Lednice-Valtice Area

When the power of nature joins forces with the sensitive intervention of human hands, ravishingly beautiful landscape can be created.

The original wildness is preserved here but still you feel safe, it is both pleasing and heart warming.
The designed landscape complex extending over 300 km2 surrounding the Lednice and Valtice chateaux was built over centuries by the noble Liechtenstein family.

The Lednice village was first mentioned in writing in 1222. At that time, a fortress was built here to guard the river crossing. It was acquired by the Liechtenstein family a hundred years later and in the 16th century it was rebuilt to become a representative chateau of this important noble family. The lords of Lichtenstein greatly benefited Lednice and its surroundings. They invited renowned master craftsmen, fountain builders, architects and artists of their time to their court to take part in shaping Lednice. In the mid 19th century, the court architect Jiří Wingelmüller reconstructed the interiors and exteriors of the chateau to give it today’s English neo-Gothic appearance. The well known artists included the architect Josef Hardmuth who designed a number of buildings in the Lednice chateau complex but is much more widely known thanks to one important invention of his. When designing architecture for the local prince, he had the idea of placing graphite into wood, and so the modern pencil was born.