Seminary Garden Orchards
Why is it significant?
Walk in among the fruit trees and listen for a moment. On a quiet morning you hear more blackbirds than traffic, even though Charles Bridge is less than a kilometre away.
Key Facts
| Place | Seminary Garden Orchards |
|---|---|
| Address | Seminářská zahrada, Petřínské sady, 118 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08390, 14.39950 |
| Part of Walk | Prague's Green Hill: Petřín Orchards, the Hunger Wall & Strahov's Painted Libraries |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk in among the fruit trees and listen for a moment. On a quiet morning you hear more blackbirds than traffic, even though Charles Bridge is less than a kilometre away. These are old orchards of apple, pear and cherry, planted in rows down the slope, and in late April the blossom is so thick that the hillside seems to float above the city.
The name, Seminářská zahrada, comes from the archbishop's seminary, the college for young priests, which once owned this land. But fruit and vines on Petřín are far older than that. In the Middle Ages these slopes were covered with vineyards, and the hill was also a quarry. The chronicler Cosmas, writing around 1100, explained the name Petřín with the Latin word for rock, petra. That rock, a pale grey-yellow marl stone called opuka, went into Prague's Romanesque churches and many of its early town houses.
On the first of May, this is where Prague comes to kiss. Tradition says a couple should kiss under a blossoming tree on May Day, and the classic place to do it is Petřín, near the statue of the Romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha. His long poem Máj, May, published in 1836, opens on a late evening in May, the time of love, and almost every Czech can recite that first line. Mácha died that same year, aged just twenty-five... so the couples are, in a way, keeping his poem alive for him.
Now find a bench and look north-east. Prague Castle and the spires of St Vitus sit on the ridge to your left, the river shines below, and the towers of the Old Town crowd together on the far bank. It is one of the finest views in the city, and you often have it almost to yourself, because most visitors are still queuing for the funicular.
There is something lovely about a capital that keeps working orchards in its centre. In late summer the fruit simply ripens and drops into the long grass, as it has for generations. Now climb the paths up the slope, heading south-west towards the top of the hill. Look for two white domes rising out of the trees... that is where Prague goes to look at the stars.