Litomyšl Travel Guide

The Litomyšl Monastery Garden is a tranquil, elegant green space shaped by modern artistic means, nestled between the castle and an old church, blending historic architecture, greenery and modern art into one — a fresh, delightful and ingeniously designed retreat while roaming Litomyšl. Located beside the Litomyšl castle complex and near the Piarist Church (a magnificent Baroque church) and other historic buildings, it is a public garden greenery created by modern landscape designers on the basis of the former monastery and castle grounds. Its design fuses historical depth with modern aesthetics — preserving the historic architectural backdrop while laying out lawns, flowers, water features, paths and resting spaces with clean, elegant modern landscape techniques, dotted with modern sculptures and art installations, tranquil, fresh and tasteful. Strolling the garden, visitors can wander and rest amid greenery and fragrance, admire the magnificent Baroque church and castle beside it, and feel the harmonious beauty where history and modernity, architecture and nature meet — a tranquil oasis to relax after visiting Litomyšl's historic sights such as the castle and square. The open, tranquil garden also often serves as an elegant venue for local cultural events and concerts. A stroll and rest in this tranquil, ingeniously designed Monastery Garden is a fresh, delightful interlude in this UNESCO town (best in the warm season).

Litomyšl Castle is the jewel of this tranquil town and one of the best-preserved and most exquisite Renaissance arcaded castles in the Czech Republic. Its uniquely splendid sgraffito-decorated façade earned it a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list, making it an outstanding example of Italian Renaissance castles in Central Europe. Built in the second half of the 16th century by a prominent noble family who engaged Italian architects to model it on Italian Renaissance palaces, the castle brought the rare north-of-the-Alps Italian arcaded castle style perfectly into Bohemia. Its most striking and uniquely splendid feature is the "sgraffito" decoration covering the entire façade — craftsmen used a unique technique of scratching patterns into layers of differently colored plaster to create thousands of exquisite diamond-point relief squares and richly vivid decorative scenes, dressing the whole outer wall in a finely chiseled, splendid coat, unique and exquisite beyond compare. The interior is equally splendid — an elegant Renaissance arcaded courtyard, ornate halls, and especially a well-preserved 18th-century Baroque court theatre (among the oldest of its kind in Europe, with its original stage machinery and sets intact). The composer Smetana was also born in the castle's brewery. Exploring this sgraffito-adorned, profound UNESCO Renaissance castle is the number-one sight not to be missed in this tranquil town.