zámek Vranov nad Dyjí Chateau

Vranov Castle over the Dyje River was created by transforming a medieval castle that was one of the elements of the defensive system along the Dyje River at the southern border of the country. The first written mention of it comes from Cosmas's Chronicle, dating to the year one thousand one hundred.

Initially it was royal property. In thirteen twenty-three, John of Luxembourg exchanged Vranov and the surrounding villages with Henry of Lipá for Tachov. In the fifteenth century, the wealthy and powerful Lichtenburg family acquired the estate. In the sixteenth century, various owners succeeded each other in rapid succession here, including the Dietrichsteins, the Štrejnové from Švarcenava, the Čertorejské from Čertoraje, or the Meziříčtí from Lomnice. During the Thirty Years War, the Swedes besieged and damaged the castle. Extensive destruction was completed by a great fire in sixteen sixty-five.

After the fire, the then-owners, the Althans, began reconstruction into a Baroque castle according to the plans of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. The architectural center became the Hall of Ancestors, measuring twenty-five by fifteen by fifteen meters. It is decorated with statues of the ancestors of the Althan lords and a fresco in the dome by Johann Michael Rottmayr. The castle also includes a Baroque chapel of the Holy Trinity from the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From the oldest period, only the castle walls and three towers have been preserved. After seventeen twenty-four, further building modifications followed, in which Anton Erhard Martinelli participated. In the eighteenth century, the area around the castle was also transformed into a natural park with a number of small structures.

In the nineteenth century, the Vranov estate, along with the castle, belonged to two related families of Polish origin, the Mniszeks and the Stadnickis. They, among other things, completed modifications to the landscape park, which the Althans had begun to develop. During the Second World War, the castle was purchased by German baron Gebhard von der Wense-Mörse as imperial confiscated property. After the war, the castle became state property. Today it is a national cultural monument under the management of the National Heritage Institute.

Besides the Baroque interiors of the Hall of Ancestors and the chapel, the exhibition includes over twenty rooms that illustrate life at Vranov at the end of the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century. An important place in them is held by the famous Vranov pottery factory. For a long time, it influenced ceramic production both artistically and technologically in the Czech lands and beyond their borders.

Filmmakers also became fond of the castle. The fairy tales Immortal Auntie from nineteen ninety-three, The Emperor's New Clothes from nineteen ninety-four, and Angel Face from two thousand and two were filmed here. Scenes were also created here for the American film XXX and for Czech Television programs, for example Where the Princesses Lived or In Search of Anežka of Bohemia's Treasure.