Alainova věž

A neo-Gothic sandstone hunting tower from 1862 on the southern slope of Tábor, built in memory of Alain Rohan — restored by Lomnice nad Popelkou and opened as a lookout in 2015.

Alainova věž stands where you don’t expect a tower at all — in a forest clearing on the southern slope of Tábor, with no village in sight. The octagonal, single-storey building of white sandstone, 10.5 m tall, was put up around 1862 by the princely builder Josef Pruvot for Kamil Rohan, owner of the Lomnice estate, in memory of his nephew Alain Rohan, who died in 1857 at twenty-seven after a fall from a horse during a hunt. It served as an elegant hunting lodge in the Rohan game preserve until the First World War, then slowly fell into ruin. The town of Lomnice nad Popelkou bought the wreck in 2009, rebuilt it in 2013–2014 and added the iron spiral staircase in 2015 — since then it has been a freely accessible lookout, and one of the prettiest small towers of the Český ráj borderlands.