Hluboká nad Vltavou Castle

Hluboka nad Vltavou Castle is located near Ceske Budejovice, two hours south of Prague. Formally, the complex dates back to the 13th century, but in reality there is no trace left of the first Gothic and several subsequent buildings on its site. The owners of the castle, who belonged to different noble families of Europe, were united by the mania to rebuild Hluboka nad Vltava beyond recognition. The modern version from the middle of the 19th century is a neo-Gothic style – a light-colored building decorated with carved towers and spires, hunting trophies of the last owners and openwork balconies. The castle is surrounded by an English park with rare for Bohemia tree species and decorative ponds.

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Video: Hluboka nad Vltavou Castle

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History of Hluboka nad Vltavou Castle

For the construction of the castle in the Middle Ages, under Přemysl Ottokar II, a hill 82 meters high was chosen very close to the Vltava, the main Czech river – a perfect place for a fortified Gothic fortress. However, the successful location turned out to be unclaimed: Hluboka never took part in any serious military actions, but it was not preserved in its original form anyway because of its owners’ irrepressible passion for modernization. And there were many owners of the medieval castle: some could not afford to maintain a huge complex, others sold Gluboka to powerful patrons for political reasons.

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The castle in the Schwarzenberg era

Eventually the estate ended up in the hands of the Schwarzenbergs, one of the most influential families in Central Europe. The history of the Czech castles Orlik and Zvíkov, the Schwarzenberg Palace in Vienna and dozens of other architectural monuments is linked to their names. The remains of the aristocrats rest in the family chapel in Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral, the most prestigious burial place in the Czech Republic. The Schwarzenbergs dealt with real estate according to a standard scheme: they bought a gloomy medieval castle like Krumlov Castle and turned it into a cozy family nest. At the beginning of the 18th century, they also took over Hluboka, turning it into a spectacular baroque estate.

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In the first half of the 19th century, the castle passed into the hands of a man who played a major role in the history not only of Hluboka nad Vltavou, but of the whole of Bohemia. Johann Adolf II, the twelfth Duke of Krumlov, received a brilliant economic education, interned at the British royal court and forever fell in love with English culture. Thanks to his knowledge, after the reforms of 1848, when the last vestiges of serfdom – compulsory work for the landlord – were abolished in Bohemia, Hluboka was preserved despite the loss of two-thirds of its land. The Duke carried out extensive reforms of agriculture, fishing and hunting in the county and transformed the Bohemian lands from a backward corner of Europe into a prosperous region. Hluboka nad Vltavou Castle became his residence, where the Duke’s hunting trophies, artifacts related to the history of the Schwarzenberg family and valuable paintings by European artists were collected. Over the course of 30 years, Hluboka was rebuilt based on the model of the English Windsor Castle. Due to the Duke’s constant busyness, the work was supervised by his wife Eleonora, born Lichtenstein.

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Hluboka nad Vltavou today

Schwarzenberg descendants lived in Hluboka until 1939, when the last owner, ironically bearing the family name Adolf, was forced to emigrate due to Nazi persecution. After the war, the property was not destined to return to its owners: in 1947, a special decree was passed to nationalize all of the family’s holdings. The castle became a national treasure, open to tourists. Not all of the house’s 140 rooms are still accessible, and work is currently underway to restore the children’s rooms.

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Castle tours

The Hluboka nad Vltavou Castle offers 4 tourist routes of varying cost and duration. The main one is related to the public side of the life of the Schwarzenbergs. Guests are shown a collection of weapons and Dutch paintings from the 16th-18th centuries, a library with thousands of books in different languages, Eleonora’s reception chambers, the smoking room, the morning reception room and the dining room. The wooden carved walls and ceilings of the castle rooms and Delft ceramics deserve special attention. The second tour shows visitors the private apartments of the castle owners – interiors of the second half of the XIX century in the study, bedrooms. In addition, the guests see how the rooms for servants, toilets and bathrooms, passenger and freight elevators were arranged. Both tours last 55 minutes each. The third tour, a 35-minute tour, shows the English-style kitchen with its arsenal of antique cookware and appliances. It is housed in the basement of the northern part of the castle to keep the cooking smells away from the gentlemen. It is a complex of several rooms – separately for the preparation of hot, cold dishes, pastry.

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The 52-meter-high castle tower with 245 steps can be visited without time limit and without a guide. Until recently, the Hluboka nad Vltavou Castle was closed from October 31 to April 1 due to heating difficulties, but now part of the first floor exhibition is also accessible in winter. A newly developed 40-minute winter tour shows the private apartments of the last four generations of the castle’s owners on the first floor of the main building.

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Tourist Information

The castle, full of valuables, has strict rules. You can only move around as part of a group. If you book a time in advance, guests will be offered a tour in Russian: the guide will walk from object to object and turn on the audio recording. Otherwise, you’ll have to join a random tour in Czech or English. It is forbidden to take photos inside Hluboka.

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You can walk around the park for free, there is a fee to enter the castle. The cost of the ticket depends on the chosen excursion. The schedule is floating, changes under the influence of the time of year and the nearest holidays, the possibility of a visit should always be clarified in advance. To book a tour of Hluboké nad Vltavou outside of business hours will cost twice as much. The cheapest option is a tour with a Czech guide. It costs 150-260 CZK for an adult to see the apartments, 90-170 CZK for the kitchen, and 140-250 CZK for the winter route. There is a 10 crowns per person charge for reservations. Climbing the tower costs 70-100 crowns. Children under 6 years old go free, pensioners, schoolchildren and students up to 26 years old are entitled to discounts.

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How to get there

Tourists get from Prague to Ceske Budejovice by expressway and then transfer to a bus that stops after 10 minutes at the point “Under the Church”, near the Jan Nepomucký Church, the same age as the last rebuilding of the castle. From there it is about half a kilometer uphill to the castle.

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The castle can also be reached by train. 1.5 kilometers east of Hluboka, on the opposite bank of the river, is the station “Hluboka nad Vltava – Zamosti”. From another station, “Hluboka nad Vltavou”, it takes a little longer to get to the castle, about 3 km to the northeast. There are no direct train routes from Prague, you have to transfer at the station in Ceske Budejovice. There are plans to build an international airport in the vicinity of the city, mainly for charter flights.

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