Location: 20 km southeast of Česká Lípa, Northern Bohemia
Found: 1264
Phone: +420 487 873 131
E-mail:
bezdez@liberec.npu.cz
Open hours:
April: 10am- 4:30pm (Sat
closed)
May- Sept: 9am- 4:30pm (Tue closed)
Oct: 9am-
3:30pm (Sat closed)
Entrance Fees: Full price: 60 CZK
Family: 160 CZK (max 2 adults, 6 children)
Children: 40 CZK
Students: 40 CZK
Senior: 40 CZK
Bezděz is the ruins of a castle near the village of the same name on
Bezděz hill (606 meters) in the Dokeská pahorkatina, six kilometers
southeast of the town of Doksy in the Česká Lípa district in the Liberec
region. It is protected as a national cultural monument and is open to
the public during visiting hours.
The castle was founded by King
Přemysl Otakar II. in the second half of the 13th century. The
construction was mostly completed in 1279, when the young Wenceslas II
was imprisoned in the castle. From the beginning of the 14th century, a
number of noble families took turns in possession of the castle, which
included, for example, the Berks from Dubá, the lords from Michalovice,
from Cimburek, or the Vartenberks and Valdštejns. During the 16th
century, the castle lost its residential significance. At the beginning
of the Thirty Years' War, it was damaged by the imperial army. Albrecht
of Valdštejn briefly tried to rebuild Bezděz into a modern fortress, but
he did not complete his plan. Since then, the castle served church
purposes, and the castle chapel turned into an important place of
pilgrimage in the 18th century. After its abolition, the castle began to
deteriorate and gradually turned into a ruin, which served as a source
of inspiration for a number of artists during the Romantic era.
Bezděz is one of the best-preserved castles from the thirteenth century
in the Czech Republic. Extensive remains of several palaces, two round
towers and a fortification system unique in its time have been
preserved. Unlike older castles, the great hall was no longer the
dominant interior space of the castle. In its place, a residential unit
consisting of a smaller vaulted hall is repeated in all palaces, to
which a vaulted chamber and a room with interior wooden paneling
adjoined on the sides. The castle chapel is an artistically exceptional
space. fortifications.
Medieval walls of Bezděz Castle fit perfectly in the surrounding landscapes. The place is
not very well- known with tourists since most foreigners simply don’t
know about the location. This guarantees that you can escape noisy
crowds.
The name of the castle was taken from the older name of the forest-covered mountain. The word Bezděz was derived from the personal name Bezděd meaning Bezděd's forest, manor or castle. In historical sources, the name appears in the following forms: Besdhetz (1264), "in castrum Bezdiezi" (1279), Bezdezi (1283), Bezdez (1286), Bezdes (1340), Bezdyez (1352), Bezdiez (1354), Bezdyezie ( 1384–1405), to bezdyezy (around 1400), Bezdyezye (1422), Bezgezy (1518), to Bezdiezij (1546), to vezdiezy castle (1558), to Bezdiezý hora (1578), to Bezdiezy (1593), Pösig (1720) or Bezděz and Schloss Bösig (1848).
Thirteenth century
The landscape around Bezděz, with its abundance
of swamps and bogs, remained almost uninhabited until the end of the
twelfth century. Its administrative center was the Mladá Boleslav
castle, but in the second half of the twelfth century it got its own
administrator, whose manor was most likely in the neighborhood of St.
Giljí's church in Bezděz. The administrator's office is documented in
writing in 1264, when its existence was already ending. In the same
year, King Přemysl Otakar II. founded the new royal castle of Bezděz. It
was supposed to replace the slightly older Houska, which was cramped and
did not meet the king's needs. The construction of both castles was
carried out by the same construction company, which had previously
worked in the Hradiště monastery and was influenced by the art of
construction brought to Bohemia by Cistercian monks from Burgundy and
northern Germany. Bezděz was largely completed in 1278 or 1279, so the
founder Přemysl Otakar II. apparently did not live to see him (he died
in the battle on the Moravian Field in August 1278).
Dobroslav
Líbal divided the construction into three stages. During the first one,
which started perhaps already in the 13th century, the royal palace,
tower and fortifications were built. In the second phase, during the
seventies of the 13th century, the burgrave's palace and the rebuilding
of the lower castle followed. In the third stage, at the beginning of
the reign of Wenceslas II, a chapel was built. According to Tomáš
Durdík, the castle was largely completed in 1279 and later during the
reign of Wenceslas II. only the castle chapel was completed, but as part
of the initial plan it was founded at the same time as the neighboring
palace.
At the end of January or February 1279, Margrave Otto V
of Brandenburg had the young Wenceslas II, his sister Anežka and their
mother Kunhuta imprisoned in the castle. Burgrave Hermann of Bezděz
trusted that the mother would not abandon her children, and allowed her
to go for rides around the castle. Kunhuta finally took advantage of the
opportunity and fled to Opava under the pretext of visiting her
husband's remains. Václav stayed at the castle until November, when Otto
V took him to Žitava. Ota's interest in Bezděz continued, and in 1282 he
acquired it as a pledge along with other castles and adjacent towns
(Žitava, Most, Svádov, Děčín, Ústí, Ostrý and Ronov), although he had to
return them the following year by King Rudolf's decision.
To
ensure the operational and defense needs of the castle, a Manx system
was established with its own court in Běla pod Bezdězem. Individual
manors used to be in Bezdědice, Doubravica, Doubravica, Chotětov,
Klucice, Lobča, Myšlín, Nosálov, Ostřem, Plužná, Skalka, Skramouš,
Spikalé, Sudoměř, Záboří and Žebice.
Fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries
The owners of the castle in the first half of the 14th
century are unclear. In 1300 or shortly after, Hynek Berka of Dubé
acquired the castle as a pledge. However, according to August Sedláček
and František Záruba, Bezděz was given a pledge only after the death of
Václav II. Hynk's brother Půta from Frýdlant, documented as owner of the
castle in 1315 or 1316, and the castle fell to Hynk only when Půta died
after 1318. The Berks from Dubé owned the castle until 1348, when it was
bought by King Charles IV. Karl's stay in the castle is documented in
the years 1351, 1352, 1357 and 1367. In his proposed code Majestas
Carolina, the sovereign designated Bezděz as an inalienable castle.
During the reign of Charles IV. a pond system was built in the landscape
below the castle, the core of which is Lake Mácho. Its construction was
supervised by the Bezděz burgrave Oldřich Tista from Libštejn.
King Wenceslas IV. he gave the castle to Prokop of Luxemburg, who
supported the king in his battles with his brother Sigismund. However,
on June 6, 1402, Prokop pledged Bezděz to Havel of Zvířice for a
thousand kopeck groschen, with the condition that the castle would
always be at his disposal and that Havel would support him militarily.
In the summer of the same year, Sigmund drew his army to the castle, but
did not attempt a siege. Under the pretext of negotiation, however, he
lured Prokop out of the castle in order to immediately capture him.
Havel kept the castle until his death around 1405 and bequeathed it to
Janko from Chotěmice. Wenceslas IV. He probably bought the castle again
in 1406 and appointed Jan from Smržov as burgrave. On November 12, 1410,
he transferred the authority of the Manx judge to the Burgrave of Bezděz
and limited the Manx's ability to freely dispose of their property.
Towards the end of Wenceslaus's reign, Janek of Smilkovo and Kostelka
(1417–1418) and Zikmund of Mlazice (1418–1419) alternated as burgrave.
After his brother's death, in 1419, Sigismund of Luxembourg gave
Bezděz to Jan of Michalovice, who occupied it with a strong garrison
during the Hussite wars, making the castle an important support for the
Catholics. Among others, the monks from the burned Hradisť monastery,
the canons of the Vyšehrad chapter found shelter in the castle, or court
records were stored here. The Hussites did not even try to conquer a
strong castle. After his father's death around 1425, Bezděz was taken
over by his son Jindřich from Michalovice. In 1429, King Zikmund wrote
him down a debt of six thousand kopeck groschen, for which he pledged
not only Bezděz with its town but also Běla with a large pond under
Doksy and other towns and villages. However, Henry had to use most of
the income from the estate for the maintenance of the castle. Jindřich
died in 1436 and the property was inherited by his brother Petr from
Michalovice. The following year, he handed it over to Václav from
Michalovice and the latter to Jindřich from Michalovice.
Jindřich
was not able to repay his father's debts, and therefore in 1445 Bezděz
was mortgaged to his brother-in-law Jan of Smiřice, but after his
execution in 1453, the castle was returned to him. King Jiří of
Poděbrady increased his pledge on Bezděz by four thousand kopecks and
confirmed the previously granted but later lost rights of the town of
Doksy. With Jindřich's death, the male line of the lords of Michalovice
died out, and the property was inherited by his sister Magdalena,
married to Jan Tovačovský from Cimburk.
Jan Tovačovský was an
important supporter of King George, to whom he left the Moravian towns
of Přerov and Hranice in 1470. For this, the king increased the pledge
on Bezděza by ten thousand kopecks. When he died in 1483, Jan's son Adam
was still a minor, and his uncle Ctibor from Cimburk became his
guardian. Adam and his mother Johana, née Krajířová from Krajek, took
over the management of the estate in 1494, but the following year they
transferred it to Jan from Janovice. Nevertheless, even in 1497, King
Vladislav confirmed to Adam a written sum for the Bezdězsk estate in the
amount of twenty thousand kopecks of groschen.
Sixteenth century
Jan from Janovice founded new ponds on the Bezděz estate. Being
childless in 1502, he adopted Jan Špetle from Prudice and na Žlebí, to
whom he bequeathed most of his property. He most likely died the
following year, but when Jan Špetl was a minor, the property was managed
by Jetřich Bezdružický from Kolovrat, who appointed Václav from Řeplice
as burgrave of Bezděz. Jan Špetle took over the estate only in 1507 or
shortly thereafter. He married Anna z Janovice, with whom he had two
sons, from whom Burian inherited Bezděz and Běla after their father's
death in 1532. The father's son survived by only two years, and his
property was inherited by his sons Jan the Younger, Jetřich and Vilém
Špetlové from Prudice. The brothers had property disputes with Václav of
Vartenberk, Aleš Berka of Dubé or for their own violent acts with other
nobles from the area. Therefore, Zdislav Berka from Dubé received
permission from King Ferdinand I to pay off the castle from the pledge,
but he did not manage to get enough money. In 1547, Jan Špetle the
younger bequeathed the pledge to his underage daughter Saloména. The
widow Magdaléna, born Berková from Dubé, was given an apartment in the
castle in Běla.
Jan's sister Anna contested the arrangement of
the inheritance in court and in 1553 achieved the division of the Bezdez
estate at the regional court. Doksy, the town of Mšeno and the villages
of Tachov, Obora, Luka, Žďár, Bezdědice, Nosálov, Podbezděz, Staré
Splavy, Vrátno, parts of Zbyn, Kalku and other smaller estates belonged
to Bezděz. Its owner was Saloména, who married Mikuláš Zajíce from
Hazmburk and handed over the property to him. On May 2, 1558, King
Ferdinand confirmed to Mikuláš the lifetime possession of the Bezděz
estate with thirteen manas worth eleven thousand kopecks. However, on
August 15 of the same year, Mikuláš sold Bezděz to Adam Berk from Dubá,
who represented his wife Kateřina, the widow of Václav from Vartenberk,
during the transaction. She immediately transferred all her mortgaged
property to the children of Jan, Anna and Eliška from Vartenberk from
her first marriage and Aleš and Jáchym Berk from Dubá from her second
marriage. In 1566, Jan z Vartenberk bought the shares of the siblings,
and in 1580 he gave his wife Barbora z Lobkovice a share in the Bezděz
estate in the amount of 6,500 Czech groschen. However, the nobility did
not live in the castle and as burgrave in 1571 it was represented by Jan
Nosálovský from Víska.
At the Estates' Assembly in 1588, the
nobility agreed with the emperor on the payment and sale of the estate
from the chamber's property. Interest in the purchase was expressed by
Jan Sr. from Valdštejn na Sedčice, who had to pay 22,000 kopecks of
Czech groschen, of which 6,500 kopecks were discounted for his merits.
The purchase contract was concluded on October 14, 1588, and Jan was
also allowed to redeem the estate from the possession of the
Vartenberks. However, Jan of Valdštejn did not want to sue Jan of
Vartenberk for the payment and instead assigned the right of inheritance
to him. By then, the childless mana count had dropped to just three. Jan
of Vartenberk transferred the Bezděz estate with other estates to his
husband Barbor of Lobkovice and died on January 4, 1595. The Vartenberks
no longer lived in the castle, and their seat on the Bezděz estate
became the castle in Doksy.
Seventeenth century
The widow
Barbora married a second time to Václav Sr. Berk from Dubá and on
Deštný, to whom she bequeathed all her property, and died on August 16,
1610. As one of the directors, Václav took part in the estate uprising,
after its suppression he had to flee the country and lost all his
property. His son Adam Bohumír Berka from Dubé was studying at the
university in Paris at the time and later tried in vain to get the
property back. At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, the castle was
occupied by non-Catholic peasants who hid their property there. In
November 1620, the detachments of Maximilian of Bavaria invaded Bohemia
and occupied Běla on December 30. They immediately attacked the Bezděz
castle, which they captured, looted and set on fire on January 5, 1621.
On July 6, 1622, the manor was bought by Adam from Valdštejn and the
following year he transferred it to Albrecht from Valdštejn. The new
owner planned to rebuild the castle into the strongest fortress of his
principality, but already in 1624 he abandoned his intention. On the
contrary, he used the castle to establish an Augustinian monastery for
twelve monks, to which he donated the villages of Podbezděz, Kruh, a
forest, two mills, a pond and certain monetary benefits. After his
victory in the Battle of Desava, he had a votive altar dedicated to
Saint Mark made for the castle chapel. He also established that a
procession from the village of Bezděz to the castle chapel would take
place on the anniversary of the victory. However, the Augustinians did
not stay in the castle much. It often happened that only four or even
two monks stayed in the castle, which Albrecht often complained about.
Nine years after its founding, the monks left Bezděz and returned to the
older monastery in Běla. Prince Albrecht planned a second attempt to
found a monastery, this time Benedictine and under the castle, after the
Battle of Lützen. Although all preparations were made, Albrecht's death
thwarted the foundation of the monastery.
When King Ferdinand
III. in 1636 he restored the Emmaus monastery in Prague, dedicating the
Bezděz estate with the deserted Bezděz castle and a number of villages
to it. Abbot Benedikt Pennalosa then allowed a monk to live as a hermit
in the deserted castle and take care of the abandoned chapel. In 1642,
the hermit was already dead and the castle was occupied by the Swedish
army, which fortified itself in the saddle between the two hills. Only
Abbot Antonio de Sotomayor, with the establishment of the monastery of
the Montserrat Benedictines in 1662, had the castle chapel repaired, a
corridor to the chapel established and part of the living spaces
repaired. Two Benedictine monks then lived directly in the castle and
performed Marian devotions there, and the castle functioned as an
important pilgrimage site. On September 8, 1666, one of the three copies
of Our Lady of Montserrat was moved to the chapel, making the castle an
even more popular place of pilgrimage and increasing the number of monks
to six to seven. In 1686, Countess Anna of Valdštejn had a Way of the
Cross built along the access road.
The remote estate was badly
managed by the Emmaus Monastery, and therefore Abbot Didacus de Canvero,
with the Emperor's permission, sold most of it to Count Kryštof
Ferdinand of Haisenstein for forty thousand guilders on July 24, 1679.
The only exception was the hill with the castle, which the monastery
kept.
Eighteenth century
Pilgrimages to the castle chapel were
well attended. Visitation was supported by four papal bulls of
indulgences issued in 1714, 1727, 1734 and 1738. In the period
1714–1726, almost 267,000 people visited the mountain, and in 1740
alone, 40,087 pilgrims climbed the peak. In 1741, the monks celebrated
2,920 masses. In 1724, previously modified niches in the walls were
decorated with scenes from the life of Saint Benedict.
During the
War of the Bavarian Succession, in the summer of 1778, nearby Litoměřice
was taken over by a Prussian army under the command of Jindřich Pruský,
whose units went out to plunder the wider area. The monks from Bezděz
therefore asked Jindřich for protection and a garrison of forty men
arrived at the castle. Austrian general Ernst Gideon von Laudon soon
sent a detachment of two hundred Croats to capture the castle's
garrison. On the night of 8 September 1778, the Croats attempted to
capture the castle using ladders, but the garrison fought back
effectively and forced the Croats, six of whom were killed and 36
wounded, to retreat. The Prussian garrison then left the castle, taking
with them a quantity of church gold and silver.
In November 1785,
Emperor Josef II. ordered the dissolution of the monastery. The
following year, the Marian statue was secretly moved to the church in
Dokes, and the monks moved back to the Emmaus Monastery. The abandoned
castle became the target of the surrounding population, who removed all
the wooden parts from it. In 1789, the government authorities sold the
ruins for 40 guilders to Václav Tschernartz, who wanted to take away the
remaining wood and iron parts. According to legend, he died while
dismantling the wooden structure, but in reality he sold his rights to
Count Arnošt of Valdštejn. The unmaintained castle began to turn into a
ruin.
Modern history
At the end of the first half of the 19th
century, the first efforts to preserve the castle began to appear. Count
Kristián of Valdštejn and Vartenberk had the viewing platform on the
tower repaired and made accessible. Work on it ended in 1844, and
Stephen of Habsburg-Lorraine was one of its first visitors. The repair
of the chapel was also planned, but due to the outbreak of the
revolution in 1848, it did not take place at that time. Later, the
chapel and the royal palace were temporarily roofed. However, an 1892
report described the poor condition of the lookout tower and Stations of
the Cross chapel. Repairs were to take place in 1912–1913, but were
delayed and soon interrupted by the First World War.
In the years
1920–1926, the State Monuments Office promoted and implemented the
restoration of the roof of the royal palace with the chapel, and from
1926 negotiations began to take place about the sale of the castle to
the Club of Czechoslovak Tourists. The purchase contract with the last
owner Karel Arnošt from Valdštejn and Vartenberk was concluded in 1932.
The club paid a symbolic two thousand crowns for the castle. The
tourists then repaired and roofed the burgrave's palace.
In 1953,
the castle was handed over to state preservation. From the sixties of
the twentieth century, it was under the administration of the District
National Committee in Česká Lípa, at whose expense, with the help of the
Architectural Heritage Preservation Program, rescue and conservation
work was carried out on the castle chapel and the roofing of the royal
palace was replaced. In the 1990s, the National Monument Institute took
over the castle, while the castle is managed by the Regional Monument
Administration in Sychrov.
In 1998, the large tower was conserved
and made accessible again, the purist restoration of the burgrave's
palace was carried out, during which the linings of the refectory and
the monks' cells were completely removed and a new spiral staircase was
installed to the attic, where an exhibition space was created.
In
2009, work began on the repairs of the southern Manx Palace and the
Templar Palace on II. castle courtyard. First, in 2014, the
reconstruction and roofing of the southern Manx Palace was completed.
The Templar Palace was opened in 2018 and houses an exhibition of
torture instruments and archaeological finds. In 2017, part of the
exterior of the chapel was repaired.
Bezděz Hill, with its height of 606 meters above sea level, exceeds
the surrounding landscape by more than 250 meters. It consists of
sodalitic nephelinite with a predominantly plate-like resolution,
which was also used in the construction of the castle. Sandstone was
imported from Jestřebí only for architectural parts such as window
linings or vault ribs. The stone was quarried right on the spot, and
on the south-western slope there is a spot where a five-meter layer
of rock was quarried. The geological characteristics of the hill did
not permit the excavation of a well, as the rock fissures are tight
and most of the rainwater runs down the surface of the hill, where
it penetrates the scree and chalk sediments.
The castle is
located on the territory of the protected landscape area Kokořínsko
– Máchův kraj. The Bezděz and Malý Bezděz hills (with the exception
of the castle area) are part of the Velký and Malý Bezděz national
nature reserve, declared for the protection of the geomorphological
formations of both hills, natural forest stands (acidophilic and
flowering beeches, Hercynian oaks, scree forests), rock steppe
communities and rare or endangered species of plants and animals, to
which the Alpine hornbill population belongs.
Building form
Bezděz belongs to the castles with a perimeter structure, but its
appearance is strongly influenced by the narrow, elongated
construction site. It is the best preserved castle of Přemysl Otakar
II. and the castle chapel, according to Tomáš Durdík, belongs to the
most important early Gothic interiors in the Czech Republic. Unlike
the older royal castles, there was no large hall at Bezděz, which
was replaced by a set of rooms known as the Přemysl flat. The aim of
the extensive outer fortification was to move the first contact with
a potential enemy as far as possible from the castle core. Its use
is the first manifestation of such efforts in the Czech Republic.
The access road to the castle breaks twice sharply in the slope
deep below the castle core. The section before the first bend was
protected by a rampart and ditch. Behind the bend was the first
stage gate. The path led through two other scenic gates, the defense
of which was made possible only by the rampart. Between the first
and third gates, it was lined on the outside by a wall. The wall of
the third gate rises up the slope to the inner castle. The wall is
180-200 centimeters thick and battlements with gable roofs of shades
have been preserved. A round Devil's Tower is built into the wall
above the gate. It performed the function of a bergfrit and
strengthened the defense of the area of the third gate. The tower,
with a diameter of 8.5 meters, opens up a high-placed portal, which
was accessed via wooden platforms with steps from the rampart. The
interior was divided into several floors with beamed ceilings. The
outer wall continues from the third gate and encloses the northwest
side of the castle in a length of about 250 meters. Under Albrecht
of Valdštejn, this section of the wall was strengthened with three
triangular bastions.
The path behind the third gate
originally climbed the hillside directly to the lower part of the
inner castle, where the original fourth gate was located in the
wall, most likely during the reign of Wenceslas II. walled up. The
folded path goes around the entire inner castle to the north, where
it enters the castle core. Its entire southeastern side is made up
of the so-called Royal Palace with a chapel, and opposite it stands
the smaller Purkrabský Palace. In the narrow courtyard between the
two palaces, there is a rock-cut cistern, and the southwest side is
closed by a large tower. The Lower Castle consists of a pair of
opposite Manx Palaces separated by a wider courtyard. The passage
from the lower to the upper castle was made possible by a gate at
the foot of the bergfrit.
All palaces have the same layout of
the interior. The flat-ceilinged ground floor served operational
purposes. The core of the living spaces on the first floor is a
vaulted hall, which was adjoined by a chamber heated by a fireplace
on one side and a timber chamber on the other. The second floor
provided auxiliary residential and operational functions. It was
entered by a spiral staircase from the hall on the first floor. In
the case of the Royal Palace with dimensions of 50 x 8.6 meters, the
basic scheme on the first floor is supplemented by another chamber
between the timber chamber and the chapel and a trio of rooms on the
opposite side. All the spaces on the first floors, with the
exception of the wooden chambers, were vaulted with one or, in the
case of the halls, two fields of a cross vault.
The
difference in height between the Royal Palace and the chapel was
balanced by the pavilion or loggia, from which the stone consoles
and the cornice that protected the roof of the pavilion from leaks
have been preserved. By the courtyard wall, where the parlor was
missing, there was a covered wooden staircase that led directly to
the first floor of the palace from the foot of the tower. In the
years 1661–1665, the parlor was replaced by a brick corridor and a
covered transition to the burgrave. The corridor was accessed from
the courtyard via a staircase, from which a supporting arch has been
preserved. A small door made it possible to add fuel to the stoves
located in some rooms from the corridor.
The large tower
measures ten meters in diameter. It is entered via the staircase
built in 1844 through the entrance at the level of the second floor,
but the original entrance portal is still 180 centimeters higher. At
the entrance, the tower was divided into five floors formed by
beamed ceilings, which rested on the recesses of the masonry.
Castle chapel
The single-nave chapel adjoins the eastern end
of the Royal Palace. It is slightly offset from its axis so that it
is possible to enter the vestibule directly from the courtyard
pavilion. Pavlač opened into an open arcade vestibule arched by two
cross-vault fields. The entrance portal is topped by a nunnery, at
the top of which is a tympanum decorated with a vine motif.
The nave of the chapel is vaulted by two square fields of a cross
vault, and the third field closes the pentagonal presbytery. The
opposite west side is occupied by an emporium vaulted by two fields
of a cross vault and opened towards the nave by a pointed biaxial
arcade. A corridor with a wall almost three meters thick runs along
the entire perimeter, open to the interior and exterior through a
series of windows. Inside, the ground-floor part of the wall is
divided by a series of seats, and approximately in the middle of the
northern wall is the entrance to the small sacristy.
Fortification on Mali Bezděz
At the turn of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, an advanced fortification was built on the
neighboring Malý Bezděz hill. Part of the hill has been removed by
quarrying, but still traces of fortification have been preserved on
the eastern side, for the construction of which local tinder and
wood were used. Traces of a stone enclosure lead along the path to a
narrow resting place. Whether it continued further to the west side
of the hill is not clear. At the resting place, the remains of a
building partly excavated in the rock and supplemented with masonry
made of dry-laid stones can be seen. The second, fragmentarily
preserved fortification belt is located below the top of the hill
and also contains traces of an object buried in the rock.
A red-marked tourist route called Mách's path leads to Bezděz from
Česká Lípa via Doksy to the castle. Only a forest path leads to the
castle itself (1 km). The blue-marked tourist route connects the
village of Bezděz with the Bezděz railway station (2.5 km). In the
village of Bezděz, a short blue-marked section connects the
red-marked route (Machova cesta) with another red-marked route from
Mladá Boleslav and Běla pod Bezděz, continuing through the Kokořínsk
region to Mělník.
The castle, managed by the National
Monument Institute, is open during visiting hours from April to
October. The burgrave's and royal palaces with chapel, the great
tower and the Manx palaces in the second courtyard are freely
accessible to visitors.
Since the forest road is steep and
not suitable for driving cars, a cable car was built in the early
1980s to transport cargo. The journey of the cable car with the
trolley up and down takes about 15 minutes and carries almost half a
ton of cargo. During the construction of the fortifications in the
17th century under Albrecht of Wallenstein, an improvised cable car
was also used. Material hauled by what was said to be a wind wheel
at the top of the hill was carried out down a wooden chute.
In the nineteenth century, the castle became an inspiration for
romantic artists. According to information from his diary, Karel
Hynek Mácha visited the castle six times between 1832 and 1836 and
wrote the lyrical prose Večer na Bezdězu (1834). He also depicted
the castle in three drawings. Bedřich Smetana composed the opera
Tajemství (1877–1878) to a libretto by Eliška Krásnohorská, the plot
of which, among other things, deals with the alleged treasure under
the Benedictine monastery in Bezděz. Josef Mánes, Alois Bubák, Cína
Jelínek, Hugo Ullich and others depicted the castle in their
paintings.
The castle is home to the administrator of
northern Bohemia, the royal prosecutor Oldřich z Chlum, from the
series of historical detective novels by Vlastimil Vondruška set in
the second half of the 13th century.