In the eastern section of the Castle we can find an extraordinarily quaint building
complex, which was used mostly by the church and aristocracy in the past. The most dominant are the two towers of the St. George Basilica, which are among the oldest surviving monuments of Prague.
Prince Vratislav founded the original church after 920. Later it became a part of the Benedictine monastery and was reconstructed and enlarged; it got its the present-day appearance during the reconstruction following a fire in 1142. In the times of Charles IV some parts were modified in Gothic style, at the beginning of the 16th century the southern columned entrance portal was formed and decorated with a beautiful rel ief of the fight between St. George and the dragon. Around 1670 an early Baroque facade was added. It faces the George Square (Jiřské náměstí). Several rulers of the Přemysl family were buried in the church. Remains of Romanesque wall paintings have survived here and there in the i nterior, as well as
tombs of the buried princes and a Romanesque crypt, among other things. Beside the chancel there is a late Romanesque twostoried Chapel of St. Ludmila, built between 1200 and 1228 in the times of abbess Agnes, later a Czech saint. Ludmila's plaener tombstone was made at Parler's workshop around 1380. Her daughter-in-law had Ludmila murdered in 921 at Tetín.
Since 973 there was a Benedictine convent by the church, the oldest in Bohemia.
Mlada, the sister of prince Boleslav II, was its founder and first abbess. It had an exceptional position among similar religious institutions - only women of the royal family could become abbesses, who moreover had the right (along with the Prague archbishop) to crown Czech queens. During its existence of more than a thousand years the George Convent (Jiřský klášter) went through many reconstructions, its present-day appearance is mostly in early Baroque style from the 2nd half of the 17th century. The remains of brickwork underneath the present-day paradise garden survived from the original pre-Romanesque and Romanesque building. Nowadays the Convent is used by the National Gallery for its exhibitions of its collection from the period of Rodolphine mannerism and Baroque.
The wall of the northern fortification of the Prague Castle is adjacent to the Golden Lane, the smallest lane in Prague, with "dwarfish" houses, which the folk tradition incorrectly associates with alchemists. The 24 original miniature buildings were constructed at the order of emperor Rodolph II after 1597 as homes for the castle riflemen and their families. One by one, the ten houses on the southern side of the lane were pulled down, on ly the fourteen on the northern side by the wall remained.
After the riflemen brigades were abolished towards the end of the 18th century, the houses were sald to various owners, they were occupied by artists and eccentrics, but also by the poor and the rogues' gallery. No 22 was for some time in 1917 occupied by the writer Franz Kafka. Today there is a number of period little shops and galleries. In Jiřská Street there are Renaissance palaces reconstructed in Baroque style, which belowed to of prominent Czech aristocracyRožmberk and Lobkowitz (origi nally Pernštejn) families. Today the latter is used by the National Museum, which chase it for its historical exposition The Relics of a National Past. Opposite the Lobkowitz palace there is the former burgavery of the Prague Castle with graffito-decorated facade, today a Museum of Toys, and nearby is the Black Tower, a part of the original Romanesque fortification from the 12th century.
Prince Vratislav founded the original church after 920. Later it became a part of the Benedictine monastery and was reconstructed and enlarged; it got its the present-day appearance during the reconstruction following a fire in 1142. In the times of Charles IV some parts were modified in Gothic style, at the beginning of the 16th century the southern columned entrance portal was formed and decorated with a beautiful rel ief of the fight between St. George and the dragon. Around 1670 an early Baroque facade was added. It faces the George Square (Jiřské náměstí). Several rulers of the Přemysl family were buried in the church. Remains of Romanesque wall paintings have survived here and there in the i nterior, as well as
tombs of the buried princes and a Romanesque crypt, among other things. Beside the chancel there is a late Romanesque twostoried Chapel of St. Ludmila, built between 1200 and 1228 in the times of abbess Agnes, later a Czech saint. Ludmila's plaener tombstone was made at Parler's workshop around 1380. Her daughter-in-law had Ludmila murdered in 921 at Tetín.
Since 973 there was a Benedictine convent by the church, the oldest in Bohemia. 