Luhacovice

Luhacovice is the largest spa in Moravia, using strongly mineralised carbonated springs of which Vincentka is the best known and is sold nationally as a drinking water. What makes the town distinctive is what Dusan Jurkovic did to it between 1902 and 1914: commissioned to rebuild the spa buildings, he worked in a manner of his own that combined Slovak and Wallachian timber vernacular - carved gables, painted woodwork, steep shingled roofs, folk motifs - with the planning of the Vienna Secession, producing the rebuilt Jan's House, the Jurkovic house and others in a style that has no real parallel elsewhere and which was an argument about national identity as much as a design choice. The colonnade and park run along the valley. Janacek came here for many summers and composed; a festival carries his name.

History

Luhačovice is first mentioned in 1412, and at the end of the 16th century it became the centre of an estate of 12 villages; after the Battle of White Mountain it went to Maximilian of Liechtenstein, who soon sold it, and from 1629 it belonged to the Serényi family. The Serényis were the first to use the mineral springs and built the spa: in the second half of the 17th century Count Ondřej Serényi had the first spring adapted, later named Amandka, another was adapted around 1760 and later named Vincentka, and as reports of the springs spread the first inn for spa guests was built in 1789, followed by new houses, inns and the Chapel of St Elizabeth. Facing stagnation and near bankruptcy at the end of the 19th century, the spa was taken over in 1902 by a joint-stock company founded on the initiative of the doctor František Veselý; the railway arrived, and the architect Dušan Jurkovič carried out the first major building stage, including the fundamental rebuilding of Janův dům and the hydropathic establishment. The spa grew in importance in the 1920s and 1930s and Luhačovice became a town in 1936, and between 1945 and 1947 the Great and Small Colonnades, the Hall of Vincentka and the health centre were built (Wikipedia, Luhačovice).

Highlights

• Jurkovic's timber buildings - carved gables and painted wood in a folk-modern idiom.
• Vincentka spring - the strongly mineralised water sold across the country.
• A valley colonnade and park - the spa laid out along the stream.
• Janacek's summers - the composer's regular stays, with a festival named for him.

When to go

May to September. A day.

Before you go

Treatments are for registered patients. The mineral water is strongly salty and not a pleasant drink for most. The town fills in high summer. Some Jurkovic buildings are hotels and not enterable.

Nearby

Zlin is twenty kilometres north-west; the Bile Karpaty rise south-east.

Key facts