Troja Palace

Listen first to the gravel. It crunches under every step as you walk the long garden axis toward the house. Clipped hedges sit low on either side, and the air carries cut grass and, on warm days, a faint mineral smell from the river nearby. Ahead, a palace in warm red and white rises from the green. It looks less like a fortress and more like a stage set, waiting for its actors.

This is Troja Palace, on the northern edge of Prague, on the right bank of the Vltava. Most visitors come to this district for the zoo next door. Many walk straight past the palace gates without knowing what stands behind them. That is a pity, because this building is one of the earliest and boldest Baroque country houses in Bohemia. Baroque is the theatrical style of the seventeenth century, full of movement, drama and gold.

The palace was built in the late seventeenth century, mostly through the 1680s, for Count Wenzel Adalbert of Sternberg. The Sternbergs were one of the old noble families of Bohemia. After the long devastation of the Thirty Years' War, families like his wanted to show loyalty to the Habsburg emperors in Vienna. They also wanted to show their own wealth and taste. A summer residence just outside the city was the perfect way to do both.

The count did not want a castle. He wanted an Italian villa, the kind of country house that Roman cardinals built in the hills outside their city. He hired Jean Baptiste Mathey, an architect born in France who had trained in Rome and then worked in Prague. Mathey gave the count clean, symmetrical blocks, tall windows, and a roofline that looks almost severe. The decoration does the talking, and the building stays calm.

Here is a small surprise. The whole district around you is called Troja, after the ancient city of Troy. The name came from the palace, not the other way around. A noble house with a classical name gave its identity to the village that grew around it. Today the bus stops, the zoo and the botanical garden all carry the name of a legendary city that fell more than three thousand years ago.

Now look at the great staircase on the garden side. It is the thing most people remember from Troja. Two curved flights of stone sweep outward and upward to the first floor, like a pair of open arms. And all along the balustrades, giant figures wrestle and fall. These sculptures show the Gigantomachy, the Greek myth of the war between the gods of Olympus and the giants who rose against them.

The sculptors were Johann Georg Heermann and Paul Heermann, who came from Dresden in neighbouring Saxony. Look closely at the lower figures. Some giants are crushed under rock, their faces twisted, their muscles straining. Higher up, the gods are winning. The message to any guest climbing these steps was clear. Order defeats chaos, and lawful power defeats rebellion. In the Habsburg world of the time, nobody missed the political meaning.

That meaning grows even louder inside. The main hall rises through two storeys, and almost every surface is painted. The frescoes are the work of the Flemish painters Abraham and Isaac Godin. They celebrate the Habsburg dynasty and its victories over the Ottoman Turks. These victories were very recent news when the hall was painted. Vienna itself had been under Ottoman siege in 1683, while this palace was still rising.

Stand in the centre of the hall and let your eyes adjust. The painted architecture is an illusion. Columns, balconies and openings to the sky seem to extend the real walls upward. Figures lean over painted railings as if they are watching you. This trick, called quadratura, makes a flat ceiling feel endless. Try walking slowly from one end to the other. Notice how the painted perspective shifts as you move.

Back outside, the gardens were just as important as the house. They were laid out in the French formal manner, with straight paths, geometric beds and long views. This kind of garden was still new in Bohemia when the palace was built. Terracotta vases and statues punctuate the lawns. The design leads your eye along a single line toward the river, and in the other direction toward the hills.

Those hills are worth a second look. The slopes above Troja have carried vines for centuries, and vineyards still climb the hillside near the botanical garden today. In the count's time, a summer house was not only for parties. It sat inside a working landscape of orchards, wine and river trade. The view from the upper windows showed a guest that the owner controlled both beauty and income.

Today the palace belongs to the City of Prague and is run by the Prague City Gallery. The rooms host exhibitions alongside the historic interiors, so what you find inside can change from season to season. Some visitors come for the painted hall, others for the art on display, and many simply for the garden. Each visit can feel slightly different, and that is part of the pleasure.

Before you leave, walk back to the bottom of the great staircase and turn around once more. The giants are still falling, frozen in stone, as they have been for more than three centuries. Behind you, children's voices drift over from the zoo, and a tram or bus hums in the distance. Count Sternberg built this place to impress emperors. Now it simply waits, red and white in the light, for whoever walks up the gravel next.