What you can experience
A Journey into a Long-Gone Prague
Welcome to Podskalí. A neighborhood of rafters, sand miners, lumberjacks, ice men, and customs officers that vanished at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. All that remains of old Podskalí today is an inconspicuous customs house (and, a short walk away, the Church of the Holy Trinity).
A Customs House in a Duty-Free Zone
Customs duties were collected here as early as the beginning of the 16th century. Timber, the most important building material at the time, was transported down the river to the city. At first, a share of the timber was collected as customs duty, in Czech "vytínat"—this is where the Czech name for the area, Výtoň, comes from. And when it was discovered that collecting money was better than chopping wood, the customs officers suddenly had an easier job and became civil servants. The customs fees collected would go to the treasury of Prague's New Town.
A pub has returned to the ground floor of this unique Renaissance building, and on the first floor we've prepared an exhibition for you that introduces the vanished old neighborhood of Podskalí, which was first mentioned in writing as early as 1358! The neighborhood got its name from a nearby rock on which the Na Slovanech Monastery stands. It has a long and interesting history, and since the invention of the camera, it has been well-documented, so there is plenty to explore.
Part of the exhibition is also dedicated to the Vltava River itself—its significance for the city, its transformations, and the troubles it caused Prague residents during floods. Models of boats and rafts will also return to the exhibition, giving you a sense of what kind of job timber rafting was back then.