Buchlovice Chateau

Buchlovice was built from about 1700 for Jan Detrich of Petrvald, reportedly as a gift for his Italian wife, and it was laid out in the manner of a Roman suburban villa: two curved single-storey wings facing each other across an oval court, with a formal garden on the slope, an orangery and a flower garden - an arrangement much closer to Italian practice than to the usual Central European block. The interiors are furnished from several periods with the Berchtold collections. The park around, about twenty hectares, holds specimen trees and, in the flower garden and glasshouses, the largest fuchsia collection in the country, several hundred varieties, which flowers through the summer and is the reason many Czech visitors come. Peacocks walk the grounds. In 1908 a meeting here between the Austro-Hungarian and Russian foreign ministers is remembered in the house.

What you actually see

• Two curved wings on an oval court - an Italian villa arrangement, rare here.
• A national fuchsia collection - several hundred varieties in the flower garden.
• Furnished Berchtold interiors - collections across several periods.
• A twenty-hectare park - specimen trees, an orangery and free-ranging peacocks.

When to go

May to September, for the fuchsias. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Guided tours only for the interiors, seasonal, with several routes. The garden is included but the glasshouses keep their own hours. Closed Mondays. Busy on summer weekends.

Nearby

Buchlov castle is three kilometres above; Velehrad is south-east.