Nachod Castle

Nachod castle was founded around 1254 by Hron of Nachod to guard the pass into Silesia and was rebuilt in Renaissance and baroque, most substantially for Ottavio Piccolomini, the imperial general of the Thirty Years War, who was given the estate and remodelled it into a residence. His rooms hold a set of Brussels tapestries and Italian paintings. The castle later passed to the Schaumburg-Lippe family, whose nineteenth-century furnishing survives in the upper apartments. The feature everyone knows is the bears: brown bears have been kept in the dry moat since 1928 and the enclosure can be looked into without a ticket, which makes the castle a standard family outing for the region. There is a round Gothic tower with a view, and the town below has a Secession theatre and the market square. Josef Skvorecky set his novels in this town.

What you actually see

• Bears in the moat - kept in the dry ditch since 1928, viewable without a ticket.
• Piccolomini's rooms - Brussels tapestries and Italian paintings from the 1630s.
• A round Gothic tower - climbable, over the town and the Silesian pass.
• Nineteenth-century apartments - the Schaumburg-Lippe furnishing upstairs.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Guided tours only for the interiors, seasonal, with several routes. The bears are captive animals in a historic ditch enclosure, which some visitors find uncomfortable. The walk up from town is steep.

Nearby

Broumov and its walls are east; Adrspach is north-east.