Vrtba Garden

Garden · Malá Strana — KarmelitskáPrague,Czechia

A Baroque garden climbing a Prague hillside in three terraces behind an unmarked street door, composed to be read whole from the bottom.

The Vrtba Garden is behind an unmarked door on a busy Malá Strana street, and it goes up rather than along. Three terraces rise on curved retaining walls, linked by stairs that turn back on themselves, so the view changes at every landing and the city arrives in pieces rather than all at once. Gods stand along the balustrades, an oval pool at the bottom holds a putto riding a sea creature, and shells and water deities are worked into the upper wall. The problem was the ground. Jan Josef, Count of Vrtba and Highest Burgrave of Prague Castle, owned a steep, awkward slice of the Petřín slope behind his palace, and between about 1715 and 1720 he had it turned into this. Nothing was flattened; the difficulty was used. What he paid for was a composition rather than a park, meant to be looked at whole from below and only then climbed through. Take it in that order. Stop at the bottom of the steps and look up before you start, because from the first landing on you are inside the drawing rather than in front of it.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Watch the numbers on Karmelitská rather than looking for a gate — the entrance is a plain passage between shop fronts with almost nothing to announce it, and most people walk the length of the street twice.
Stop on every landing and turn round — the stairs double back deliberately, so the composition below you is arranged differently from each level and is lost entirely if you climb straight to the top.
It is minutes from one of the busiest streets in the city and holds very few people — arrive early or late in the day, because twenty visitors are enough to fill the terraces.
Look into the garden room at the bottom before you climb — Reiner's frescoes are there, with Braun's Bacchus and Ceres flanking them, and almost everyone walks past it on the way to the stairs.
The top terrace looks over Malá Strana's roofs to the Castle — a close, low frame of tiles and towers rather than a panorama, and it is the reason the belvedere was put where it is.

Things to do

1
Climb it once, then look back down
Go up the double-turning stairs to the top terrace without stopping, then turn and read the garden as one drawing: pool, parterre, balustrades and the roofs of Malá Strana beyond. The composition was designed for exactly this reverse view, and it is the only point from which all three terraces line up.
2
Stand in the painted garden room at the foot of the stairs
Before climbing, step into the sala terrena at the bottom. Reiner's frescoes cover the vault and Braun's Bacchus and Ceres stand at either side. It is a room with one wall missing, made for sitting out a hot afternoon in, and nearly every visitor walks straight past it towards the steps.
3
Find the shells and water gods in the retaining wall
On the upper terrace, look at the wall rather than over it. Worked into the masonry are shell forms, mermaids and river deities in relief, half grotto and half decoration. They are at close range and easy to miss because everyone arriving on that level immediately turns to the view instead.