Horsovsky Tyn

Horsovsky Tyn began as a castle of the bishops of Prague in the 1250s, and the fragment that survives from that phase is the reason art historians come: an early Gothic chapel with a ribbed vault, wall paintings and window tracery of the 1260s, among the earliest Gothic interiors in Bohemia and largely intact. After a fire in 1547 the castle was remodelled by Italian builders for the Lobkowicz family into a Renaissance chateau round an arcaded courtyard, and later owners, the Trauttmansdorffs, furnished it through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The interiors survived with their contents. Around it lies an English landscape park of about forty hectares laid out from the 1780s, one of the older in Bohemia, with garden buildings, ponds and a loreto chapel. The town below has a long sloping square with arcades.

What you actually see

• An early Gothic chapel - vault, tracery and paintings of the 1260s, largely intact.
• A Renaissance arcaded courtyard - the Italian remodelling after the 1547 fire.
• Furnished interiors - Trauttmansdorff rooms with their contents in place.
• A forty-hectare landscape park - laid out from the 1780s with garden buildings.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Guided tours only, on several routes, and seasonal. The chapel is on a specific route - check which. Closed Mondays. The park is free and open all year.

Nearby

Domazlice and the Chodsko region are south; Cesky les is west.