Amazingly enough, there are two churches of St Nicolas in Prague – one is located in Mala Strana and the other in the Old Town Square.

This church located in Mala Strana is a large, very lavishly decorated baroque church with an enormous metal entrance door (these doors are very typical of Czech churches, but I haven’t seen them anywhere else). This church is considered the most beautiful building of Czech baroque. It was built in early 1700s. A huge fresco on the ceiling shows gates of paradise and scenes from the life of St Nicolas. Each chapel is adorned with a dark marble altar with paintings and a ceiling fresco. Each altar in the chapel is devoted to the depiction of various saints. The high altar looks like a huge performance with saints and angels, decorated with gilding, polychrome, and marble. All the chapels and the décor of the church are Italian baroque a la Bernini, with lots of marble statues and gold. A large organ above the entrance seems to also be playing a part. It was once played by Mozart. The main color of the backgrounds of walls and frescoes is light green, and the walls are covered in trompl’oi of columns. Near the altar up the stairs is an exhibit of Karel Skreta’s paintings (major Czech baroque painter). There are 10 paintings from "Passion cycle". There is also Skreta’s painting, "Cavalry", in the chapel of Santa Barbara to the left of the entrance. The Skreta exhibit is on the second floor balcony, from which you can get a more up-close look at the organ and ceiling fresco.

The first church is the Tyn Church (Kostel Panny Marie Pred Tynem--Church of Our Lady Before Tyn). The Tyn Church is a Hussite church dating from the early Gothic period of the 15th century. It is most recognizable with its spiked spires. The interior of the church is from the Baroque period.

I only saw the exterior of the church from the Old Town Square, but it is a beautiful sight to see and is the burial site of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who was a consultant of Hapsburg Emperor Rudolf II. Brahe died in Prague in 1601 from a burst bladder. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Tyn Church was a Hussite stronghold that the Hapsburgs were determined to destroy.

The other church that dominates the skyline of Prague's Old Town Square is the Catholic St. Nicholas Church (Kostel sv Mikulase), called a Baroque "wedding cake" by locals. This 18th-century church is located in the northwestern corner of Staromestske Namestie. St. Nicholas Church was built by Kilian Dientzenhofer, whose family was responsible for the design and construction of many other churches throughout Prague. This church is very tiny, but to me, it looked huge.

Author Franz Kafka was born next door to St. Nicholas Church at Celetna 3; this place is now a Kafka photo exhibit of his life.

So if you do the right thing and take the time to tour Prague, make sure that you take about an hour to see these two gems of Prague and its Old Town.

The church is used as a concert venue in the evenings, more often in summer. As the church is on the route from Charles Bridge to the Castle, the concerts tend to be well attended, owing to people seeing it advertised on the way to sightsee earlier in the day. This was how my mother and I came to buy tickets for chamber music one evening. The concert began at 7pm, and consisted mostly of music appropriate to the age of the building – lots of Bach, for example. The acoustics in the church are very good for this kind of music, and the players were very talented. They played one of my all-time favourite pieces of music – Bach’s double violin concerto in D minor. It sings lyrically to the soul at any time, and with the music souring and faintly echoed by the dome of the church, it was a magical experience at this concert.

The music here is well-played, cheap, and in fantastic surroundings – a perfect evening.