Divoká Šárka

Park · Vokovice / Liboc (Prague 6)Prague,Czechia

A two-kilometre rock gorge inside Prague whose sunlit wall grows steppe plants and whose shaded crags keep cold ferns a few metres away.

Divoká Šárka is a rock gorge inside the city limits, about two kilometres of it, cut by the Šárecký stream through hard silicite and shale. Its two walls behave like different countries. The sun-facing slope carries dry steppe plants that belong further south and east; the shaded northern crags keep cold-loving ferns, a few metres away across the water. Sheep and goats are brought onto the slopes on purpose, to eat the scrub that would otherwise close the steppe over. The reserve was declared in 1964 and covers some twenty-five hectares. People have used the valley for a very long time: there are Palaeolithic finds here, and a Slavic hillfort of the ninth and tenth centuries stands on the high ground, protected in its own right. The gorge takes its name from Šárka, a warrior of the founding legend, who is said to have thrown herself from the rock above it. At the bottom is a swimming pool one family opened in 1930, still fed from a spring.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Ride the tram to the end of the line and start there — the valley begins a short walk from the terminus, and arriving by car is awkward because you cannot drive down into the gorge at all.
The rock paths are genuinely rough — unsurfaced, steep in stretches and slick after rain, with drops beside them; this is a nature reserve rather than a park and it is not walked in city shoes.
Swimming has moved downhill — the reservoir at the top has been shut to bathers since 2022, while the spring-fed pool further down the valley opens in the summer months and has done since 1930.
Late spring is when the sunny slope pays — the steppe flora on the south-facing rocks flowers early and briefly, and by high summer the same ground is brown and looks like nothing at all.

Things to do

1
Walk the gorge from the dam downstream
Start at the top where the reservoir dam is and follow the stream down through the narrowest part of the valley. The walls close in, the path crosses the water more than once, and the noise of the city stops completely for about twenty minutes. It is the only stretch of true gorge inside the city boundary.
2
Compare the two sides of the valley
Stand where you can see both walls at once. One face is dry, pale and stony with low steppe plants; the other is dark, damp and ferny. They are metres apart and belong to different botanical worlds, and once you notice the difference you cannot walk the valley without checking which side you are on.
3
Swim in spring water in a wooded valley
In summer, walk down to the pool below the rocks. It has been running since 1930, is filled from a spring, and rarely warms much beyond the low twenties. Getting in is a decision rather than a pleasure, and it is the closest thing Prague has to bathing in a river valley.