Petřín with its lookout tower above the Vltava, seen from the Old Town Bridge TowerPhoto: Ludek · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Petřín is a hill in Prague, largely laid out as public parks.^[1] Besides the parks on its slopes, it includes the summit with the lookout tower, the Church of St Lawrence, the upper station of the funicular and the Štefánik Observatory. According to Praha virtuální, the name most likely derives from the Latin word for rocks.^[1]^*

Parks

The hill was originally wooded. Over time vineyards and orchards appeared on it, and eventually publicly accessible parks crossed by paths, the main one of which is called Vyhlídková.^[1] The Heritage Catalogue of the National Heritage Institute describes Petřín Park, formed by the Nebozízek garden and the Seminary Garden, on the east and north-east slope above Újezd Street. It was created on the site of an orchard that had developed from a medieval vineyard by the end of the 16th century, and in 1891–1895 it was landscaped according to František Thomayer. It adjoins the Kinský Garden and the Rose Garden.^[2] The park contains, among others, a monument to Karel Hynek Mácha, a memorial to Vojtěch Náprstek and a statue of Jan Neruda.^[2]

The Hunger Wall, built under Charles IV in 1360–1362, runs across Petřín.^[6] The Nebozízek homestead, a former vineyard estate, has served as a restaurant since 1883. After a landslide in 1965 it had to be demolished and replaced by a replica.^[4]

Prague with St Lawrence Hill (Petřín), etching by Wenceslaus Hollar, 17th centuryEngraving: Václav Hollar, 17th century · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Church of St Lawrence

On the summit stands the single-nave Baroque Church of St Lawrence, first recorded in 1135. Its Baroque rebuilding to a design by Ignác Palliardi was completed in 1770. The Josephine reforms closed the church in 1784; it was consecrated again in 1840. In 1994 the city leased it to the Old Catholic Church.^[5]

Lookout tower

Members of the Czech Tourist Club who visited the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 decided to build a replica of the Eiffel Tower in Prague. The founding meeting of the Petřín Lookout Tower Cooperative took place on 28 April 1890. Assembly of the steel structure, weighing 174 tonnes, was finished on 2 July 1891, and the tower opened on 20 August 1891, the year of the Jubilee Land Exhibition.^[3] The design is attributed to Vratislav Pasovský; the structure was designed by František Prášil and Julius Souček of the Českomoravská strojírna engineering works.^[7] From 1953 the tower was used for television broadcasting, which ended in 1992 after the Žižkov transmitter came into service.^[3] The tower is managed by Prague City Tourism. According to the company, it is 58.70 m high and corresponds to the Eiffel Tower at a ratio of 1 : 5; 299 steps lead to the top, and a lift runs to the viewing cabin at a height of 51 m.^[10]

Funicular

The funicular was built in 1891 as a link to the lookout tower and at first ran on the water-ballast principle. It was out of service in the 1920s; in 1931–1932 it was electrified and extended. A landslide on 7 June 1965 destroyed the line. After reconstruction in 1983–1985, service resumed on 15 June 1985.^[4] The funicular is operated by the Prague Public Transit Company; the line is 510.4 m long and overcomes a height difference of 130.45 m.^[8] The previous, third generation of cars ran for the last time on 13 September 2024. After the reconstruction of the line and the slope, service resumed on 22 September 2026 with fourth-generation cars from the Doppelmayr/Garaventa group, which hold 120 passengers.^[9]^[11]

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Sources

* The sources are collected and the preliminary text of this entry is drafted with artificial intelligence, on the instruction of the editorial staff; the entry has not yet been verified by an editor — report a mistake.