Best Parks For Picnics In Prague Near Me

4worldlovers: Petřín Hill above the Vltava river between Malá Strana and Strahov is one of the most extensive green areas in the city, with the highest elevation above sea level reaching 320 - 238 m. The first written reference about it dates back to 1108, when the last members of the Vršovec family were executed in the local execution place. Back then, the hill was covered by a deep forest stretching all the way to Bílá Hora. The name Petřín was probably first used in the 17th century, and it may be derived from the Latin word petrus (the rocks). The original name was German - Laurenzberg - after the Chapel of St. Vavřinec (Laurenz), built here at the turn of the 10th century. In the Middle Ages, the forest gradually gave way to vineyards and farming lands. In the 14th century, Charles IV had a Hunger Wall built here. It is 1178 m long, 7.5 - 8 m high, and the average width is 170 cm. One explanation says he wanted to employ the starving citizens at a time when there was no crop to harvest, but the point probably was to provide Malá Strana with new fortification. Since 1980, extensive restoration of the badly damaged Hunger Wall have been realized in stages, with the aim to return it to the original state. A romantic observation place called Citadela from the last century is again used for its original purpose. Ever since long ago, there were lots of springs rising from the Petřín hills, and so an aqueduct was built here in the past. It was a system of tunnels bringing water to the Strahov monastery, to Pohořelec, and to Malá Strana, too. The tunnels went through several reconstructions. In 1965, water which kept undermining Petřín actually caused a landslip damaging the cableway track and causing other damages. After a reconstruction and completion, there are seventeen tunnels now leading the Petřín springs down to Vltava.

Over the course of centuries, Petřín hill was divided into several gardens, the cultivation of which mostly dates back to the 1830s. The largest garden called Kinský Garden, was established outside the ramparts and thus forms a separate unit.

The following gardens can be found at Petřín: Lobkowicz Garden, Nebozízek, Rose Orchard, Park at the Observation Tower, and Seminar Garden.

The oldest one of them is the terraced Lobkowicz Garden, which belongs to the Lobkowicz palace where the German embassy has its seat, and the garden is not open for public.

Nebozízek Garden is located between Újezd, the Hunger Wall and the cableway. It spreads from the foot of the hill all the way to the upper cableway station. Its surface area is 8 ha. The name comes from a vineyard name, which was Nebozez as early as in the 15th century. It later became an orchard and it was purchased by the Prague community, which had it partly modified into a garden according to a project of architect Jiří Braul and opened for public in 1842. An extensive modification into a city park was carried out according to a project of garden architect František Thomayer in 1891, on the occasion of the Jubilee exhibition and the construction of the cableway. At the end of the 19th century, Sokol movement at Malá Strana built its house in the lower part. In the 20th century, it was extended by the so called Dahlia Orchard, modified in place of the Újezd barracks, where Jan Neruda was born. In relation to the reconstruction of the Classicist and later modernised restaurant Nebozízek during the 1920s, also the surrounding gardens were treated by garden architects Zdeněk Sendler and Václav Babka.