Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, Vysehrad

Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, Vysehrad tickets: which one to buy

A small ticket covers the basilica; the Vysehrad cemetery beside it, where much of Czech culture is buried, is free and open longer. The casemates under the ramparts and the Gothic cellar exhibition each charge their own token sum. The whole fortress hill is a public park with no entry charge at all, which makes this one of the cheapest half days in Prague.

Guided tours of Vysehrad cost several times the tickets. The hill is on metro line C at Vysehrad station, ten minutes from the centre, and the walk in from the station passes the Congress Centre and enters through the Tabor gate. Nothing needs booking. Organ concerts are held in the basilica in summer. The Vysehrad information centre by the gate sells the combined ticket for the casemates and the exhibition.

Visiting Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, Vysehrad: what to see

Vysehrad is the older of Prague's two castle hills and the one the legends attach to: the mythical princess Libuse is said to have prophesied the city's glory from this rock. A church has stood here since the eleventh century; the present basilica is a Gothic rebuilding heavily reworked in the 1880s and 1890s by Josef Mocker, who gave it the twin neo-Gothic spires that appear on the skyline from the river.

The interior is the surprise: every wall and vault is covered in Art Nouveau painting of 1902 by Frantisek and Marie Urban, a dense pattern of foliage, saints and gold that belongs to the Vienna Secession rather than to the Middle Ages. Beside it, the Slavin tomb in the cemetery holds Dvorak, Smetana, Mucha and Capek. A stone sarcophagus in the crypt is claimed by legend to hold St Longinus, and the cemetery's arcades were designed in the 1890s as a national pantheon. The Urban painting scheme took four years and covers about three thousand square metres, and the church was the first in Bohemia to be decorated in this manner.

Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, Vysehrad opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily with shorter hours in winter and closure for services; the cemetery opens earlier and closes later. The hill is a Prague park and is busiest on summer weekends with families rather than tourists. The ramparts on the river side give the best view of the Vltava bend and the castle beyond, and are at their best in the late afternoon. Winter is quiet and often foggy. Dress modestly. Photography without flash is allowed.

Allow half an hour for the basilica and two hours for the hill, including the cemetery and the rotunda of St Martin, which is the oldest surviving building in Prague. The park is open at all hours and the ramparts are a favourite Prague spot for watching the sunset over the river. Concerts in the basilica are advertised on boards at the Tabor gate and tickets are sold at the door on the night.