Tycho Brahe in the New World

Look around you. This enchanting little street, Nový Svět — meaning "New World" — feels like it belongs to another century entirely. And in a way, it does. Back in 1600, the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe arrived in Prague at the personal invitation of Emperor Rudolf II. Famous across Europe for his precise star charts and his legendary silver prosthetic nose — lost in a duel — Brahe moved into the house right on this street, known as "At the Golden Roc." There was just one problem. The house was tiny. Brahe had arrived with a mountain of scientific instruments, and there simply wasn't room. Rudolf II, eager to keep his prized astronomer happy, quickly arranged a much larger residence up in Hradčany. Brahe's time in Prague proved historic. He collaborated here with a young Johannes Kepler, whose laws of planetary motion would change science forever. But Brahe himself didn't live to see it. He died in 1601 — famously, according to legend, from a burst bladder after refusing to leave a royal banquet to relieve himself. A commemorative plaque on the corner house still honours him today. Look for it as you pass — it's a small but fitting tribute to one of history's most colourful scientists.