Troja

What it is

The green flood plain on the left bank opposite Holešovice — a villa-and-vineyard suburb that happens to hold three of Prague's best family half-days side by side: the zoo, a Baroque château and the botanical garden. It is administratively Praha 7, but in feel it is the countryside, twenty minutes from Old Town Square.

What is here

Prague Zoo, spread over a river plain and a steep hillside connected by a chairlift, and regularly ranked among the best zoos in the world — a genuine full-day attraction, not an obligation for parents. Next door, Troja Château, a wine-red-and-white Baroque summer palace of the 1680s with a frescoed grand hall and formal gardens, run by the Prague City Gallery. On the slope above, the Botanical Garden with the Fata Morgana tropical greenhouse and the St Clare vineyard, whose terrace looks back over the whole city. The vineyard tradition is alive: Salabka, a working Prague vineyard with a tasting restaurant, sits in the same fold of hills.

What it is like

A day out rather than a district: open, green, unhurried, and almost entirely without urban life — no bar street, no café rows, families and cyclists instead. The zoo's lower level carries the memory of the 2002 and 2013 floods, which is why the modern layout climbs the hill.

Practical

Bus 112 from Nádraží Holešovice (metro C) stops at the zoo, château and garden in sequence. The pleasant alternative is on foot from Holešovice: through Stromovka park and across the footbridges over Císařský ostrov, about half an hour of good walking. A small passenger ferry also crosses from Podbaba in season. Go at zoo opening time on summer weekends — the queues later are real. Nobody should base a Prague stay in Troja: it is a superb day, and the evening belongs back across the river.