Holesov

Holesov has a baroque chateau rebuilt in the 1650s for Jan Rottal by Filiberto Lucchese, with a sala terrena and a French garden, and a large church of St Anne with a Rottal mortuary chapel. But the building that brings people is the Sach Synagogue, built about 1560 and remodelled after a fire in 1725. It is of the Polish type - a squat masonry block with the prayer hall around a raised bimah, a women's gallery, and walls covered in painted Hebrew text: whole prayers, psalms and inscriptions in bands across the plaster rather than figurative decoration. Very few synagogues of this type survived the twentieth century anywhere, and this is among the best preserved. It is named after Sabbatai ha-Kohen, the Shach, a major seventeenth-century rabbinic authority who fled here from the Chmielnicki massacres and is buried in the Jewish cemetery.

What you actually see

• Painted Hebrew text on the walls - prayers and psalms in bands across the plaster.
• A Polish-type synagogue - a form that barely survives anywhere in Europe.
• The Shach's grave - the rabbinic authority who fled here, in the old cemetery.
• A baroque chateau - with a sala terrena and French garden.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The synagogue and chateau have separate tickets and hours; both are seasonal and the synagogue closes on Saturdays. The town is quiet with limited services. Head covering is expected for men.

Nearby

Kromeriz and its UNESCO gardens are twelve kilometres west.