Please note: The castle is currently not accessible. It will reopen on July 1, 2024.

Ploskovice Chateau is a magnificent baroque chateau with a large chateau garden. Its main attraction are the free-ranging peacocks, which show no shyness, but rather their impressive feather decorations.

In addition to guided tours of the castle and the richly painted grottos, visitors can also enjoy a teddy bear exhibition.

The castle has been the backdrop for many Czech and international films, including Miloš Forman's "Amadeus" and Tom Toelle's "Germany Song" (complete list in Czech).

History

On the site of the Ploskovice chateau there was a fortified complex of the Knights of St. John's since the 12th century, later a small castle where the eastern pavilion now stands. The Knights of St. John had to sell the complex in 1545, and the new owners built a simple chateau next to the castle, where the western pavilion now stands.

Today's appearance goes back mainly to Anna Maria Franziska of Sachsen-Lauenburg, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. She was married in second marriage to Gian Gastone de' Medici (hence the Tuscany in the title). However, the marriage must have been a complete fiasco, which could not be saved even by the intervention of the Pope. Anna Maria Franziska lived - separated from her husband - in the Bohemian territories she had inherited from her father, including Ploskovice. The unhappy marriage may have contributed to the fact that she invested a lot of energy and money in the development of the castle into a baroque jewel. How much she invested, when exactly the construction took place (probably in the first quarter of the 18th century) and who carried it out cannot be traced today, however, as she burned all documents.

Later the castle fell to the Habsburgs and in 1849 it became the summer residence of the abdicated Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I. Dobrotivý (as the Hungarian and - last crowned - Bohemian king he was Ferdinand V.). For this purpose the castle had to be rebuilt and extended and received its present form.

At the time of the First Republic the castle served the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the Nazi occupation it was used as the National Political Education Institution of Sudetenland. After the war it was finally opened to the public as a museum.