Wallenstein Palace

The general's palace and its garden of bronzes and a dripstone wall

Area Malá Strana
Type Palace
Time needed 1h

Wallenstein Palace in Malá Strana was built between 1623 and 1630 for Albrecht von Wallenstein, the Imperial general of the Thirty Years' War, who cleared a couple of dozen houses and a brickworks to make room for it. It was the first large Baroque palace in Prague and is now the seat of the Senate of the Czech Republic. That split matters for visitors: the garden is free and open through the warmer months on ordinary days, while the state rooms inside can normally be seen only at weekends.

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Getting there

Metro line A (green) to Malostranská, then two minutes along Letenská to the garden gate; the tram stop Malostranská on routes 2, 12, 15, 18, 20 and 22 is at the same place. From Staroměstské náměstí it is about fifteen minutes on foot across Charles Bridge and through Malá Strana, or three stops on the tram. The approach is flat — this is the bottom of the Castle hill, not the climb — and the garden entrance is an easily missed doorway in a long wall.

What you see

Take the garden first. It is a formal enclosure with a central avenue of clipped hedges, a carp pond with an island pavilion, and an aviary of live owls at one end. The two set pieces are the sala terrena, a huge open loggia with painted mythological ceilings facing down the avenue, and the dripstone wall opposite — a long artificial grotto of lumpy stalactite-like masonry in which faces, animals and grotesques are hidden, worth standing close to. The bronzes along the avenue are copies of Adriaen de Vries's figures, the originals having been carried off to Sweden in 1648; the copies still read as a coherent set. Inside the palace, the weekend route takes in the main Baroque hall with Wallenstein painted on its ceiling as Mars in a chariot, the astrological corridor, a chapel, and the committee rooms now used by the Senate, with display cases on the building's history and on parliamentary business.

What to pair it with

The Castle is directly above, reached by the Old Castle Steps from Malostranská. Vrtba Garden and the Church of Saint Nicholas in Malá Strana are a few minutes west, and Charles Bridge is five minutes north-east.

When to go

The garden is seasonal, opening in spring and closing for the winter, and is at its best in the first half of the day before the Castle crowds spill down the hill; late afternoon light hits the sala terrena frescoes well. Palace interiors are a weekend proposition, usually limited to set hours on Saturday and Sunday, and they shut entirely when the Senate needs the rooms or for state occasions — always check before you go. Concerts are held in the garden in summer evenings.

What is hard about it

Two separate disappointments catch people out. Turning up on a weekday expecting the interior gets you the garden only, and turning up in winter gets you neither. The palace route is a working legislature, so there are security checks, bag restrictions and staff limits on where you may stand, and parts are closed without notice. The garden bronzes are replicas, which some visitors resent once they learn it. The owls are in enclosures that are small by modern standards. Interpretation in English is thin in both the garden and the house.

Common questions

How long do you need at Wallenstein Palace?

About an hour: thirty to forty minutes for the garden, and a similar time again for the interior if you are there on a weekend.

Do you need a ticket?

The garden is free to enter in season, and the weekend tours of the state rooms are normally free as well, with numbers limited on the day. Check the Senate's arrangements before you go.

Can you get into the palace on a weekday?

Not as a general visitor. The building is in use by the Senate during the week, so plan the interior for Saturday or Sunday.

Nearby

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