*A walk around the remarkable Romanesque castle of Landštejn: 5 km*

• Landštejn castle is one of the most important and impressive Romanesque buildings in Central Europe. Constructed in the early 13th century, Landštejn was an important royal guard fortress protecting the south Bohemian border with Austria and Moravia. It was probably the largest castle in the kingdom in the early 14th century.
• The castle had late Gothic and Renaissance additions, but the core Romanesque structure remains. The castle was finally abandoned in the 18th century and fell into its current ruined (but romantic) form. The whole castle is essentially a museum dedicated to castle architecture and is well worth a visit during the opening period (May to October). There is often an exhibition of hunting birds in the grounds.
• Landštejn is the symbol of the 283 km² Česká Kanada nature park situated to the southeast of Jindřichův Hradec. The protected nature area was formally established in 1994, but name was created in the 1920’s by the journalist and author, Jaroslav Arnošt Trpák, who was inspired to promote his home region of Jindřichův Hradec by a trip to north America and specifically his travels in the Canadian landscape. Like Canada, this cool and quite wet corner of South Bohemia comprises a relatively unpopulated expanse of mixed forests on rolling hills, interspersed with many ponds and small lakes.
• Several hiking trails converge on Landštejn castle and good long walks in the Česká Kanada landscape can be created starting at either of the town towns which border the park, Nová Bystřice and Slavonice. The Slavonice route is particularly recommended (and will be written up in this guide in due course!) However, for a taste of the landscape, a nice short circular walk starting at Landštejn is outlined below.
• This walk follows the ridge on which the castle was built, past a romantic 19th century chapel (see picture below) and a number of scenic granite rock formations that are a feature of the Česká Kanada landscape. The route circles back to Landštejn in the valley below the ridge, passing the even older castle ruins at Pomezí.
• The route is just under 5 km long, with around 100m of height to ascend/descend on easy footpaths, partly in the forest, partly on farm tracks. For refreshments, there a couple of restaurants close to the castle car park (these are marked at map points 7 and 8).

Note: click ‘Show on Mapy.com’  to go to a full screen version of the route directly on the mapy.com site. This can be used for on line navigation, saved or exported as a GPX file.

Directions

• Infrequent buses reach Landštejn from the nearby towns of Nová Bystřice and Slavonice. Most visitors will probably arrive by car and park in the large (paid) parking area just below the castle
• After visiting the castle, join the RED hiking trail (which runs directly below the castle walls on the western side), after 700m reaching the Chapel of the Virgin Mary
• Continue on the RED trail for 800m to reach the U kříže junction. Here, turn sharply right to join the YELLOW trail which leads to the Pomezí junction after 2 km
• At Pomezí join the BLUE trail heading back to Landštejn, which is reached after 800m