Vyšehrad

Perched on a rock above the Vltava, Vyšehrad is wrapped in the oldest Czech legends: here the seeress-princess Libuše is said to have stood and foretold a city 'whose glory will touch the stars', founding Prague and the Přemyslid line. A real fortress and royal seat rose here by the 10th century, briefly outshining Prague Castle under King Vratislav II. The Romanesque Rotunda of St Martin, from the 11th century, is among Prague's oldest buildings. In the 19th-century national revival Vyšehrad became a patriotic shrine, and its Slavín cemetery beside the twin-spired Church of Sts Peter and Paul holds the graves of Antonín Dvořák, Bedřich Smetana, and other giants of Czech culture.