Letohrádek Portz, Baroque hunting lodge in Mikulov, Czech Republic.
Letohrádek Portz is a baroque hunting lodge located in Mikulov featuring elegant facades, vaulted rooms, and ornately decorated interiors. The two-story building displays a symmetrical layout with refined decorative details typical of the baroque period.
Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein had the lodge built in 1627 on a square terrace with four corner bastions; the southeast bastion already stood on Lower Austrian soil in Drasenhofen. Remodelled in the 18th and 19th centuries, it kept only its Mannerist core, and the balconies and double staircase date from the Baroque phase. After 1945 it lay in the guarded border zone and lost its roof; since 2010 Michal and Petra Cibulková have restored it.
The Dietrichstein family used the lodge only for rare occasions; Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson visited shortly before World War II. Today the Cibulka couple, who began a complete reconstruction after 2010, hold cultural events for the public there.
The lodge stands on Tichý ostrov by Nový rybník, outside Mikulov near the Moravian–Lower Austrian border, so it is not in the town centre. Access to the island is from the south across the fifteen-arched brick bridge, rebuilt in 2020. The site is private and serves as accommodation and company space, so visits depend on cultural events.
In 1672 Venetian gondolas were brought here for a visit by Emperor Leopold I and his wife Margaret of Spain, with imperial musicians from Vienna playing for their rides on the pond. Small doors at the farm buildings lead into a system of underground passages, some running toward the lodge.
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