Hora Říp

Říp is the mountain of the Czech founding legend: according to the story first written down in the 12th century, the mythical forefather Čech led his people here from a hostile homeland, climbed the summit, and declared it the promised land where the Czech nation would settle. The tale was retold most famously by Alois Jirásek in 1894, and it has kept Říp central to Czech national identity ever since; Čech himself is said to be buried in the nearby village of Ctiněves. The hill itself is the eroded remnant of a volcano tens of millions of years old, and it rises so abruptly out of the flat Elbe lowland that it is visible for many kilometres in every direction. On the summit stands the Romanesque rotunda of St. George and St. Vojtěch, rebuilt in 1126 by Prince Soběslav I to mark his victory over the German king Lothar III at the Battle of Chlumec, among the oldest standing buildings in the country. Both the mountain and the rotunda are protected as a national cultural monument.