A neighbourhood with a story
From vineyards to the liveliest quarter of Prague
The slopes below Vítkov Hill were covered with vineyards until the 19th century, when Žižkov grew almost overnight into a proud working-class town — named after Jan Žižka, the one-eyed Hussite general who defeated a crusader army on the hill above in 1420. An independent city from 1881, Žižkov joined Greater Prague in 1922, bringing with it its tenement houses, its tramlines, and more pubs per street than anywhere else in the city.
Our three houses — Štítného 13, Cimburkova 14 and 15 — were built during that great expansion, and they have been welcoming people ever since. Below is the neighbourhood as our guests would have found it decades ago, photographed from the very same spots today.
Štítného ulice · postcard, early 1900s
Just up Štítného — our own street — stood one of Žižkov's earliest cinemas. In 1912–1913 the entrepreneur Vilém Weiss rebuilt part of an old theatre hall on the corner of Chlumova into the First Žižkov Cinematographic Theatre; from 1934 it screened films as Bio Pokrok until it closed in 1949. A rebuild in 2005–2006 turned it into the Pokrok film studios, keeping the original Art Nouveau façade you still walk past today at Štítného 34.
The same streets, a century apart
Historic photographs of the streets around the hotel, re-photographed from the same viewpoints.
Restaurace U Štítného, just next door to the hotel
The corner restaurant photographed with its regulars in 1929 — and still pouring Czech beer under the name U Tomáše Štítného today.
Seifertova street with the tram line
Žižkov's main artery, then served by horse-drawn and early electric trams — the same tracks still carry lines 5, 9 and 26 past the hotel.
The square below the hotel
A formal garden square in the 1900s, still a green corner of the neighbourhood over a century later.
Cimburkova street — our own street
In the 1960s much of Žižkov stood neglected; today the same houses are restored. The HOTEL sign on the right marks our own street — two of our three houses stand right here on Cimburkova.
Cimburkova under repair
The cobbles were being relaid in 1964 — the same Cimburkova, caught on an ordinary working day.
Milíčova street — towards the church of St Procopius
The corner laundry ('Prádlenka') is now a minimarket, but the view up to the neo-gothic church has not changed.
Milíčova street — looking towards Vítkov Hill
The green slope of Vítkov closes the view then as now — five minutes on foot from the hotel.
The corner that was never rebuilt
In February 1945 an American air raid meant for Dresden struck Prague by mistake, and the house on this corner — where Štítného meets Milíčova — was destroyed. The plot was never built on again — today, of all things, it serves as our hotel's locked, camera-monitored parking lot. Hover over the 1945 photograph and it comes to life in colour.
One more chapter
Three of those houses now welcome guests
Sleep in a piece of Žižkov's history — ten minutes from the Old Town.
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