Wenceslas Square and the arcades behind it
The 1989 boulevard, then off it: the Lucerna's upside-down horse and the hidden pasáže. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. National Museum & Muzeum metro
Start at the top, under the grand neo-Renaissance museum, and walk down the slope. From up here you see the whole boulevard at once — it's a wide avenue, not a square, and it always has been.

2. St Wenceslas statue
The mounted saint who gives the square its name and its gathering point — every Czech demonstration of the last century has formed up around this horse. Note the small memorial to Jan Palach in the pavement below.

3. The 1989 balconies
Look up at the buildings mid-square: from these balconies, in November 1989, Havel and Dubček addressed the crowds that ended Communist rule. There's no plaque doing it justice; stand and picture 300,000 people.

4. Lucerna passage
Duck off the square into the *pasáž* (a covered arcade) built by Havel's grandfather. David Černý's *Horse* hangs here — St Wenceslas riding an upside-down, dead horse, a sly answer to the statue outside. The café upstairs and the old cinema are part of the pleasure.

5. Světozor & the Franciscan Garden
The *pasáže* link up: from Lucerna through to the Světozor arcade, then out a back door into the Franciscan Garden — a walled green pocket almost no one on the square knows is there. The sudden quiet is the point.

6. Můstek & the arcade facades
Come out at the foot of the square near *Můstek*. Look back up at the Art Nouveau and early-modern facades — the Mucha era built this boulevard. Metro's right here when you're done.

Wenceslas Square and the arcades behind it