Bělá pod Bezdězem Castle, Baroque château in Bělá pod Bezdězem, Czech Republic.
Bělá pod Bezdězem Castle is a five-wing Baroque building on a promontory in the southeast of the town. Its south wing has a Gothic core with cellars vaulted in the second half of the 15th century, and a north arcade wing was added around 1600. The Chapel of St Joseph bears a late Renaissance portal dated 1629.
The castle stands on the site of a fortress probably founded around 1304 with the town of Bělá on the Bezděz estate of Hynek of Dubá. Hussite troops took the town in 1421, and when Margrave Sigismund of Meissen retook it in 1431, both town and fortress were damaged. From 1586 to 1615 a Renaissance rebuilding added an arcaded north wing, and after 1689 Jean-Baptiste Mathey and Bernardo Canevalle carried out the last major Baroque reconstruction.
The castle houses a museum since 1939, originally the Museum of the Bělá Judicial District. Guided tours show the Waldstein Hall with Renaissance wall paintings, a robbers' exhibition, a puppet exhibition, a children's workshop, late Gothic cellars, a model of the 18th-century town, a toilet tower with a display of chamber pots, and the Chapel of St Joseph.
Guided tours of the castle start from the information centre on the ground floor, which also gives opening times. The tour covers the Wallenstein Hall, the late-Gothic cellars, a model of the 18th-century town, the toilet tower and the Chapel of St Joseph.
The castle stands on a rocky spur in the southeastern part of the old town, on the site of a fortress probably founded with the town in 1304 under Hynek of Dubá. Parts of its stone wall and a filled-in moat survive in the slope edge.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,215 contributors worldwide.