Strahov Monastery

Strahov Monastery tickets: which one to buy

The monastery church is free during services and otherwise closed; what visitors pay for is the library, and the arrangement disappoints many. The standard ticket lets you look into the two great halls from their doorways behind a barrier, not walk through them. A much dearer private tour, booked in advance and run outside opening hours in small groups, is the only way inside the halls themselves. A separate ticket covers the picture gallery upstairs, which holds Bohemian Gothic panels and a good Rubens.

The monastery brewery next door serves its own beer in a courtyard with a view over Prague and needs no ticket. Guided tours of the Castle district include Strahov and cost several times the library entry. Photography inside the library requires a paid permit, and the rule is enforced strictly. The complex sits above the castle, a steep walk up or a tram ride to Pohorelec. Tickets are bought in the courtyard rather than at the library door, and staff sell the gallery ticket only on request.

Visiting Strahov Monastery: what to see

Premonstratensian canons founded Strahov in 1143, and despite fire, the Hussite sack of 1420 and Napoleon's troops, the community survives and still owns the buildings. The two library halls are the reason to come. The Theological Hall of 1679 is a low barrel-vaulted room with stucco cartouches, globes on the floor and a wooden lattice where books once considered dangerous were locked away. The Philosophical Hall, built in 1794 to fit a walnut bookcase bought from a dissolved monastery in Moravia, rises two storeys with a ceiling fresco by Anton Maulbertsch showing the intellectual progress of mankind.

Together they hold about 200,000 volumes, including 3,000 manuscripts. The corridor between them is a cabinet of curiosities with narwhal tusks, dried sea creatures and a pair of whale penises labelled with Victorian discretion. The Basilica of the Assumption next door, baroque and gilded, is where Mozart is said to have played the organ. Outside, the monastery vineyard slopes down towards the castle and is one of the few working vineyards inside a European capital.

Strahov Monastery opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from mid-morning to evening, with the library closing for an hour at midday in some seasons. The halls are photographed through their doorways, which means the light matters: late morning gives the best of it in the Philosophical Hall. Coach groups from the castle arrive after lunch. Prague's Castle district is busiest from May to September; winter mornings up here are quiet and the view over the snow-covered city from the monastery wall is one of the best in Europe. Dress is informal. Allow half an hour for the library, an hour with the gallery, and leave time for the terrace above the vineyard, which slopes down towards the castle and is free to walk through.