Blatna trip planner

Blatná is a small town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, with a water castle in the center of an artificial lake and a landscape garden around it. It lies in a pleasant rolling countryside with a mosaic of fields, meadows and hundreds of ponds and nearly no industry.Blatná is also the seat of the Municipality with Extended Competence and Municipality with Commissioned Local Authority within the same borders.HistoryThe CastleAlthough the area has been inhabited since the 6th century, the first written record of Blatná dates back to 1235, when probably just a wooden fortress built on a rocky piece of land in the middle of a marshland existed. Not much is known about the castle until the second half of the 13th century, when it becomes the property of the house of Bavorové of Strakonice. There exists a legend that in those times the fortress was a seat of the Templars who are said to have hidden a treasure somewhere in the castle. The only remaining construction from this period are the foundations of a Romanesque chapel.From 1391 the castle and then already existing town belonged to the house of Lvové of Rožmitál. Under the new masters the fortress was for the first time rebuilt in stone and the surrounding marshes were changed into wide water trenches, thus giving the castle the looks of "A swan sitting in a lake". Their long rule marks the golden age of this place. Lvové were continuously rebuilding and enlarging the castle, first with the so-called Old Palace, standing separatedly over the remnants of the Romanesque Chapel. In 1523–1530, under the guidance of renowned royal builder Benedikt Ried of Piesting , a new palace in a mixed Gothic-Renaissance style was appended .