Choceň Castle, Baroque château in Choceň, Czech Republic.
Choceň Castle is a baroque structure in the town of Choceň in eastern Bohemia, taking its current form in the early 18th century. The building houses the Orlické Museum and features a separate neo-Gothic chapel erected in the mid-1800s.
The original structure began as a Renaissance building and underwent major baroque transformations in the early 18th century. Following a fire in the early 1800s, classical repairs modernized the structure and reshaped its appearance.
The castle chapel, added in 1849–1850 for Wilhelmine von Kinsky, is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary and holds an altar of white Carrara marble. The Kinskys used the castle as a summer residence until 1945. Today the south wing houses a primary art school and the north wing the Orlické Museum.
The castle sits in eastern Bohemia and is reachable by train, as the town lies on a railway line between Prague and Olomouc. Visitors should prepare for occasional uneven floors in the older sections of the building.
The castle's first wing was finished in 1562, and a stone plaque above the passage into the south wing records that date. The four-wing layout was completed between 1587 and 1599 under Hertvík Zejdlic of Šenfeld. A 1610 record calls the building a comfortable and cheerful house well built of stone.
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