Garden sights in Prague
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Letná Gardens & Terrace
Letná is a vast open space between Milady Horáková and the river, with a parade ground to the north and a peaceful park, the Letná Gardens (Letenské sady), in the south, offering picture-postcard views over the city and its bridges. In summer you’ll find an open-air beer garden. In 1261 Přemysl Otakar II held his coronation celebrations here, and during communist times, Letná was the site of Moscow-style May Day military parades. In 1989 around 750,000 people gathered here in support of the Velvet Revolution. In 2008, the far northwestern corner of the park was torn up to build the enormous Blanka Tunnel, part of Prague’s future ring-road system. When completed (anticipat…
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Royal Garden
The gate on the northern side of the Second Courtyard leads to the Powder Bridge (Prašný most; 1540), which spans the Stag Moat (Jelení příkop) and leads to the Royal Garden (Královská zahrada), which started life as a Renaissance garden built by Ferdinand I in 1534. The most beautiful of the garden’s buildings is the Ball-Game House (Míčovna; 1569), a masterpiece of Renaissance sgraffito where the Habsburgs once played a primitive version of badminton. To the east is the Summer Palace Letohrádek; 1538-60), or Belvedere, the most authentic Italian Renaissance building outside Italy, and to the west the former Riding School (Jízdárna; 1695). All three are used as venues fo…
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Palace Gardens Beneath Prague Castle
These beautiful, terraced gardens on the steep southern slopes of the castle hill date from the 17th and 18th centuries, when they were created for the owners of the adjoining palaces. They were restored in the 1990s and contain a Renaissance loggia with frescoes of Pompeii and a baroque portal with sundial that cleverly catches the sunlight reflected off the water in a triton fountain. There are two entrances on Valdštejnská street: one opposite the Wallenstein Palace, and one next to the Palffy Palace Restaurant. There’s also one at the top of the hill in the Garden on the Ramparts at Prague Castle.
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Vrtbov Garden
This ‘secret garden’, hidden along an alley at the corner of Tržiště and Karmelitská, was built in 1720 for the Earl of Vrtba, the senior chancellor of Prague Castle. It’s a formal baroque garden, climbing steeply up the hillside to a terrace graced with baroque statues of Roman mythological figures by Matthias Braun – see if you can spot Vulcan, Diana and Mars. Below the terrace (on the right, looking down) is a tiny studio once used by Czech painter Mikuláš Aleš, and above is a little lookout with good views of Prague Castle and Malá Strana.
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Charles University Botanical Garden
Just south of Karlovo náměstí (main entrance on Na Slupi) is Charles University’s botanical garden. Founded in 1775 and moved from Smíchov to its present site in 1898, it’s the country’s oldest botanical garden. The steep, hillside garden concentrates on Central European flora and is especially pretty in spring.
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