Letná Park

Park · Holešovice / LetnáPrague, Czechia

Letná is a flat green plateau on the left bank, one steep climb above the river, and the object on its edge explains most of its history. Between 1949 and 1955 a granite group statue was built here with Stalin at the front and a line of figures behind him, reported at the time as the largest of its kind in Europe and five and a half years in the making. It stood for seven years. In 1962 it was destroyed with around 800 kilograms of explosives, and the plinth was left. Since 1991 a 23-metre red metronome by Vratislav Karel Novák has stood on it, swinging. The plinth is now the city's best-known meeting point: skateboarders on the terrace, beer at the wall, and the whole Old Town spread below with the Vltava's bridges stitched across it one behind another. The cast-iron Hanavský Pavilion, a leftover from the 1891 exhibition, stands just west of it, while the park runs east under plane trees to a beer garden seating several hundred under the chestnuts. The climb up from the river takes about ten minutes.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The ritual is a half-litre on the wall — people take a beer out onto the terrace parapet instead of sitting inside, and on a warm evening the entire edge is occupied.
The beer garden runs with the weather — the tables under the chestnuts fill from spring through autumn and shut down completely once it turns cold.
The climb is short and steep — the stairs up from Čechův Bridge take about ten minutes and put you out directly beside the metronome.

Things to do

1
Take the beer out to the wall at sunset
Get a half-litre from the kiosk near the metronome and find a place on the terrace parapet. The light goes down across the river, the bridges come on one by one, and the whole edge of the plateau fills with people doing exactly the same thing.
2
Walk east under the plane trees
From the metronome the park runs level for about a kilometre with the drop to the river on your right the whole way. It ends at the beer garden under the chestnuts, and the walk itself is what people actually come up here for.
3
Walk west to the iron pavilion
It was an ironworks' own pavilion at the 1891 exhibition down in Holešovice; when that closed a prince bought it, gave it to the city, and the whole thing was taken apart and rebuilt up here in 1898. Nothing in Prague had been put together out of cast iron, concrete and glass before it. Its terrace hangs out over the drop with the bridges lining up below.