Bezdez Castle

Bezdez Castle, with the Great Tower, about 40 meters high, has a pronounced Gothic style. This architectural monument is located 20 kilometers southeast of the Czech city of Ceska Lipa.

The castle was built by order of the Czech king Przemysl II Otakar, its construction lasted from 1264 to 1278. However, the king did not live to finish the work – he died during the battle on the Moravian field. Built according to all the canons of fortifications of that time, the castle Bezdez successfully protected the lands of the Czech kings from the invasion of enemies, both internal, during the Hussite wars, and external, until the middle of the XVII century, was not captured and partially destroyed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War.

In 1621, the castle was donated to the Benedictines by Albrecht von Wallenstein, and in 1666 the monks of the order brought here from the Prague residence a copy of the Black Madonna consecrated in Rome from the Spanish Montserrat. Bezdez Castle becomes a place of pilgrimage, annually it is visited by up to 40,000 believers. In 1785, Prussian troops captured the castle, and the further abolition of the monastery was the main reason for the desolation and further destruction of the walls and main buildings of the castle.

Only in 1932, a descendant of the former owners of the castle Karl Wallenstein, together with the Tourist Club of Wartenberk, buys the ruins of the family estate for a symbolic amount of 2,000 crowns. Currently, the top of the mountain is crowned by the surviving parts of the castle, two towers 30 and 45 meters high and a Gothic chapel. Work on the restoration of this architectural monument of the Czech Republic continues to this day.