Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/64

48 extraction Vestonia who after a chequered and not very happy life, found here in Prague, far from her native country, a refuge and last resting-place.

From the same time dates the façade of the neighbouring Prince Oettingen (formerly Lobkovic-) palace (No. 34) which having a baroque ornamentation and being placed so that it is visible from above, from the Neruda-street, and spanning the Letenská street by a picturesque out-built arch, is one of the most interesting edifices of this place. Adjacent is the spacious monastery of the English virgins, an order founded in England by Clara Ward in the XVIIth. century and introduced to Prague in 1747 by a princess Auersberg. It has a small baroque chapel dedicated to St. Joseph of Calasanza, situated in a small garden and surmounted by a diminutive dome; in fact a lantern by which it obtains very good light, great advantage in viewing the beautiful paintings by P. Brandl (from the XVIIIth century), which the chapel contains. The splendid monastery garden covers a great part of the ground which in former times belonged to the Bishop’s Court which used to be in this neighbourhood. The garden spreads between the Letenská and Lužická streets and touches the palaces of the counts of Westphalen, the Princes of Thurn-Taxis and of Windischgraetz. From the Letenská street there is again a fine view of the older part of the Castle and of St. Vitus’ and St. George’s steeples.

The very narrow Paul’s lane brings us from the Letenská in a short time to the so called „Řetězová lávka" (Iron-foot-bridge), which being quite narrow its use is restricted to foot-passengers. From this we see in front, the fine building of the Rudolphinum and behind it the varied group of the steeples of the Old town; to the left the broad surface of the river, the distant Crown-isle and Štvanice, the lower New town with the Francis-Joseph bridge, and for a background the green slope of the Letná, under which close to the Foot-bridge rises the dark coppercoloured cupola of Straka’s Academy, an institution for the training of young Bohemian nobles. To the right we have the nicest picture of all, the characteristic group of buildings of the knights of the Red Cross, rising directly out of the depth of the river, where the current of the Old town-mills is liveliest.