Troja Chateau Prague

Troja Chateau sits in the Prague suburbs near the zoo and is consistently undervisited relative to how good it is. The Sternberg family built it in the 1680s on the model of Italian villas, complete with a double staircase flanked by sculptures of Gods battling Titans. The main hall ceiling fresco, commissioned in the 1690s, shows the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I triumphant over the Ottomans: pure Baroque (ornate 17th-18th century) political theatre, painted at a scale that fills the entire vaulted ceiling. The palace now holds 19th-century Czech art as part of the Prague City Gallery. Bus 112 from the Holešovice metro station, Tuesday through Sunday. Combine with half a day at Prague Zoo next door.