Hukvaldy Castle

Place: 739 46 Hukvaldy

Contact: +420 558 699 323

The first mention of the castle dates back to 1285. In the following four centuries the Olomouc bishops extended it to a powerful forestry with five-cannon bastions, which were proved during a blockade by the Danes and a two-time siege of the Swedes in the last period of the thirty-year war. After the fire in 1762, the castle had been decaying. Nowadays, there are partly renovated castle ruins, one of the biggest in the Czech Republic. A castle silhouette is underlined by long castle walls with bastions that are surmounted by the remains of dwelling buildings. To enter the castle, you go through a gate in a sidelong castle wall over a moat with a necessary draw bridge. Inside, the castle consists of three building wings connected by outside walls with a tower. In the east wing there are preserved first-floor rooms. The west wing had served as a bishop residence. In the adjacent game park you can take walks around. This park had also inspired the Czech musical genius Leoš Janáček. Therefore, in the game park is annually held an international music festival ?Janáčkovy Hukvaldy?. There were performed all Janáček's operas as well as operas by Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák. Above all, the opera Nabucco by Giusseppe Verdi has been staged there, too.