Vyšehrad is a hill fort of the 10th century that became a royal seat when Vratislav II, crowned the first King of Bohemia in 1085, moved his court here and founded the collegiate chapter of SS Peter and Paul in 1070. Charles IV rebuilt it in the 1340s and made it the start of the coronation route: a new king spent the eve of his coronation here before processing to the castle. The Hussites destroyed most of it in 1420, and in the 17th century the Habsburgs flattened what remained into a Baroque artillery fortress. That is what you walk on today — bastions, gates and ramparts, not a medieval castle.
What survives from before 1420 is worth finding on the way round. The Rotunda of St Martin (about 1100) is one of the oldest standing buildings in Prague, a plain Romanesque cylinder with a cannonball lodged in the wall above the door. The foundations of the basilica of St Lawrence (late 11th century) are sheltered under a small building near the centre. Fragments of Charles IV’s gatehouse, the Špička, are built into a house on V Pevnosti. The Devil’s Column — three broken pieces of stone in the lawn — carries a legend about a bet between a priest and the devil.
The casemates are the paid attraction: a guided walk of 45–60 minutes into the tunnels the garrison used to move between bastions, ending in Gorlice, a vaulted underground assembly hall that now holds six original Baroque statues taken off Charles Bridge and replaced there by copies. Seeing them at arm’s length, indoors, under artificial light, is a completely different object from the silhouettes on the parapet. Tours are guided in Czech and English and start from the Brick Gate.
The basilica of SS Peter and Paul is neo-Gothic (1885–1903). The Gothic Cellar exhibition on Vyšehrad’s history has been displaced by renovation into the Gunpowder House as of 2026, under the title “The Rise and Fall of Vyšehrad”.
