Palace, St George's Basilica and the Golden Lane. The tower is a separate cheap ticket and 287 steps of a very tight spiral to a gallery at 96 metres. Guided tours of the castle include commentary and cost several times the circuit;

audio guides are rented at the information centre. Buy the circuit ticket at the ticket offices in the second or third courtyard, not at the cathedral door. Security screening at the castle gates is airport-style and adds time. The cathedral is free during services, which is how locals attend. Circuit tickets are valid for two days, which suits anyone who wants to split the castle between a morning and an evening.

Visiting St Vitus Cathedral: what to see

Charles IV began the cathedral in 1344 on the site of a rotunda of 930 and a Romanesque basilica, hiring Matthias of Arras and then Peter Parler, whose net vault over the choir was a structural novelty in Europe. Work stopped with the Hussite wars and the west end was only finished in 1929, which is why the nave is nineteenth century Gothic Revival and the choir is fourteenth century.

The Chapel of St Wenceslas is the heart of the building: walls set with more than 1,300 polished semi-precious stones, frescoes of the saint's life, and a door with seven locks behind which the Bohemian crown jewels are kept, shown to the public perhaps once a decade. The tomb of St John of Nepomuk is two tonnes of solid silver. Alphonse Mucha designed a window in the north aisle in 1931, unmistakable among the medieval glass. Peter Parler carved a set of portrait busts in the triforium, including himself and the royal family, the earliest realistic portraits of their kind in European sculpture.

St Vitus Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily with shorter hours on Sundays and in winter, closing to visitors during services. Prague Castle is the busiest sight in the country and the cathedral fills from mid-morning; the first hour after opening is the only calm one, and the last hour is a reasonable second choice. The tower closes earlier than the church and stops selling tickets before that. The castle grounds are floodlit at night and free to walk through.

Dress modestly. Photography without flash is allowed in the paid section. Allow an hour for the cathedral, half a day for the whole castle circuit. The changing of the guard at the main gate happens on the hour, with the full ceremony at noon. The castle gardens on the south side are free and open from April to October, and the walk down through them to Mala Strana avoids the crowds on the main stairway.