Letná is the plateau Prague keeps for itself. The tourists are down on the bridges; up here it's dog-walkers, skateboarders, and the best free view in the city. Three kilometres along the rim and back down to the river, with one of the strangest pieces of twentieth-century history sitting in plain sight.
Start at Hradčanská and walk into the sady (park) — flat, green, edged by the drop to the Vltava. Make for the terrace where the metronome ticks. The giant red arm stands on the plinth that once held the largest statue of Stalin ever built: unveiled in 1955, blown up in 1962, its sculptor dead by his own hand the day before the ribbon was cut. The metronome went up in 1991. Tell the history plainly; the place does the rest.
West along the rim to the Hanavský pavilon, the iron pavilion with the bridges laid out below, then back east to the beer garden under the chestnuts — the proper Letná afternoon. End by dropping through the orchards to Čechův most and the river, with the metro at Malostranská a short walk on.
