If you want to take a walk along Aleš Embankment, you can stroll down a tucked-away, quiet street running from Platnéřská Street behind the Four Seasons Hotel and the art-school building, across Jan Palach Square, past Mánes Bridge and the Rudolfinum, all the way to Na Rejdišti Street.
Based on Leopold Herget's (1791) and Josef Jüttner's (1811) maps of Prague, we can assume that today's Aleš Embankment was almost deserted around 1840. Yet it was here that a busy connection ran with the opposite Lesser Town bank — there used to be a ford here, then a wooden bridge, and finally a chain footbridge. It is not so long ago that the embankment behind the Rudolfinum served as a tour-bus car park.
From 1870 the embankment here was called Lower Embankment (the local ferry was likewise called Lower, while opposite Kampa there used to be the Upper Ferry and Upper Embankment). It was given the name Aleš Embankment only in 1919. The most important building on the embankment is the House of Artists — the Rudolfinum with the Dvořák Concert Hall and exhibition halls of the National Gallery.
On one of our longer cruises along Aleš Embankment you can admire a number of Prague landmarks, including the Rudolfinum or one of the smallest Prague islands — Křižovník Island.
