The Region of the Ústí-County

Interesting Sites

Cervený Hrádek (Schloß Rotenhaus, Castle Red House)

This original Gothic castle from the beginning of the 14th century was rebuilt by Antonio de la Porta and B. Mathey to an Early-Baroque castle during the second half of the 17th century. It is situated immediate north of the town of Jirkov, northwest of the town of Chomutov. Today, one can visit the park, gallery and chapel of the castle.
In 1813, Friedrich Carl Reichsfreiherr von und zum Stein found asylum during his struggle against Napoleon in this castle.
Furthermore, the president of the Sudeten German Party, Konrad Henlein, had an interlocution with a British diplomatic observer in 1938. Henlein hereby mentioned that his political main aim is to smash the First Republic of Czechoslovakia.

Hasistejn (Hassenstein)

This castle lies about 6 miles west of the town of Chomutov, very close to the village Místo. This ruin was probably founded in the first half of the 14th century to save the routes to the adjacent Saxony. The formerly Early-Gothic castle was later rebuilt in a Late-Gothic style.
Hasistejn was besieged and conquered during the Hussite wars in 1418. Afterwards, it was handed over by King Vraclav to Mikulas von Lobkowicz who was one of the besieger. Between 1498-1510 the famous humanist Bohuslav Lobkowicz of Hassenstein lived in this castle of the same name.
He owned a collection of astronomic instruments and a comprehensive library from which also Martin Luther and Melanchthon lent books. With the 17th century the dilapidation of Hasistejn began.
From here, the visitor has a splendid view into the Bohemian basin.

Duchcov (Dux)

Duchcov is a neighbouring town of Osek which was founded in 1250. It is famous for its original Renaissance castle which was extended during the Baroque time. This reconstruction was carried out by the French architect Jean Baptist Mathey on behalf of Jan Bendrich of Wallenstein.
Later, several master-builder altered the buildings again and again. The castle experienced its final modification within the first half of the 19th century: the castle appears in a classical style whereas the garden was redesigned from original French into an English style.

The history of Duchcov is related with a plenty of different world famous personalities. At the beginning of the 13th century Walther von der Vogelweide, the most famous lyricist of the German Middle Ages, stayed here. Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart and Haydn as well as other famous personalities influenced the cultural life of Duchcov. Although as a more literary figure in memory, the writer Jacob Casanova (1725-1798) worked here as librarian and is buried here, too.
A less artistic person is related with the name of the Earl Joseph Radetzky. He stayed here as field marshal of Austria in 1813. Later in 1835, political negotiation were held between Prussia, Austria and Russia.

Most (Brüx)

The city of Most was founded in 1250 and demolished in the 70ies to make free space for the coal mining. Except for the moved Gothic church, nothing was left of the old town. One interesting site is the neighboring castle Hnevin which was probably founded in the 9th century and more or less demolished with the grant of the emperor Ferdinand III in 1651. Most has 68,028 inhabitants.

Chomutov (Komotau)

The first historic citation steams from 1252. In this year, Bedrich Naceradec gave it as a present to the Deutscher Ritterorden which owned this town until 1416. The humanist Mathias Aurogallu steams from Chomutov. As a profound expert of the Hebrew language he helped Martin Luther to translate the bible.
The writer Robert Musil visited the school and the younger son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's performed his fathers „Requiem“ in the church St. Ignatius.

Ústí nad Labem (Aussig)

The city of Ústi nad Labem was founded in the 10th century and declared as a royal town by King Premysl Ottokar II in 1260. The Hussites destroyed it in 1426 and Usti was left in this state for the following three years. Until the first third of the 19th century, Ústí remained as a small rural town with only about 2,000 inhabitants. In the course of the 19th century the town changed into an important industrial center of Northern Bohemia and has now 94,544 inhabitants (2002).
During the German occupation more then two third of the Czech people had to leave Ústí. In 1945, about 2,000 people were killed and great parts of the city were destroyed during British and American air raids. This air raids can still be seen at the church of the Lady‘s Assumption (founded 1318): The foundation of the tower was damaged and the tower was tilted about 2 meters from the true vertical axes.
After the end of the Second World War, about 53.000 Germans were expelled and people from Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Romania and the Soviet Union were settled.

With the building of large blocks in the typical socialistic style and the demolition of the historic center in the 70ies, the center of Ústí finally lost its former aura. Today, the town is an industrially determined and developing center of Northern Bohemia.

Mentionable is the castle Schreckenstein (Hrad Strekov), which is owned by the Lobkowicz family since the 17th century. The family was dispossessed in 1948 and in 1989 the castle was again restituted. The painting ‚Crossing at the Schreckenstein‘ from Ludwig Richter made this castle more public and Wagner used it as a model for his opera „Tannenhäuser“. Today, the area has a more industrial ‚charm‘ and neither Richter nor Wagner would get any romantic inspiration.