Waltsch: Holiday Apartments and Holiday Homes

Waltsch combines Baroque architecture, historic churches, and a protected cultural landscape with an unusually large number of visible traces of bygone eras. At its centre is Valeč Castle, which was remodelled in the Baroque period by F. Barelli and G. A. Biana Rossa. A self-guided tour leads through centuries of splendour, destruction, and reconstruction; at the same time, the Baroque sculptures can be experienced in a new light.

Culture and History

The Valeč Castle Park contains sculptures from the workshop of Matyáš Bernard Braun. They represent allegories of characteristics and figures from Greek mythology. The Theatron of Valeč was intended for open-air theatre and music performances.

The religious buildings also give the town its historic character. A tour of the interior of the Church of the Holy Trinity includes explanations of the burial traditions of the Lords of Valeč. The Trinity Column in Valeč was designed by the architect František Maxmilián Kaňka and created in the workshop of the sculptor Matyáš Bernard Braun. The parish church of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist in Valeč was founded in the mid-13th century. The cemetery Church of Our Lady of Sorrows was built in 1751 in the late Baroque style.

The Valeč Lapidarium displays 28 original Baroque sculptures and sculptural groups that once adorned the castle terraces and gardens. A sophisticated light and sound presentation allows the sculptures to be experienced in different atmospheres.

Landscape

Valečsko is a protected cultural landscape surrounding the Baroque town of Valeč. The defining features are the castle and two churches. The Valeč Castle Park also preserves a Baroque water system with cascades, fountains, ponds, irrigation facilities, and an almost three-kilometre-long water pipeline.

The castle park is freely accessible year-round from sunrise to sunset. This means that, alongside the historic buildings, the interplay of parkland, sculptures, and water technology remains visible as an integral part of the site.

Paths and Orientation

The Stations of the Cross in Valeč led from the castle Church of the Holy Trinity to Calvary. The newly restored Stations of the Cross begin just behind Valeč at a bend in the road from the castle Church of the Holy Trinity towards Vrbice. Along the road, the route passes a large number of the chapels; it then continues left across a meadow above the overgrown slope. Behind the fourteenth station there is a group of sculptures depicting the Crucifixion, from which there is a sweeping view across the whole of Valeč. Parking is available at the castle Church of the Holy Trinity.

Further local pages: Töppeles, Engelhaus, Großfürwitz, Uitwa, Pirkenhammer, Ostrov Nad Ohří, Janessen, Tüppelsgrün.

To the higher-level travel overview: Karlovy Vary District.