Krásný Dvůr Castle

Count Franz Josef Czernin decided to start an extensive reconstruction on a Renaissance villa built on the site of a Gothic stronghold originally constructed by Jan Maštovský of Kolovraty at the end of the 16th century.

Valuable paintings by Czech and European artists are installed here (some of the most well-known being Petr Brandl, Karel Škréta, Ludvík Kohl, Joseph Bergler, Filip Kristian Benthum, Kristian Brand and Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun), and a number of graphic arts, porcelain, china, glass, earthenware, clocks, original Adam fireplaces, furniture and other samples of historical craftsmen's skills are to be seen.

In accordance with taste of those days it was brightened with a number of Romantic buildings enriching vacant fields or closing various vistas of park scenes.

The most important of them is the so-called Goethe's Oak (today already only a torso), the age of which is estimated at 1,000 years, which ranks it among the oldest trees in the Czech Republic.

The castle was used by Jiří Menzel as a location for his film "End of Old Times" ("Konec starých časů", 1989), based on a 1934 eponymous novel by Vladislav Vančura.