The highest view in the country
A deck at 93 metres above the highest point in Prague: the whole city, with the castle small on the horizon.
The Žižkov television tower is the tallest structure in the Czech Republic at about 216 metres, and the most divisive. Built between 1985 and 1992 in the last years of communist rule, it is three grey steel columns carrying three capsules, like a rocket set down in a 19th-century residential district. Plenty of Praguers dislike it, and it has appeared more than once on lists of the world's ugliest buildings — yet nobody disputes that it holds the highest and best view in the city. In 2000 the artist David Černý added ten enormous faceless babies crawling up the columns. The work changed the city's relationship with the tower entirely: its strangeness became deliberate and rather loved, instead of an architectural accident. The upper capsule holds an observation deck at 93 metres with windows in every direction, a restaurant and café below it, and — in one capsule — a single hotel room. It is at its best on a clear day or after dark, when Prague becomes a grid of light beneath you. It stays open until midnight, longer than any other viewpoint in the city.
A deck at 93 metres above the highest point in Prague: the whole city, with the castle small on the horizon.
Ten giant faceless infants crawling up the columns — the work that turned a disliked building into an icon.
After sunset the city becomes a map of lights below you, and the tower is open until midnight — available at no other sight.
It depends what you want: Petřín puts you directly above the castle and river and is the prettier view; Žižkov is higher, shows the whole city from outside, has no stairs and opens at night. For photographers: Petřín by day, Žižkov after dark.
It has appeared on such lists, because its severe technical form cuts across the skyline of a Gothic and Baroque city. But local opinion shifted considerably after Černý's sculptures and the refurbishment of the capsules, and many now see it as a fondly regarded relic of a closed era.
The tower was built over part of an old Jewish cemetery, which caused considerable controversy at the time. The surviving portion of the cemetery is still there in the adjoining park and can be seen from outside.
Usually not for the observation deck, but the restaurant at the top fills in the evening, especially around sunset — book if dinner with the view is the point.
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A local quarter of cafés and residential streets well off the tourist track — walk it for half an hour afterwards to see the Prague people actually live in.
Mahlerovy sady 1, Prague 3 — Žižkov