Malá Strana hides its best rooms outdoors. Behind the palace walls below the castle is a chain of baroque terrace gardens — peacocks, statues, grottoes, and belvederes staged for the view back up the hill. Most are seasonal, roughly April to October; come in that window or the gates stay shut.
Start at the Valdštejnská zahrada, the soldier Wallenstein's enormous garden, free and loud with peacocks. The bronze avenue down the middle is a set of copies — the originals were Swedish war loot in 1648. Walk it to the great vaulted sala terrena and look back at the castle, which is the whole composition.
From there, climb the terraced Palace Gardens — Ledebour and the rest, stacked up the hill in balustraded flights — if the season has the gates open. Then the Vrtbovská zahrada off Karmelitská, smallest and finest, where the climb to the belvedere hands you St Nicholas's dome over the roofs. End on Malostranské náměstí, a drink, the tram.
