Houska Castle

Houska Castle (Czech: Hrad Houska) is an early Gothic castle in the municipality of Blatce in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It lies about 47 km (29 mi) north of Prague. It is one of the best preserved castles of the period. Some notable features of the castle include a predominantly Gothic chapel, a green chamber with late-Gothic paintings, and a knight's drawing room.

Folklore considers this castle to cover one of the gateways to Hell, built to prevent demons (trapped in lower levels) from reaching the rest of the world.

Text adapted from “Houska Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Houska Castle ranks #981 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #19 of the 200 mapped in Czech Republic. Founded 1300, it is older than 63% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 825 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 49,521 times in the last 60 days, more than 99% of the atlas. Wikidata records about 18,000 visitors in 2022. 6 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Liberec, 43 km away. It is one of the 156 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Bohemia. See how Czech Republic compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗