Vidoule
Peak · 371 m · Czechia
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Rising as one of Prague's highest points and one of the city's last undeveloped table-top hills, Vidoule appears suddenly above the rooftops of Jinonice, a green landmark worth the short climb for the view over the surrounding basin. Formerly called Vidova hora, its rock face was honeycombed with caves that sheltered Prague's poor as late as 1948, a scene the painter Adolf Liebscher recorded in an 1887 drawing. In 1680, when plague swept through the city, victims were buried at the hill's foot. The hill's three protected slopes each preserve something different: sandstone cliffs to the north, marlstone exposures to the east, and a botanically and entomologically rich meadow to the south, together forming a refuge for small wildlife inside the city.
Vidoule is what's left of a broader plateau of horizontally layered Cretaceous rock, worn away on every side except here, where the remaining block still stands over Jinonice. To the east, a road linking Cibulka park with Jinonice marks where the hill's ground gives way. To the west there is no such boundary: the slope simply flattens into the meadow wrapping around the Stodůlky housing estate. That makes it valuable today mainly as a refuge for small wildlife, protected across three belts of its slopes.
What you see
A flat, table-like top crowns the hill, its rim broken by exposed rock outcrops.
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