Two baroque library halls of painted ceilings and gilded shelving, and a cabinet of curiosities including two whale penises and a narwhal tusk sold as a unicorn horn.
The halls
A Premonstratensian monastery founded in 1143, and the reason to come is the library.
The Theological Hall, 1679, is barrel-vaulted, white stuccoed and painted, lined with globes, and holds around 18,000 volumes, largely theology. Chained to a case at one end is a set of book-locks and there are cases of forbidden books that required a special dispensation to read.
The Philosophical Hall, 1794, is taller — two storeys of walnut shelving reaching to the ceiling, with a gallery, holding around 42,000 volumes. The ceiling fresco by Anton Maulbertsch, painted in six months, is titled The Spiritual Development of Mankind.
Between them runs a cabinet of curiosities in the connecting corridor: shells, insects, minerals, a hydra assembled from other animals, two dried whale penises, and a narwhal tusk that was sold to the monastery as a unicorn horn. This is a genuine seventeenth-century Wunderkammer and it is wonderful.
The viewing arrangement
Worth being clear about, because it disappoints people who have seen photographs taken from the middle of the room.
On a standard ticket you look in from the doorway, behind a rope. You get an excellent view of both halls and you do not walk between the shelves. The rooms are working historic libraries and the floors and books are fragile.
Interior access is possible by separate arrangement at a substantially higher price. If the photograph is what you are here for, arrange it in advance rather than discovering the rope.
The rest of the monastery
The Basilica of the Assumption, baroque, where Mozart is supposed to have played the organ.
The Strahov Picture Gallery, one of the better monastic collections in central Europe, and quiet.
The Strahov Brewery, in the monastery grounds, brewing on site with a beer hall and a terrace. Monastic brewing here goes back centuries; the current operation is a 2000 revival.
The view
The terrace outside the monastery gives one of the great views of Prague — the whole city below, the castle to the right, the spires of the Old Town across the river. It is free, it faces east, and it is best in the late afternoon.
Petřín Hill and its observation tower are a short walk south along the orchard paths.
Practical
Tram 22 to Pohořelec is the painless approach; walking up from Malá Strana is steep.
Combining Strahov with the castle makes a full day, and doing Strahov first and walking down through the castle to Malá Strana keeps it downhill.
More History
St Vitus Cathedral
Six hundred years under construction and finished in 1929, with a Mucha window, the Bohemian crown jewels behind seven locks, and Wenceslas's chapel.
Josefov, the Jewish Quarter
Six synagogues, a cemetery with twelve layers of graves, and a collection that exists because the Nazis intended to make a museum of an exterminated people.
Vyšehrad
A fortress on a rock above the Vltava, older than the castle in legend and younger in fact, with the national cemetery and almost no tourists.