After the abolition of the entrance fee, the interest of foreigners in St. Vitus was as usual

Prague - Tourists from today no longer have to pay to enter St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle after half a year. In the afternoon, when the church reopened to regular visitors after the Easter service, daily busy operations began. People were crowding in front of the entrance, largely foreigners according to information from ČTK. The cancellation of the entrance fee, however, did not reflect in the number or composition of visitors today according to the security service; there were very few Czech visitors.
    A hundred-crown entrance fee was introduced last September by the Catholic Church when it took over the church from the state. It aimed to regulate the number of visitors but faced criticism from the media. At the same time, the castle did not reduce the prices of its tour circuits, with tickets still required for the Golden Lane. According to the castle's autumn statement, interest from tourists in touring Hradčany did not decrease after the cathedral was removed from the route.
    After this year, when the Supreme Court returned the case of the ownership of St. Vitus to the beginning, the church and the presidential office agreed to jointly manage the operations of the cathedral after its handover to the state in mid-April. The agreement includes the cancellation of the entrance fee to the church, including access to the crypt and the tower, for which a fee was charged even when the church nave was freely accessible.
    The administration of Prague Castle confirmed to ČTK today that the majority of paying visitors to the castle are foreign tourists. This also depends on the public holidays in each country. Currently, during Easter, Prague is full of Europeans, especially Italians, but there are also other nationalities including Japanese guests.
    The church refuses to provide information about the attendance at the cathedral in recent months and about the revenues from tickets. It also does not want to comment on the necessity of handing over its sanctuary to the state. Its representatives speak of "immense pressure" from the media and avoid them.
    Similarly, a part of the domestic public expressed displeasure with the introduction of an entrance fee to the Golden Lane at the castle in 2002. The situation there without an entrance fee was untenable as the number of visitors was not regulated, and it was not possible to take responsibility for heritage care, said then-chancellor of President Václav Havel, Ivo Mathé.
    For entrance to the Golden Lane, tourists had to pay a one-time fee of 50 crowns until recently or gain access based on the purchase of castle tour tickets. However, it is now possible to enter the Golden Lane only with a ticket for one of the two tours, which cost 350 or 250 crowns. Only after 6:00 PM is no ticket needed for the lane.
    Until last summer, St. Vitus Cathedral was also part of the tour circuits of the Prague Castle Administration, after which the Metropolitan Chapter managed its operations for seven months. The church, expropriated by the communists in the 1950s, was assigned to it by the court after 13 years of disputes with the state over ownership of the building. However, at the beginning of this year, the Supreme Court returned the case to the beginning, and the church must return the cathedral on April 16 to the Office of the President of the Republic.
    The paid part of the cathedral significantly expanded almost to the entrance during the church's administration. The church wanted the new measures not only to gain money for security and cleaning but also to regulate the movement of tourists, whose behavior had often not respected the spiritual character of this space, primarily for worship.
    Those who wanted to pray in the church were, however, allowed entry without payment, as were pilgrims with a priest or school trips.
    The cathedral is now freely accessible to all visitors and is not included in any tour circuits. Entry to the church will only be regulated during tourist peak times, using a managing service. This service is to ensure that there are not too many people inside at once.
    Media speculation talks about up to four thousand visitors daily to the cathedral. Thus, the church could have earned up to eight million crowns monthly from entrance fees.
    Dozens of millions of crowns are needed for repairs and restoration work. However, the twenty-million annual amount needed for operations, mentioned last year by the Prague Castle Administration, was considered inflated by the archbishopric and it estimated that the cathedral "would be self-sufficient."