Hrad Svojanov

The castle's cylindrical tower is built in a teardrop shape, angled to deflect blows rather than for looks. Renovations here turned up more than crumbling plaster: workers found over fifteen human remains built into the walls and ceilings, including eleven children's skeletons sealed into one ceiling, feeding Svojanov's reputation as one of the most haunted sites in the Czech Republic. Guides still tell the story of Katherine, said to have been walled up alive in a cellar and seen pacing the ramparts since, and of a portrait whose painted eyes are said to have closed themselves sometime after being photographed open. Přemysl Otakar II founded the castle around 1262 to guard the Trstěnice trade route between Bohemia and Moravia. The Lords of Boskovice added a system of late Gothic bastions and an armory in the 15th century, and the Trčka family later built a Renaissance palace here with sgrafitto facades. Fire struck twice, in 1569 and again in 1842, and the second rebuilding gave the castle the Empire-style rooms that now sit inside its Gothic walls.