A visit to the Slavic hillfort at Levý Hradec, site of the oldest church in Bohemia: 2 km

• The hillfort settlement of Levý Hradec, overlooking the Vltava river 10 km to the north of Prague, is one of the most important archaeological sites in the country. It is also the location of the oldest known church in Bohemia, dedicated to St Clement.
• The church was founded by Prince Bořivoj I (the first historically documented ruler of the Přemyslid dynasty) in the second half of the 9th century. Bořivoj is believed to be the first Přemyslid Prince to have converted to Christianity. His baptism may have been performed by the great Byzantine missionary, St. Methodius, who was first Archbishop in the Great Moravian Empire. The Přemyslid controlled territories of Bohemia were allied (or possibly subordinated) to Great Moravia during the reign of Bořivoj, in the 880’s.
• Bořivoj and his wife, Ludmilla (who became Bohemia’s first national saint), are believed to have resided in Levý Hradec, which they had strongly refortified. In fact, the hillfort had been first fortified at the end of the Neolithic period, some 5,000 years ago. The site appears to have been sporadically occupied throughout the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age. The massive rampart walls can be seen on an educational tour of the site, which is marked with posts and small information boards (in Czech only).
• A visit to Levý Hradec can be included in a longer tour of the important archaeological sites to the north of Prague. This excellent 16 km route can be found here. However, with only limited time, a trip to explore just the hillfort site is definitely still worthwhile. There are bus connections to Levý Hradec from the Dejvice metro stop in Prague. It is less than a 2 km walk around the trail on grassy paths. For refreshments, there is a well regarded café (map point 5)close to the fortification area and just 500m from the bus stop, an excellent village pub, the Hostinec Na Růžku (map point 6).

Note: click ‘Show on Mapy.com’  to go to a full screen version of the route directly on the mapy.cz site. This can be used for on line navigation, saved or exported as a GPX file.

Directions

• Start from the Levý Hradec bus stop. The education trail is marked with yellow posts but is otherwise unsignposted, so is best followed by using the mapy.com phone application