Old Town Hall & Astronomical Clock

The Old Town Hall has anchored Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square) since 1338, when Prague's burghers won the right to build their own town hall and administer the city independently. Over the centuries it grew into a complex of connected Gothic and Renaissance buildings, though its east wing — including a large stretch of Gothic arcades — was destroyed by German shelling in the final days of World War II and never rebuilt.

The building's most famous feature is the Astronomical Clock, installed in 1410 and one of the oldest working astronomical clocks in the world. Beyond telling the time, its dial tracks the position of the sun and moon in the zodiac, using a mechanism largely unchanged in six centuries. Every hour on the hour, from 9am to 11pm, a small mechanical show plays: the twelve apostles appear in two windows above the dial while figures representing Death, Vanity, Greed and other allegorical vices flank the clock face — a slice of medieval morality theatre that still draws a crowd every single hour.