Les Kralovstvi Dam

The Les Kralovstvi dam was built between 1910 and 1919 on the Elbe after the catastrophic floods of 1897, and it is a granite gravity dam some forty-one metres high and two hundred and seventy long. What sets it apart is the treatment: rather than leaving engineering exposed, the designers faced the whole structure in dressed granite and dressed it as architecture, with a crenellated crest, corner turrets with conical roofs, and a valve house that reads as a small castle keep, so the thing looks like a fortification across the valley. It is a protected national cultural monument. A road and footpath run along the crest with the reservoir on one side and the drop on the other. The style belongs to a short period when Czech and Austrian water engineering was deliberately monumental; several smaller dams of the same era nearby were treated the same way.

What you actually see

• A granite dam dressed as a castle - crenellations, turrets and a keep-like valve house.
• Forty-one metres high - two hundred and seventy metres across the valley.
• A crest walkway - reservoir on one side, the drop on the other.
• Post-1897 flood engineering - built as a response to the catastrophic floods.

When to go

April to October. Two hours.

Honest expectations

It is a working dam - access to the interior structures is not general, and the crest can close. There are no facilities beyond a car park. Reservoir levels vary. Two hours covers it.

Nearby

Dvur Kralove and its safari park are five kilometres away.