Southern Gardens

In front of the line of castle towers and palaces, where only the battlements of massive walls stood for centuries, today lies a garden complex known collectively as the Southern Gardens. Two of the three gardens bear the distinctive and unmistakable mark of Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik, the castle architect from the era of President Masaryk. He began his work at the Castle in the so-called Paradise Garden, whose austere appearance is accentuated by two grand gestures typical of Plečnik: a monumental entrance staircase and a giant bowl made of Mrákotín granite that seems to levitate above the greenish lawn. 

Under the weight of this monumentality, we should not overlook Matthias Pavilion at the end of the garden, a remnant from the Baroque era, complemented by a sculpture by Josef Kalvoda. Following a row of trimmed hornbeams, the Garden on the Ramparts seamlessly continues, where Plečnik added small pavilions and an impressive semicircular lookout with a limestone pyramid referencing ancient Rome among its centuries-old trees.