Vrchotovy Janovice

A neo-gothic château in a celebrated English park — the home of Baroness Sidonie Nádherná, whose salon drew Rilke, Karl Kraus and Karel Čapek; now a National Museum site.

Vrchotovy Janovice grew from a moated gothic fortress of the lords of Janovice into a renaissance manor and finally, in the mid-19th century, the romantic neo-gothic château that stands today. Its fame belongs to its last private owner, Baroness Sidonie Nádherná of Borutín, who made it one of the cultural salons of Bohemia in the first half of the 20th century — Rainer Maria Rilke, Karl Kraus, Max Švabinský and Karel Čapek all stayed and walked in the park, which two centuries of landscaping made one of the most admired in the country. The château has belonged to the National Museum for over sixty years, with exhibitions on 19th-century society, on Rilke, Kraus and Sidonie, and on Czech bell-making.