Buchlov, Medieval castle in Buchlovice, Czech Republic

Buchlov is a royal castle on a wooded hill at 522 metres in the Chřiby mountains above Buchlovice. Its core mixes Romanesque and Gothic work, with a Renaissance wing dated 1602, a clock tower, and a square white tower with a steep grey roof beside a green onion dome. The first courtyard, entered through a baroque gate with a bastion, dates from the 17th century.

Buchlov was built in the first half of the 13th century as a royal castle with economic, defensive and administrative functions, including hunting-law jurisdiction; the oldest late-Romanesque parts were built by the Cistercian monastery at Velehrad. From 1425 it was pledged, first to the Liechtensteins, and in 1511 Vladislav II gave it to Arkleb Trnavský of Boskovice. Jan Ždánský of Zástřizl bought it in 1520 and rebuilt it in Renaissance style; the Petřvalds held it from 1644 to 1800, adding the first courtyard with tower gate and bastion.

The castle's name is tied to a legend of a stone altar to a pagan hunting god in a nearby cave, which gave the Slavic form Bůh-lov. The Chapel of Saint Barbara, built on the neighbouring Modla hill in 1670–1672 by Hanuš Zikmund of Petřvald, holds the remains of the Petřvald and Berchtold families.

The tour route passes through the first courtyard with its 17th-century baroque gate and bastion, over a wooden bridge and through the burgrave's building to the second courtyard. The core of the medieval castle and the Renaissance building of 1602 stand to the right, beside the terrace with the clock tower.

The castle's second courtyard holds a linden tree said to have sprouted after the armorer Vlček, condemned for treason, appealed to God's judgment; the tree is still shown to visitors today. The 35-metre tower has an open viewing platform.