Arcibiskupský zámek
Castle · Czechia
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Seat of the bishops and archbishops of Olomouc, rebuilt in Baroque style from 1664 after Swedish troops burned it, the palace and its 17th-century Pleasure Garden are a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998. The gallery holds Titian's Flaying of Marsyas, and the grand rooms stood in for Vienna's Hofburg in Miloš Forman's Amadeus.
Inside, the tour splits between the Sala Terrena and the Representative Halls: the Sala Terrena is a frescoed hall that once linked the palace straight to the garden, its stucco walls painted with mythological scenes and hiding two small artificial grottoes studded with semi-precious stones. The Baroque palace seen today was begun in 1664 under the Italian architect Filiberto Lucchese; when he died two years later, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla finished both the building and its formal garden layout. A fire gutted much of the upper floor in 1752, and the twenty-year rebuild that followed was completed under Bishop Hamilton, whose Feudal Hall carries a ceiling cycle by the Austrian Baroque painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch and walls frescoed by Josef Stern. The palace still holds a library of 33,000 volumes and a substantial music archive alongside its picture gallery.
What you see
In the Kvetna zahrada garden, a 244-metre neoclassical colonnade, built in 1846 and lined with statues of classical gods and heroes, runs the length of one side and doubles as a raised terrace looking back over the garden's parterres.
Practical
The Chateau Garden is free to enter year-round. Bikes aren't allowed inside the chateau or the gardens, but there are racks right at the entrance.
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