The start of the Royal Route
From under this arch the coronation procession set off for the castle — and you can walk the same line today.
Jakub Hałun — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Ank Kumar — CC BY-SA 4.0 · VANOCE2022 — CC0
The Powder Tower is the gate through which Prague brought in its kings. Begun in 1475 as one of thirteen gates in the Old Town wall, it was designed as a ceremonial entrance rather than a defensive one: the coronation procession passed through here and up the Royal Route to the cathedral. Work stopped a few years later when the king left the Old Town for the castle, and the tower stood without its final roof for centuries. Its name comes from a less glamorous later use: in the 17th century it stored gunpowder. In the 19th century it was thoroughly restored in neo-Gothic style, gaining the statues and ornament it carries now — so what you see is 15th-century stone under a 19th-century reworking. It stands about 65 metres tall, reached by 186 spiral steps to an open gallery. The view is not Prague's highest but it is the closest to the city's heart: Republic Square, the Municipal House next door, and Celetná street running away towards the Old Town Square. A short visit, easily combined with the Municipal House attached to it.
From under this arch the coronation procession set off for the castle — and you can walk the same line today.
A blackened Gothic tower fused to a golden Art Nouveau palace — one of central Europe's oddest and best architectural juxtapositions.
A balcony circling the tower, showing Celetná street curving away to the Old Town Square — the clearest explanation of old Prague's layout.
Kings and saints cut into the stone, most added in the 19th-century restoration — read them from the east side, where the light is better.
Náměstí Republiky 5, Prague 1
Municipal HouseThe Municipal House is the greatest thing Art Nouveau produced in Prague, and ar1 minute walk4.8
House of the Black MadonnaThe House of the Black Madonna is the first Cubist building in the world, and th2 minutes walk4.5
Museum of CommunismThe Museum of Communism tells forty years of Czechoslovak history, from 1948 to 2 minutes walk4.1
The Jindřišská TowerPrague's tallest free-standing belfry: Gothic Jindřišská (1476) was built as St 4 minutes walk4.5
Estates TheatreThe Estates Theatre is a green-and-white classical building in the Old Town, ope4 minutes walk4.6For a single tower, choose the Old Town Hall (it has a lift and a finer view of the square) or Petřín for the wide panorama. The Powder Tower is a good option if you are already at Republic Square and want something short.
Sandstone absorbs pollution and blackens over time — this is the normal colour of Gothic Prague. Full cleaning damages the surface, so on most historic buildings it is deliberately left.
Go under the arch into Celetná and walk ten minutes to the Old Town Square and the astronomical clock, passing the House of the Black Madonna — Prague's first Cubist building.
The spiral is narrow and people going up meet people coming down, which slows things at peak times. Before 11am or in the last two hours before closing is far calmer.