Strekov Castle

Strekov was built from 1316 on a basalt cliff dropping about a hundred metres straight to the Elbe, to control river traffic at a narrows, and it is one of the most dramatically sited castles in the country - the rock is a phonolite plug of the Ceske stredohori and the walls follow its edge exactly. It fell into ruin after the seventeenth century. In 1842 Richard Wagner spent time in nearby Teplice and walked up here; he wrote that the castle in a thunderstorm gave him the image for the Wartburg set in Tannhauser, which he was then working on, and the connection is marked on site. Goethe also came. The keep is climbable and the view runs up and down the Elbe canyon with the barge traffic below. There is an exhibition and a restaurant, and concerts are held in the courtyard in summer.

History

Střekov was built in 1316 for King John of Bohemia to guard an important trade route to Germany and collect duties on goods carried by river, and it is first mentioned in 1319, when Pešek of Weitmühl received it as a fief; soon after it passed to the Wartenbergs of Děčín, and in the Hussite Wars many Catholics found refuge here. Wenzel Popel of Lobkowicz became castellan in 1563, the castle was rebuilt and enlarged around 1570 and passed directly to the Lobkowicz family in 1601, but from the early 17th century it was no longer lived in and decayed. It was occupied by Imperial, Saxon and Swedish forces in the Thirty Years' War and besieged in the Seven Years' War, and by the end of the 18th century it was abandoned as a military post. In the 19th century the fashion for romantic ruins brought painters such as Ludwig Richter, Caspar David Friedrich and Ernst Gustav Doerell; Goethe called the view the most beautiful in Central Europe, Wagner's Tannhäuser was supposedly inspired by his visit, a castle inn opened in 1830, and a wine called Schreckensteiner was grown nearby. Preservation work was done at the end of the 19th century and in 1911-1912, and in 1923-1936 the Elbe lock was built directly beneath the rock (Wikipedia, Střekov Castle).

What to look for

• A basalt cliff over the river - a hundred metres of drop with the walls on the edge.
• A stabilised ruin - the fourteenth-century plan following the rock exactly.
• Wagner's storm - the visit of 1842 that fed the Tannhauser set.
• A climbable keep - looking up and down the Elbe canyon.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

What to expect

It is a ruin with an exhibition rather than furnished rooms. The approach is a steep climb. Seasonal opening. The river below is industrial and Usti is a working city rather than a scenic one.

Nearby

Porta Bohemica is upstream; Decin and Bohemian Switzerland are downstream.

Key facts