zámek Lomnice
Castle · Czechia
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The chateau rises over the small town of Lomnice, its Renaissance arcades and Baroque wings a clear waypoint on the ride through this corner of South Moravia. It began as a Gothic fortress built in the first half of the 13th century, first recorded in 1281 under Vznatá z Lomnice, a member of the Lords of Lomnice who held it. A 14th-century outer bailey added the first courtyard, and a transverse wing from the same era conceals a late-Gothic chapel (second half of the 15th century) whose net rib vaulting is considered one of Moravia's small Gothic gems. The Žerotín family gave it its Renaissance ground-floor arcades; after the Battle of White Mountain it passed through the Breuner and Mansfeld families before Count Gabriel Serényi bought it in 1662, and his son František Gabriel Serényi built the Baroque knights' hall with architect Jan Křtitel Erna. After 1700, Antonín Amatus Serényi expanded it further into a luxury residence with Baroque gardens, and 19th-century owners added Neo-Romantic and Neo-Gothic touches. Confiscated after WWII and used institutionally under communism, it returned to the Thienen-Adlerflychten family in 2018, who are now restoring it. Protected as a Czech cultural monument.
Vznatá z Lomnice, first named as the fortress's owner in 1281, belonged to the lords of Lomnice, who held the site for close to three centuries. Karel the Elder of Žerotín added the ground-floor arcades around the west courtyard as the Renaissance reached Moravia. After the Thirty Years' War the estate passed briefly through the Breuner and Mansfeld families before the Moravian provincial governor Count Gabriel Serényi bought it in 1662. His son František Gabriel Serényi built the Baroque knights' hall with architect Jan Křtitel Erna, and Antonín Amatus Serényi later turned the whole complex into a grand residence with formal gardens after 1700. Even the main entrance carries a piece of that Baroque ambition: a stone portal moved here from the Serényi family's own palace in Brno.
What you see
A Baroque-era park slopes from the chateau down toward the Besének stream, its centrepiece a red beech old enough to have placed third in the Czech Republic's Tree of the Year contest in 2010.
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