Orlík Castle

Orlík Castle in Orlík nad Vltavou, Czechia, is a medieval royal stronghold erected by the Bohemian crown under King Přemysl Otakar II in the second half of the 13th century. Built to oversee a ford of the Vltava River and to collect tolls on river traffic, the castle occupied a strategic spot that linked royal authority, river control, and local administration from its foundation. Its position on a rocky spur made it a persistent military and economic asset through several centuries of Bohemian history.

In 1357 King Charles IV granted the estate to Bishop Dětřich of Portic while keeping the right to garrison the fortress in wartime. Ownership changed hands in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and in 1407 the property passed to Petr Zmrzlík of Svojšín. Under the Zmrzlík family the castle sided with the Utraquist branch of the Hussite movement; it was modified in that period and in 1422 hosted the commander Jan Žižka, who there wrote a letter urging resistance to an incoming crusade. At that time Orlík served as a Utraquist strongpoint countering the nearby Catholic-held Zvíkov.

After a fire in 1508 the estate came into the hands of Kryštof of Švamberk in 1514, who began substantial rebuilding to enlarge living quarters and add economic facilities. Later 16th-century work inserted Renaissance details and between 1575 and 1578 the residential wings were raised by one storey while the forecourt was strengthened with walls, a round tower and two gates. Those outer defenses were later removed during 19th-century landscaping.

During the Bohemian Revolt the castle was held by estate forces and came under siege by imperial troops led by Baltasar Marradas and Martin de Hoeff-Huerta. The garrison surrendered on 5 April 1621, after which imperial forces occupied the site and the Švamberk owners lost the estate to Emperor Ferdinand II. On 13 November 1623 the confiscated property was sold to Prince Jan Oldřich of Eggenberg. The Eggenberg family repaired and provisioned the castle, maintained garrisons through wartime occupations, and undertook further defensive work into the mid-17th century; new works began in 1645.

In 1683 the castle was rearmed during a period of concern over Ottoman advance; an inventory from that time lists small cannon, large numbers of shot, hand weapons and gunpowder munitions. After the last Eggenberg died in 1717 the estate passed by inheritance to Maria Ernestina and then to the Schwarzenberg family, who reshaped the site across the 18th and 19th centuries. The castle underwent Baroque and later classical alterations, major repairs and additions after an 1802 fire, and a romantic neo-Gothic campaign in the mid-19th century. From about 1802 the surrounding grounds were converted into an English-style park that ultimately covered roughly 160 hectares.

In the 20th century the property was seized during the Nazi occupation and returned briefly after 1945; in 1948 the communist state confiscated the estate and the Schwarzenberg family went into exile. The castle was placed in the highest category of protected monuments and its interiors were retained in the 1948 condition. Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, the Schwarzenberg family recovered the property by restitution in 1992 and undertook restoration work. Between 1960 and 1962 construction of the Orlík reservoir raised the Vltava and substantially altered the valley around the site. Archaeological rescue excavations have taken place in the courtyard and foreworks, including investigations in spring 2000. In 2023 the ashes of Karel Schwarzenberg were interred in the family tomb chapel in the castle park.