Even if you think you know the city very well, you will find another part, another place you don`t know about and that's beautiful about Prague. And it has happened to me recently, when I completely overlooked a large building that I had heard of several times in my life and even learned about its history in school, but had never actually visited it.
It was a beautiful day last Wednesday when I was driving around on my Vespa scooter near the Intercontinental Hotel when I decided to have a look at the Convent of St. Agnes or St. Agnes Monastery. Yes, precisely the one that I have never been to before.
St. Agnes Monastery is located at Na Františku Street. You can remember this street from one of my previous articles about ice skating places in Prague Because Na Franišku is also an ice skating place. A large building with extensive land located on the Vltava riverbank, which more than two years ago the National Gallery of Prague and the City of Prague completed one of its oldest gallery spaces and transformed it into a relatively modern institution.
I entered the monastery by a gate directly from the riverbank of the Vltava. On the left side is the first accessible garden, where you can find various modern sculptures, which apparently still vary because when I was looking for the exact names of these sculptures, I found on the Internet so many other sculptures, which are unfortunately no longer around.
At the oldest part of the monastery, which you will see right from the entrance stands the Red and Black sculpture by artist Karl Malich. And if you walk around the part of the St. Salvator Church, you will also see a statue - Portrait with a skull by sculptor Jaroslav Róna. Then you can go around this statue and you will pass through wooden footbridges, which are the remains of the former Monastery of Poor Clares, where we can see the tombstones placed at one wall of the church.
The size of the monastery also had a rich history with which I do not want to bore you, but something you should know is at least what the monastery consists of. In fact, it is a double monastery of female and male order, which were separated. The monastery was founded by Anežka Přemyslovna. She was expected to be engaged, but after her father's death she decided to enter her own monastery, where the female order took care of the sick people. The land was given to her by her own brother Wenceslas I.
The oldest part of the monastery is the Church of St. Francis, which was built in the Romanesque-Gothic style. This style has not been preserved much and the church was rebuilt in the future. Another building is the Chapel of Virgin Mary and Agnes private suite and the floor where she lived. We must also not forget the Church of St. Salvator, who served as the Přemyslid Mausoleum. From all parts, it is architecturally the most interesting place. The architect was said to be a Frenchman, but his name is still unknown.
The premises are very well described, so you do not need to pay extra for a guided tour.
From our external collaborator Tereza Kultová