Budget · 3-hour walk · Prague
Vyšehrad and the river in three hours
The Dancing House, the riverside embankment, the Cubist houses and the other castle, with its basilica and the cemetery of the nation's artists.
The Old Town route is the Prague every visitor sees; Vyšehrad is the one Praguers keep for themselves. It is the city's other castle, on a rock above the river where legend says Prague was founded, and it holds the graves of Dvořák, Smetana and Mucha. Walk south along the embankment to get there and come back by metro, or stay for the sunset on the ramparts.
The route, stop by stop
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Dancing House
Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić's "Fred and Ginger", finished in 1996 on a bomb site from the war. The rooftop bar has the best cheap view of the castle upstream.
15 min here Walk here → -
Náplavka
The riverside quay below the embankment, lined with boat bars and, on Saturday mornings, the city's best farmers' market.
20 min here Walk here → -
Cubist houses
Below the rock, a cluster of villas from 1912 and 1913 in the style only Prague really built: Cubism in three dimensions, all prisms and faceted corners.
15 min here Walk here → -
Basilica of Sts Peter and Paul
Up the hill to the twin spires on the rock. The neo-Gothic basilica inside is painted floor to vault in Art Nouveau colour.
30 min here Walk here → -
Vyšehrad Cemetery
The graves of the nation: Dvořák, Smetana, Mucha, Karel Čapek, and the shared Slavín tomb for those the country most wanted to honour. The arcades have some of the finest gravestones in Europe.
30 min here Walk here → -
Vyšehrad ramparts
Walk the baroque ramparts round the rock for the view down the Vltava to the castle, with the river bending below you.
20 min here Walk here →
More in Prague
Every walking route in Prague, or the full Prague guide for where to stay and what a day costs.