Prague hotels with history attract tourists with their atmosphere

Prague - Tourists in Prague have recently shown less desire for new impersonal hotels, no matter how luxurious, and are attracted to accommodation that offers the historical atmosphere of the city. They can choose from many historically protected buildings converted into hotels in the historical city center, as well as from a number of original Prague hotels listed as cultural monuments.
    Wenceslas Square alone offers five hotel monuments from Art Nouveau to Cubism and even Socialist Realism of the 1950s.
    A gem of late Art Nouveau transitioning to Art Deco is the Ambassador hotel in the lower part of the square. The building, which features some oriental elements in its architecture, was constructed before World War I as a department store and converted into a hotel in 1922. The famous Alhambra cabaret once operated in its basement. A notable Art Nouveau monument is the hotel Evropa, still referred to by the name of its most famous owner - Šroubek. The building was created between 1904 and 1905 on the site of the older hotel Archduke Steven.
    The six-story Juliš hotel, with its functionalist facade designed by Pavel Janák, is among the most significant works of Czech interwar architecture. It is particularly renowned for its spatial and vista café. The courtyard wing is in the style of late Cubism.
    The hotel Adria is also on the list of monuments, originally the house U Modré boty, whose cellars hide remnants of two Gothic burgher houses. The main facade is eclectically Neo-Baroque from 1911. The Adria Theatre had its scene for the actor and director Emil Artur Longen.
    In 1991, the list of cultural monuments was expanded to include a hotel from the historically youngest period. The Jalta hotel from 1958 is regarded by experts as an example of the most valuable and cultivated Prague architecture of Socialist Realism. From the period known as "sorela," the International (Internacionál), today's four-star Crowne Plaza Prague Hotel in Dejvice, has also been on the list of monuments since 2000. The building, resembling monumental Soviet palaces, was constructed between 1952 and 1954 at the behest of Minister of Defense Alexej Čepička, Gottwald’s son-in-law. Nicknamed "the mad confectioner's dream," it is the largest tower structure of its time, standing 16 stories tall, with an impressive overall height of 88 meters, of which the actual building measures 67 meters. Like Jalta, the Internacionál also had a nuclear shelter capable of accommodating 600 people for two weeks. After reconstruction, it was opened in 1997.
    For more than 100 years, the Paris hotel has served guests with its unmistakable visage of a Neo-Gothic building featuring distinct Art Nouveau elements. It was built between 1904 and 1907. The atmosphere of Art Nouveau breathes upon guests in the café and restaurant adorned with turquoise ceramic and wooden wall coverings. The luxurious "colonial" style of late Art Nouveau has been offered since 1914 by the recently renovated Imperial hotel at the corner of Na Poříčí Street.
    The number of monuments converted into hotels continues to grow. Already in the 1970s, the famous Renaissance house U Tří pštrosů under the Malá Strana Tower at the foot of Charles Bridge was converted into a luxury hotel. In the Old Town, one of the successful examples is the complex of the Jirásek house and the baroque Pacht's Palace, where there was once a famous music salon that Mozart allegedly attended.
    Tourists probably stay in almost every second historical house in the Old Town, Malá Strana, or Hradčany. The houses U Zlaté studny, U Rotta, U Šuterů, U Červeného lva, U Zlatého kola, U černého orla - all are hotels. While protected monuments are being restored with new uses, many investors approach them insensitively and do not respect their historical value.