Jindrichuv Hradec

The castle at Jindrichuv Hradec grew from a thirteenth-century stronghold of the Vitkovci into a complex of about three hundred and twenty rooms across ten courtyards, which makes it the third largest in the country after Prague and Cesky Krumlov. Its most distinctive building is the Rondel, a free-standing round garden pavilion of the 1590s with a stuccoed and gilded interior of exceptional quality, built for the Renaissance court here and considered one of the finest such rooms in Central Europe. There are Gothic wall paintings of the St George legend in a chapel and a set of state rooms. The town around it has an arcaded square, and it holds two other things: a claim to sit on the fifteenth meridian, marked in the street, and the Kryza nativity scene, a mechanical crib of some fourteen hundred figures built by a stocking-maker over sixty years, in the district museum.

History

A Slavic hillfort came first. The place is first mentioned in 1220, when Jindřich I Vítkovec, founder of the Lords of Hradec, built a Gothic castle on the site of the fort, and the settlement that grew beside it in the mid-13th century took his name - "Jindřich's little castle", first recorded as Jindřichův Hradec in 1410. The town reached its peak in the late 16th century under the last Lords of Hradec, when the houses and the castle were rebuilt in Renaissance style and the town spread beyond its walls; in 1654, after the Thirty Years' War, it was the second largest town in Bohemia, with 405 houses. It soon lost its political weight and, by the end of the 17th century, its economic importance too. Fires in 1773 and 1801 led to much rebuilding, part of the walls came down for a park between the Old and New Towns, and in 1887 a railway joined the town to Veselí nad Lužnicí and Jihlava (Wikipedia, Jindřichův Hradec).

The main sights

• Ten courtyards - the third-largest castle complex in the country.
• The Rondel - a round garden pavilion of the 1590s with a gilded stucco interior.
• Gothic St George paintings - a fourteenth-century cycle in the chapel.
• A mechanical nativity - about 1,400 figures, built over sixty years.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Before you go

The Rondel and the state rooms are on separate guided routes, seasonal, and the Rondel opens on limited dates. Closed Mondays. The narrow-gauge railway runs a restricted timetable.

Nearby

Ceska Kanada begins south; Telc is east.

Key facts