Traveling in Style : TO THE CASTLE, STEP BY STEP : In Prague, Climb a Back Stairway Into History

PRAGUE IS OFTEN DESCRIBED AS HAVING the quality of a fairy tale. The spires on its churches end in stars. Houses painted deep rose and ocher line the narrow cobbled streets. Many doors are crowned with paintings--a swan with its wings uplifted, a crawfish, three violins--that once represented the occupation of the owner of the house and served as its address until the Hapsburgs made the Bohemian Czechs use numbers. Today, businesses are sometimes named for the original address. The Three Ostriches, an inn, once belonged to a supplier of feathers to the king.

As in any fairy tale, there is a castle. The Hradcany rests above the city on its highest hill, a rocky outcropping about 850 feet above the river, the seat of authority in Prague since the 10th Century. From the Charles Bridge, the Hradcany looks less like a traditional castle than a huge palace. Wall upon wall of windows glitter in the sunlight. Behind the castle, the gray spires of St. Vitus Cathedral jut into the sky.

The best way to get to the castle is the back-door route: by way of the Old Castle Steps, which offer a view of a city built during eras when architecture was still in human scale. Charles IV reigned in the 14th Century, and the Hapsburgs, some 300 years later, made Prague the seat of their empire. The Hapsburgs abandoned Prague for Vienna, and while it never regained its status, Prague never was ruined by egos that might have razed its gorgeous buildings for something sleek and modern. The medieval monasteries, the university of the sophisticated, multilingual Charles IV and the baroque palaces and houses of the Hapsburgs remain intact largely because Prague’s fate was to become a backwater.

The Old Castle Steps lead from the Mala Strana (the baroque section of town where “Amadeus” was shot) to the eastern gates of the castle. Guidebooks say the steps begin at the Malostranska subway station, but I caught up with them by wandering around in the neighborhood to the right and uphill from the Charles Bridge. If you go crazy trying to find them from the bottom, take the better-known route to the castle--follow the main streets once you cross the Charles Bridge and take the New Castle Steps ( zmecke schody ) and the Castle Ramp ( ke hradu )--then tour the castle courtyards, ending at the far side from where you entered, and take the steps down from the top.

I found them just after I passed the British Embassy--with its white-walled garden and high gates--and continued up a squeeze-narrow alley.

Public steps in cities are often mysteriously seductive, and these are the best I’ve found. They curve up the hill toward the castle like a long, white bolt of cloth. Made of stone, the staircase is 10 to 15 feet wide and divided into short flights, each set followed by a plateau. On the day I was there, workmen dressed in the blue shirts and pants of street crews were drilling trenches in the walls of the houses on either side of the steps for new 220-volt wiring. Plaster dust spun into the air.

The houses along the steps are the most fanciful in Prague. They are two or three stories high, with small rooms stacked like children’s blocks. I passed a red, one-room upper floor with a blue door that opened straight off the steps; a house with a bird cage on a white balcony; a collection of houses built around a tiny courtyard filled up with potted plants and bicycles.

As the steps rise higher, the houses are replaced by gardens on the hillside below, tangled wildernesses of vines, trees and tall grass, nothing kempt. You can lean against a low wall and look down at the geometry of red-tiled roofs in the Mala Strana or across at a smaller hill, where there is a park and a replica of the Eiffel Tower.

On the left as the steps near the castle, a wall about 18 feet high rises, the beginning of the castle’s old fortifications. Just before entering the castle gates, I passed the Gold Lane, a row of little buildings, like dollhouses, where, depending on whom you believe, either the king’s alchemists, his sharpshooters or Franz Kafka once lived.

Within the castle walls are three courtyards, two palaces, a cathedral, a monastery, a basilica, a chapel and two towers. Prague’s kings ruled from here, as did the former Communist government. In November, 1989, during the street demonstrations that eventually brought down the Communists and installed playwright Vaclav Havel as president, graffiti appeared on the walls of buildings around town: “Havel na Hrad” (“Havel to the Castle”).

In an inner courtyard not far from the entrance to St. Vitus Cathedral, a small sign rested on a stand in the middle of the walkway. It read: “President’s Office,” and an arrow pointed to a set of thick, glass double-doors with brass handles. Inside, a nervous young man sat alone at a big desk in a white, coved-ceilinged hall and fluttered his hands when asked questions in English. The hall was clean and accessible: It felt as if old furniture had been removed, the crannies dusted and fresh air allowed in. Havel works in the room his predecessor had used only for naps, and, unlike him, Havel keeps the lights in the castle on at night.

GUIDEBOOK: PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Getting there: Czechoslovak Airlines offers nonstop service from New York to Prague three or four times a week, about $830 round trip for the summer with 14-day advance purchase; telephone (800) 223-2365. Airlines offering connecting flights from European cities are Lufthansa, Pan Am, British Airways, KLM and Finnair. Cedok, the Czechoslovakian travel agency, books tours. No visas required for visits of fewer than 30 days.

Where to stay: Because Prague is popular with tourists, hotel space is limited. It is wise to book rooms as far in advance as possible. Chicago-based Prague Suites books apartments that accommodate three or four people for $90 to $135; telephone (800) 426-8826. Hotel Inter-Continental, Nam Curieovych 5, Prague 1, about $213 for a double; from the United States, telephone (800) 327-0200. Hotel U Tri Pstrosu (Three Ostriches), Drazickeho Nam 12, Prague 1, about $120 for a double; telephone 011-42-2-53-6151.

For more information: 10 E. 40th St., New York 10016; (212) 689-9720.