Valtice

Did You Know?

• Valtice lies in the centre of the Mikulovská wine subregion and is a centre of wine making in Moravia.
• The National Wine Centre and the Wine Salon of the Czech Republic are located in Valtice Castle.
• The town borders the Austrian municipality of Schrattenberg.

History

Valtice Castle, originally called Feldsberg and part of the Duchy of Austria, was probably founded in the 11th century. The first written mention of the village of Feldsberg appears in a 1192 deed as Veldesperch, held by the Lords of Seefeld near the Moravian border. Between 1192 and 1227, Feldsberg became a town. After the Lords of Seefeld died out in 1270, the estate was divided into six parts and changed owners several times. The Liechtenstein family gradually acquired the entire estate between 1387 and 1395. During the Hussite Wars, the Liechtensteins supported Sigismund, and the town was burned by the Hussites in 1426. It was devastated again in 1458 by troops of King George of Poděbrady and in 1480 by forces of King Matthias Corvinus during the Austrian–Hungarian War. Renewal and prosperity came in the first half of the 16th century under Hartman I of Liechtenstein. In the mid-16th century, citizens converted to Protestantism but faced Counter-Reformation measures under Karl I of Liechtenstein, who converted to Catholicism in 1599. During the Thirty Years' War, the town was plundered in 1619 by troops of Gabriel Bethlen and Henri Duval Dampierre, and later conquered by Swedish forces under General Lennart Torstensson. After the war, the town became the principal Liechtenstein seat. Prince Karl Eusebius rebuilt the castle and completed a new parish church in 1671, also ordering forests east of the town. His son and nephew extended the castle and built a monastery of the Brothers Hospitallers. The town's appearance changed greatly between 1648 and 1781.

Sights

Valtice contains the Valtice Palace, a Baroque residence designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in the early 18th century as the seat of the Liechtenstein princes. Together with the Lednice manor, connected by a 7 km lime-tree avenue, it forms the Lednice–Valtice Cultural Landscape UNESCO site. The castle is surrounded by an English park with a Neoclassical colonnade and the Temple of Diana from 1812 designed by Joseph Hardtmuth.