Golden Lane ( cs, Zlatá ulička) is a street situated in

Prague Castle Prague Castle ( cs, Pražský hrad; ) is a castle complex in Prague 1 Municipality within Prague, Czech Republic, built in the 9th century. It is the official office of the President of the Czech Republic. The castle was a seat of power for kin ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

. Originally built in the 16th century to house

Rudolf II Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg), Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–160 ...

's castle guards, it takes its name from the goldsmiths that lived there in the 17th century. Golden Lane consists of small houses, painted in bright colours in the 1950s. The street originally had houses on both sides, but one side was demolished in the 19th century. Today, the lane is a part of the ''small'' and ''big'' castle rings (i.e. a fee must be paid to enter), while there is free entry after the Prague Castle interiors close. Many of the houses are now souvenir shops, and there is a museum of medieval armory within the former 14th-century fortification accessible from Golden Lane. A sister of writer

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

rented the house number 22 in the summer of 1916; Kafka used this house to write for approximately one year.

Jaroslav Seifert Jaroslav Seifert (; 23 September 1901 – 10 January 1986) was a Czech writer, poet and journalist. Seifert was awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his poetry which endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness provides ...

, who won the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

in 1984 and who was one of the signatories of

Charter 77 Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech and Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Jiří Něm ...

, lived there in 1929. Golden Lane is connected with

Dalibor Tower Dalibor may refer to: *Dalibor (name) Dalibor (Cyrillic script: Далибор) is primarily a male given name of Slavic origin, mostly in Czech Republic. The name is popular in some West Slavic and South Slavic countries, such as the Czech Repu ...

, which used to be a

dungeon A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...

Notes

Prague Castle Streets in Prague {{czech-geo-stub