Best Nature Parks In Prague Near Me

4worldlovers: The garden with the area of almost 22 ha located on the southern and south-eastern slope of the hill of Petřín has been separated from other Petřín gardens by the Hunger Wall. The main entrance is from the Kinských square.

Originally there were forests here followed by vineyards in the Middle Ages, mostly owned by the monastery. The name of the vineyard (Paradise or V kartouzích - by the Carthusian monastery) has been well known. Later settlements and courtyards were established there. After the Thirty Years war the place was desolate. In 1828 Růžena Kinská bought the lands and her son Rudolf Kinský founded the English-style garden here designed by his economic director František Höhnl. It was extended and modified in 1848 and again from 1860 to 1861 by the architect Bedřich Wünscher, who worked 62 years for Kinsky family. In 1831 the construction of the classical summerhouse by Viennese architect Heinrich Koch was completed, terrain modelling and planting were made and the 380 m long tunnel to the water source of two newly created ponds with a waterfall between them was driven. Also the carriage house called Švýcárna and ten greenhouses for tropical and subtropical plants were built. The building works in the garden were completed by the wife of Rudolf Kinsky, Wilhelmine, after his death due to his fall from a horse. At that time the garden was open for public twice a week, whereas tickets were sold in the Kinsky Palace. A descendant of the founders wanted to parcel out the garden and to sell lands for the construction of block of flats, which was prevented by the City of Prague, which bought the garden in 1901, opened it for the public in 1908 and re-cultivated it. The City of Prague lent the Kinsky Summerhouse to the Ethnographic Czechoslavic Society for the exhibits from the large Ethnographic Exhibition, held in Prague in 1895; in this way the Ethnographic Museum, open to the public in 1903 was established (see the separate document Kinsky Summerhouse).The garden was intended to be turned into a spectacular "ethnographic park", but ultimately it only became a location of some of the exhibits. One example is a wooden belfry from Dolní Bojanovice near Hodonín and Baroque monument from the 18th century. – a calvary with pyramid sundial and artistic decoration in the form of the plague column. The spear in the belly of Christ and the arrow in the body of St. Sebastian served for dropping shadow on the clock dial. Originally the column stood in Žižkov reportedly at the place of today’s St. Prokop church commemorating the plague epidemic.