U Prince by Angela Moore

U Prince is a 24-room hotel in a 14th century building right on the Old Town square. It has wonderfully OTT décor, gothic and romantic, and is stuffed with madcap furnishings. Like Prague itself, everywhere you look is something: a raucous pair of parrots in a carved wooden cage, a beautiful ornate balustrade, vast brass urns and gilt-edged mirrors, odd ceramics, all dotted among banks of greenery. It borrows merrily from all periods and, though there is a lot of it, the building is high-celinged enough to carry it all off without looking too cluttered. Just.

The restaurant downstairs, which extends into the cellar, is open to the public (look for the stained glass automatic doors which open into the kitchen.) There is an exquisite private dining room, in a medieval vaulted stone room, with a heavily carved table and wizards’ chairs to match.

At the top of the house is the hotel’s crowning glory, a roof terrace bar and restaurant, where waiters in Hawaiian shirts serve bar meals on happily mismatched crockery. Perched among the rooftops, like a range of red-tiled peaks, it has amazing views of the Old Town square and out toward the castle.

The rooms
The staircase (or the glass lift) leads up to broad landings and corridors, each with a collection of ornate leather armchairs and sofas. Vast wrought iron candelabras light the way.

The rooms are all different in size and layout. However, they are decorated in a heavily Baroque style typical of Prague. Three-foot-thick walls are painted creamy white, floors are beautiful parquet, polished until it gleams and laid with thick Persian rugs. They all have heavily decorative carved wood bedheads and wardrobes, leather armchairs, and more of the eclectic collection of antiques.

Every room has something special about it – a suite might have a painted medieval wooden ceiling, twenty feet high, or a private balcony with a table for two and a view of the Old Town square. The heavy walls and thick brocade curtains help keep noise to a minimum. Bathrooms also vary, from the barely adequate (cramped with a small tub) to palatial.

The cons? Some guests report rushed or surly service, but really only in the downstairs restaurant on the Square, which is very busy and crowded. (We found reception and hotel staff to be busy but perfectly friendly and accommodating.) Watch out for noise in first-floor rooms above the restaurant, which may hear the jazz band that plays nightly there. Five-star freaks might have issues, but it’s comfortable, rather than luxurious; you’re paying for atmosphere and location, and for those the U Prince can’t be beaten.