Bezděz Castle

Bezděz Castle (Czech: Hrad Bezděz) is a Gothic castle located some 20 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Česká Lípa, in the Liberec Region, Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic. Its construction began before 1264 by order of Přemysl Otakar II.

The royal castle of Bezděz was one of the most important Gothic castles in the Czech lands until its destruction in the Thirty Years' War. Erected between 1260–1280 on the phonolite hill of Velký Bezděz, 604 metres (1,982 ft) above sea level, it became the characteristic dominant feature of the local landscape and met the demands for an inaccessible as well as respectable royal castle.

History

A year after Přemysl’s death, the castle Bezděz, which was still unfinished, became the place of imprisonment of Queen Kunhuta and her underage son Václav II (or Wenceslas II), kept under lock and key in very spartan conditions by Wenceslas's guardian Ota Braniborský, Margrave of Brandenburg, after the Battle on the Marchfeld. The boy, only 6 or 7 at the time, remained there alone when his mother escaped under a pretext and it is widely accepted that the place left its mark on him. As an adult, and ruling monarch, he returned to Bezděz to order the construction of a chapel, one of the best preserved areas of the castle today.

The castle complex was completed during the reign of Wenceslas II, who used the local forests very frequently for hunting and relaxation. It served for this purpose until the Thirty Years' War when, as part of the round of confiscations after the Battle of the White Mountain, it fell into the hands of Albrecht of Wallenstein. The famous general started turning the...