Bezděz Castle

About

Bezděz Castle (Czech: hrad Bezděz) is a Gothic castle in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It is located about 20 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Česká Lípa. Its construction began before 1264 by order of King Ottokar II of Bohemia. The royal castle of Bezděz was one of the most important Gothic castles in the Czech lands until its destruction in the Thirty Years' War. Erected between 1260 and 1280 on the phonolite hill of Velký Bezděz, 604 metres (1,982 ft) above sea level, it became the characteristic landmark of the local landscape and met the demands for an inaccessible as well as respectable royal castle.

History: A year after Ottokar II's death, the castle Bezděz, which was still unfinished, became the place of imprisonment of Queen Kunhuta and her underage son Wenceslaus II, kept under lock and key in very spartan conditions by Wenceslaus's guardian Ota Braniborský, Margrave of Brandenburg, after the Battle on the Marchfeld. The boy, only 6 or 7 at the time, remained there alone when his mother escaped under a pretext and it is widely accepted that the place left its mark on him. As an adult, and ruling monarch, he returned to Bezděz to order the construction of...