Mala Strana
Mala Strana ("Little Side") was originally a popular and nowadays also the official name for the former Mensà mesto prazske ("The Lesser Town of Prague"), one of Prague's historical and oldest boroughs.
Its name comes from its position on the left (west) bank of the river Vltava, on the slopes just below the Prague Castle, in opposition to the larger towns of Prague on the right bank, to which it is conjoined by the Charles Bridge.
In the Middle Ages, it was a dominant centre of the German settlement of Prague. It also housed a large number of noble palaces while the right-bank towns were comparatively more bourgeois and more Czech.
The famous Czech novelist Jan Neruda was born, lived in and wrote about Mala Strana.