The street that bears the name of Jan Neruda, an important Czech poet, writer and journalist, is one of the quaintest streets in Prague. It is part of the former Royal Road, which rises from the upper end of Lesser Town Square to Prague Castle. The name is definitely deserved. After all, Neruda, who lived here, described the unmistakable atmosphere of the Lesser T own, its charms, its secrets and, most of all, the often unusual fates of the people who I ived there, better than anyone else. The street is a living textbook of Baroque style, its appearance formed not only by the anonymous architects of burgher houses, but also by the great architects of that time, who built several artistically valuable palaces here. The houses are decorated with lovely, ornately-shaped gables and, in places, with pretty portals , although it is the house signs, some of the most beautiful in Prague, that are admired the most.
Every building eould tell a story about the extraordinary lives of its owners, including farnous people. House No 209 was owned at the end of the 16th century by the painter Bartolomeus Spranger, who painted Greek gods on the facade. House No 210 is adorned with one of the most famous house signs of all, three violins, to eommemorate the fact that frorn 1667 to 1748 it was occupied by three families of violin-makers in a row. From 1795-1723 house No 211, called Valkounský, belonged to the outstanding High-Baroque Czech architect Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl, who designed the two neighbouring palaces. These were No 214, Thun-Hochstein Palace, deeorated with impressive facade and sculptures by Matyáš Bernard Braun, and No. 256 opposite, named Morzin Palace, decorated with beau¬tiful statues by Ferdinand Maxmilian Brokof.
Santini also designed the facade of the nearby Church of the Virgin Mary "U kajetánů". The spacious Renaissance house No 244, with a Baroque facade, called Donkey and Crib House, is the setting of Neruda's short story A Week in a Quiet House. The Roeoeo Bredfeld Palace, dating from after 1765, is across the street and was the setting of the famous balls given by Josef of Bredfeld. Among the guests were Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the renowned adventurer Giacoma Casanova. Golden Horseshoe House No 220 belonged to the architect Oldřich Aostal¬is in the 16th century. In 1749 the first phar-macy at Hradčany was opened here. Later it was moved next-door, to Golden Lion House, No 219. Today it houses the pharmaceutical exhibition of the National Museum with its extensive collection of jars and equipment.
NERUDA AND HIS WORLD
Probably the most famous house in Neruda Street (Nerudova ulice) is No. 233, named after its pretty sign, Two Suns House. Between 1845-1857 it was occupied in by the writer Jan Neruda, whose father had a grocery store on the ground floor. There little Jan used to sit on sacks of flour, peeled barley or some other foodstuff and listen to his neighbours' stories, which he later used in his writing, mainly in Staries af the Lesser Tawn. After his father died in 1857 he moved into No 225, Three Black Eagles House, across the street. After his mother died and was buried in the Lesser Town cemetery in 1869, he left Lesser Town altogether and moved to the other bank of the Vltava, to 28 Convict Street (Konviktská ulice) in the Old Town, where he wrote his best-known works. H is boo ks of short stories, verse collections and newspaper sketehes are sti II part of the treasury of Czech literature today .