Kinský Garden — A Hidden Retreat Below Petřín Hill

There is a park on the southern slope of Petřín Hill that most guidebooks either skip or mention in a single sentence. Kinský Garden (Kinského zahrada) covers roughly eight hectares of wooded hillside between Štefánikova street and the upper slopes of Petřín, and on a weekday afternoon you will share it with joggers, parents with strollers, and not much else. It is one of the most pleasant parks below Petřín, and it feels nothing like a tourist attraction.

We sometimes route our All Prague in One Day private tour through here when guests want a quieter alternative to the crowded Petřín paths. The garden rewards an unhurried pace — there are viewpoints, old trees, and a small palace that most visitors never find.

How the Garden Got Its Name

The land originally belonged to the Kinský family, one of Bohemia's oldest noble houses. Count Rudolf Kinský purchased the hillside estate in the early 19th century and commissioned a landscape garden in the English style — naturalistic paths winding through mature trees, with deliberate sight lines framing views of the city below.

The garden was redesigned and opened to the public in the mid-19th century. Unlike the formal geometry of Baroque gardens like Wallenstein or Vrtba, Kinský Garden was meant to feel like a walk through curated nature. Paths curve around rock outcroppings and descend through groves of oak and beech. In autumn, the leaf colour here rivals anything in the city.

The family name is pronounced roughly "KIN-skee" — you will see it spelled Kinský with the háček on the y, which is standard Czech orthography. Locals call the park "Kinského zahrada" or simply "Kinskeho."

The Kinský Summer Palace

Near the lower entrance on Štefánikova street stands the Kinský Summer Palace (Letohrádek Kinských), a neoclassical villa built in the 1820s. The building housed the National Museum's ethnographic collection for decades, displaying Czech and Slovak folk art, traditional costumes, and rural crafts. [VERIFY if the ethnographic museum exhibition is currently open — the building has undergone renovation periods.]

The palace itself is worth a look from the outside even if the exhibition is closed. The facade is restrained neoclassical — white columns, a triangular pediment, clean symmetry — set against the hillside greenery. In front of the building, a small pond and open lawn create a calm gathering point that feels miles from the city centre, even though tram lines pass within two hundred metres.

Walking Through the Park

The garden has two practical entrances. The lower entrance is on Štefánikova street (tram stop Švandovo divadlo), which brings you in at the level of the Summer Palace. The upper routes connect to the Petřín hillside trails — you can climb through Kinský Garden and emerge near the Petřín Lookout Tower or the Rose Garden without ever touching the main tourist paths.

The terrain is hilly. This is a park below Petřín, built on the actual slope of the hill, so expect inclines. Paved paths handle the main routes, but several side trails are packed earth and can get muddy after rain. Comfortable shoes are a good idea.