Chateau Veltrusy

Veltrusy are located on the right bank of the Vltava, a mere 20 kilometres to the north-west of Prague. Most of the visitors to the town, however, direct their steps to the high Baroque Chateau, set in an extensive, landscaped park featuring man-made canals, numerous romantic structures and a fallow deer preserve stretching adjacent to the park. In its original form Veltrusy Chateau ranked among the most outstanding works of the period of Baroque architecture in Bohemia.

In spite of the fact that originally it was intended to be rather a summer palace, the chateau at Veltrusy was built with a grandiose Baroque conception as a monumental complex of buildings whose height was graded according to the axis running from south to north and

surrounding the cour´honneur which was closed on the northern side by a row of statues placed on the pillars of a fence.

From the eastern, southern and western sides the chateau was surrounded by a small, geometrically attached Baroque garden with a fountain, a considerable number of sculptured works, a greenhouse and a similar building containing fig trees. The chateau is well known with the English park that was an artificially created ideal landscape composed by a gardener with the aim of achieving

the highest degree of pictoresqueness. The transition from small Baroque gardens to the large Romantic Classical landscape park of a specific type took place in the environs over a period covering something less than a century.

The Veltrusy Chateau with its charming interiors is one of the most remarkable examples of the high Baroque style to be found in Bohemia. Visitors will also be enticed by a large 300 hectare park dotted with small Empire, neoclassical and romanticizing structures and a fallow deer preserve stretching adjacent to the park. In 1754 Rudolf Chotek staged a sample fair, the first to be held in the world, in the chateau courtyard. Their Majesties, Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, visited the event and ordered some goods.

The dominant feature of the main chateau building is a hall that in the past served as a venue for social events. Directly under the hall you will find a sala terrena embellished with charming stuccowork and mosaics. In the chateau chambers and lounges you can inspect, for example, Chinese porcelain, ceramics and period furniture.

The castle was closed after the flood in 2002 and is under the restoration, the park is open to the public.
In season 2008 is open new guided tour for visitors on bicycles.
Exhibition in granary - paintings of M. Frinda "Immobility of touch", historical baby carriages and toys from the collection of V. Čížková. You can see also examples of growing techniques and park adaptations.

More informations : http://www.zamek-veltrusy.cz/en/