Set just beneath the Castle on the busy and winding street of Nerudova, in the Malá Strana district, is the Designhotel Neruda (like the street) named after Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda. Neruda documented  Malá Strana obsessively in his work, and quotations adorn the hotel walls. Ranking among the most stylish hotels in the city, Designhotel Neruda’s original villa dates from the 14th century. As such, the hotel embodies a comfortable meld of straight-up modernism and modest classicism.

The ground-floor entrance lobby, cafe, and lounge set the tone for the rest of the building: clean lines, simple materials (glass, stone, aluminium, granite) and designer furniture – motifs that are repeated particularly throughout the hotel’s 20 crisp, contemporary rooms, each neutrally decorated and featuring light, modern bathrooms. The hotel is equipped with all mod cons, and with 23 new rooms  opened in an additional adjacent building (designed by local architect and glass artist Borek Sipek and designer Barbora Skorpilova), the Designhotel Neruda has become one of Prague’s most feted properties.