8 Prague Places That Don’t Look Like Prague

These row houses in the Ořechovka luxury villa district, built between 1920-1922, imitate the English cottages that can be found in garden townslike Bedford Park, Hampstead, or Letchford with their typical triangular gables, narrow rectangular windows, high chimney, and half-timbered masonry bond.

In Žižkov near Strážní (On Guard) Street, you will find a colony of fairy-tale houses featuring beautifully styled gables accentuating wooden timber framing with folk art nouveau influences. This rural enclave was built in 1922 as housing for civil servants and their families. All of the surrounding streets have names evoking a sense of small-town security: Na Hlídce (On Patrol) Street, Na Vlastním (On Its Own) Street, V Domově (At Home) Street, V Bezpečí (In Safe Place) Street.

Also in Žižkov, in the Jarov neighborhood, you will find this unique wooden house, which looks more like a summer cottage fit for the woodlands of Southern Bohemia than part of an urban settlement of worker’s housing from the early 1920’s.

Is it the Parisian high rise district—complete with Grande Arche and esplanade? On the contrary it’s Prague’s answer to yet another Paris landmark; though not quite as scenic as the mini-Eiffel Tower, the area is still worth visiting for its farmer’s market and famed “Halfway Cafe.”

The smallest Prague waterworks, built in 1904, captures the same romantic spirit as a Dutch maritime beacon, with its octagonal anchor holding steadfast not to coastal rock but the shores of Prague 9. It is currently being developed into a luxury residence.

A picturesque cluster of cottages, which includes the turn of the 18th century farmhouse pictured here, makes up the only preserved village located in the Vltava flood zone that stands today. Here fishermen once worked as laborers in the surrounding farmyard or, until the 20th century, fished. The area and its outbuildings have, sadly, fallen into disrepair.