Golden Trail over the Land of Castles
The "Golden Trail over the Land of Castles" with a total length of 89 km from Budyně nad Ohří to Úštěk connects most of the important castle monuments in the area of the Central Bohemian Uplands.
The Central Bohemian Uplands are surely a region with a unique atmosphere of beautiful nature, high basalt mounds and - above all - the land of castle ruins that crown these magnificant peaks. And those wonderful views of the region… you will love them! You will not see anything similar in the Czech lands. Moreover, few people realize that the Central Bohemian Uplands is the place where the oldest Czech legends take place and that it is also the only region where the invincible Czech military leader Jan Žižka from Trocnov imprinted his strategic genius on his own castle - Kalich.
Stops
Žitenice
Žitenice is a very old village: the greater part of it belonged to the Vyšehrad Chapter, founded in 1070 by the Bohemian prince Vratislav II (later the first Bohemian king Vratislav I), a smaller part belonged to the Litoměřice Chapter.
The fortress in Žitenice stood in the second half of the 15th century at the latest, but the first mention of it dates back to 1540. After 1611, the fortress was rebuilt into a two-winged Renaissance chateau, which underwent further modifications in the Baroque style at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and after a fire in 1806. The farm complex of the chateau dates back to the second half of the 17th century. In the vicinity of the chateau is the original Romanesque church of St Peter and Paul, which existed at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. The tower is originally Gothic (from around 1300), but the overall early Baroque appearance of the church today dates back to around 1650. A significant part of the history of Žitenice is connected with the Vyšehrad chapter; in 1791, the provincial school superintendent, the provost of Vyšehrad and later the bishop of Litoměřice, Ferdinand Kindermann, founded an industrial school for handicraft production here and also improved the local fruit-growing industry. There are other monuments in Žitenice and its surroundings, including several log and half-timbered folk buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, brick houses with Empire elements from the first half of the 19th century and several Baroque statues and sculptures (mostly from the 18th century). On a hill above the north-western edge of the village stands the former Baroque Loreto chapel of 1785, converted in 1908 into a Lourdes chapel with an artificial grotto.