Petřín is a hill in the center of Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. It rises some 130 m above the left bank of the Vltava River. The hill, almost entirely covered with park

Park

A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...

s, is a favorite recreational area for the inhabitants of Prague. The hill (in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 known as Laurenziberg) is featured prominently in Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

's early short story "Description of a Struggle

Description of a Struggle

"Description of a Struggle" is a short story by Franz Kafka.-Origins:"Description of a Struggle" is one of Kafka's earliest stories that was not destroyed and is usually the earliest included in collections of his work...

" and briefly in Milan Kundera's

Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...

 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being , written by Milan Kundera, is a philosophical novel about two men, two women, a dog and their lives in the Prague Spring of the Czechoslovak Communist period in 1968. Although written in 1982, the novel was not published until two years later, in France...

.

The summit of the hill is linked to Prague's Malá Strana

Malá Strana

Malá Strana is a district of the city of Prague, Czech Republic, and one of its most historic regions.The name translated into English literally means "Little Side", though it is frequently referred to as "Lesser Town", "Lesser Quarter", or "Lesser Side"...

 district by the Petřín funicular

Petrín funicular

The Petřín funicular is a funicular railway in the Czech capital city of Prague. It links the Malá Strana district with the top of Petřín hill. The funicular has three stops: Újezd , Nebozízek and Petřín...

, a funicular railway

Funicular

A funicular, also known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, is a cable railway in which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves them up and down a steep slope; the ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.-Operation:The basic principle of funicular...

 that first operated in 1891.

Main sights

• Hunger Wall
  Hladová zed
  Hladová zeď is a medieval defence wall in Prague, today's Czech Republic. It was built on Petřín Hill during 1360 - 1362 by order of Charles IV....
  
  
• Strahov Monastery
• Petřín funicular
  Petrín funicular
  The Petřín funicular is a funicular railway in the Czech capital city of Prague. It links the Malá Strana district with the top of Petřín hill. The funicular has three stops: Újezd , Nebozízek and Petřín...
  
  
• Petřín lookout tower
  Petrínská rozhledna
  The Petřín Lookout Tower is a 60 metre high steel framework tower in Prague, which strongly resembles the Eiffel Tower. Although it is much shorter than the Eiffel Tower, it stands atop a sizable hill, Petřín, so the top is actually at a higher altitude than that of the Eiffel Tower...
  
  
• Štefánik´s Observatory
  Štefánik´s Observatory
  Štefánik's Observatory is an observatory on Petřín hill in the center of Prague founded 1928 and named after Slovak astronomer Milan Rastislav Štefánik...
  
  
• Strahov Stadium
  Strahov Stadium
  The Great Strahov Stadium is a stadium in the Strahov district of Prague, Czech Republic. The stadium is the largest in the world, and is the second largest sports facility worldwide after the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, seating around 220,000....
  
  
• Rose Garden
• St Lawrence Church
• St Michael Church (wooden, transferred from Subcarpathian Ruthenia in 1920s)
• Memorial to the victims of Communism