Holešovice & Letná

What it is

Praha 7, filling the big meander of the Vltava north of the centre — a former industrial and market quarter that has spent two decades turning into Prague's gallery, coffee and club district. It has two faces: Letná, the elegant residential plateau above the river, and lower Holešovice, flatter and post-industrial, where the warehouses became art spaces.

What is here

Letná park runs along the bluff with the city's definitive view over the Vltava bridges. The giant metronome at its edge stands on the plinth where the world's largest Stalin monument stood from 1955 until it was dynamited in 1962; the beer garden under the trees behind it is the classic Prague summer evening. Down in Holešovice: the Trade Fair Palace, a functionalist landmark of 1928 holding the National Gallery's modern collections; DOX, the contemporary art centre with a wooden airship on its roof; the National Technical Museum; and the Prague Market in a former slaughterhouse, mid-transformation. Cross Club, an industrial fantasy of welded scrap machinery, is the district's after-dark institution. Stromovka, the former royal game park, is the biggest green space in the inner city.

What it is like

Young and local: specialty coffee at a density rivalling Vinohrady, studios, galleries and a crowd that mostly lives here. Letná's streets feel like a calmer Vinohrady; lower Holešovice still has rough blocks between the converted ones, which is part of the appeal and worth knowing when choosing a hotel.

Practical

Metro line C stops at Vltavská and Nádraží Holešovice, and trams cross the district in every direction — the centre is about ten minutes. Bus 112 to Prague Zoo leaves from Nádraží Holešovice, making this the natural base for a zoo-and-Troja day. Good-value hotels, big apartments, and Stromovka on the doorstep for runners.