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Great Square The New Town Hall in Prachatice. © Gunnar StrunzPhoto: Gunnar Strunz, Rother Bergverlag
Certainly, the town of Prachatice, with a population of 11,000, cannot compete with the unbeatable Český Krumlov (Krumau) in terms of the attractiveness of its townscape; nevertheless, a visit to this once important, wealthy trading town on the Golden Trail is by no means uninteresting. The special charm here is created by the many late medieval burgher houses decorated with sgraffito, i.e., ornaments and pictures etched into different colored layers of plaster, which cluster around the massive Church of St. James with its steeply rising roof and form magnificent architectural ensembles at the market square. Prachatice has been documented as a trading center since the 11th century and was a rich town, especially for salt merchants, in the late Middle Ages. However, decline began after 1650. The Habsburgs, who also ruled Bohemia from 1526, established their own salt monopoly. The coveted goods now came exclusively from the salt mines of the Salzkammergut. Prachatice became merely an administrative seat—but many buildings still testify to its glorious era between 1300 and 1600.
The starting point of our city tour is the Velké náměsti, the Great Square. At its southwest corner is the Renaissance building of the Old Town Hall (No. 1), two houses away stands the New Town Hall (Nos. 2–3, with tower, from 1902), both decorated with sgraffito. Opposite, one can see the so-called Rumpal House (No. 41) from 1500, richly decorated with sgraffito and its arcades. Diagonally opposite rises on the north side of the square the Fürstenhaus (No. 69), which has an elephant in its sgraffito; just to the right (No. 13) stands the Syter (Sitr) House from 1604, now a city museum. From the center of the square, we head northeast and turn right before St. James's Church into Kříštanova. The church itself was built between 1390 and 1410; construction paused due to the Hussite wars; the interior with vaults and galleries was not completed until between 1505 and 1520. At house Děkanská 32 (the street branches off immediately right next to the church) is perhaps the most beautiful
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