Franciscan Gardens

This guide to the Franciscan Gardens in Prague traces Charles the Fourth's unbuilt basilica, meant to crown his new town, abandoned mid-construction when the Hussite Wars scattered the friars. It follows the site's turn from a Carmelite kitchen garden after 1348 to a Franciscan monastery, and its opening to the public in 1950 when the state arrested the friars who tended it. Listen for the wrought iron gate near the entrance, its twenty-four small scenes tracing the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.