Prerov nad Labem Skansen

In 1895 Prague held the Czechoslavic Ethnographic Exhibition, which included a mocked-up village and set off a wave of interest in vernacular building. That year Ludvik Salvator of Habsburg-Tuscany, who owned the estate at Prerov, had a thatched timber cottage in the village fitted out with local furnishings and opened as a museum - which makes it the oldest open-air museum of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe, predating the founding of the great Scandinavian skansens as fixed institutions in this region. It has grown to about thirty buildings on the site and in the village: cottages, a forge, a school, granaries and a chapel, furnished by period, showing the Polabi lowland building tradition of timber frame and thatch. Seasonal displays follow the farming and church year, and Christmas and Easter events are the busiest.

What's there

• The oldest skansen in the region - begun in one cottage in 1895.
• About thirty buildings - cottages, forge, school and granaries.
• Polabi lowland building - timber frame and thatch of the Elbe plain.
• Seasonal displays - the farming and church year staged through the site.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Before you go

Seasonal opening with a short winter season and event weekends. Interiors are sometimes only viewable through doorways. Labelling is largely in Czech. It is small compared with the Moravian skansens.

Nearby

Lysa nad Labem is east; Prague is south-west.