Spindleruv Mlyn (German: Spindlermühle) is a town in the Giant Mountains and also the most visited mountain resort in the Czech Republic. Approximately 1,100 people live here. The city has an area of 7690.91 hectares. The road II / 295 ends in the city center, which is followed by a mountain road to Špindlerův bouda.
Church of Saints Peter and Paul
The branch church
of St. Peter and Paul is a classicist church from 1807 located in
Špindlerův Mlýn.
History
Before 1793, there was only the old
St. Peter's chapel in Špindlerův Mlýn. In 1784 and 1787, local residents
sent a request to the emperor to establish their own parish and build a
church. On March 17, 1793, Francis I granted them permission and issued
a patent authorizing the construction of a church and the establishment
of their own parish.
In the same year, a wooden church was built
to which the services were transferred. In 1802, the foundation stone
for the new brick church was laid. It was completed at the end of 1807.
The builder was a certain Weiss together with the master carpenter Erben
from Vrchlabí. The first service took place already on November 1, 1807.
At the beginning of 2006, there was a merger with the Roman Catholic
parish of Vrchlabí.
Description
It is a one-nave brick
building with a polygonal chancel and a sacristy on the north side. In
the gable of the church we find a wooden, coffered belfry in the tower.
Inside the church we find flat ceilings with a painting of the four
evangelists from the 20th century. The interior of the church dates back
to the time of construction. The retabulum is portal-pillared with Saint
Adalbert and Florian on the sides and the Holy Trinity in the extension.
Baroque statue of St. John of Nepomuck is from the 18th century. The
organ was built by Rieger in 1905.
White bridge
The White Bridge is a more than a hundred-year-old pedestrian bridge in
Špindlerův Mlýn over the Elbe River. Its shape has become a symbol of
the city. The Harrach route begins here.
History
Since 1829, a
wooden bridge, strengthened by a wooden pillar in the middle of the
riverbed, stood on the site of the current one. It lasted until July 29,
1897, when it was swept away by a flood. Along with it, the bridge to
Bedřichov, a blacksmith's shop, a sawmill, a paper mill at Tabulový
bouda, and the road to Vrchlabí were significantly damaged. As a result,
between 1899 and 1913, the Elbe riverbed in the center of Špindlerův
Mlýn was significantly modified and a temporary footbridge was built
across the river. In 1911, a reinforced concrete segmental arch bridge
was exhibited here. Today it is part of the pedestrian zone leading from
the Czech Post building to the Savoy Royal Hotel.
Description
It is a 27.6 meter long and 4.84 meter wide reinforced concrete bridge.
A pair of arches rises above the road, today a characteristic feature of
the city center. There are sidewalks on the edges of the bridge, which
are separated from the road by walls. It is complemented by a wooden
railing with 17 posts with a half-timbered motif. At its highest point,
the bridge reaches a height of 3.65 meters.
Water
reservoir Labská
The Labská Reservoir or the Labská Přehrada
(formerly the Krausova Bouda Dam) is a waterworks built on the Elbe on
the southern edge of Špindlerův Mlýn and near its Labská part. It was
built between 1910 and 1916, primarily as flood protection. It is the
highest level of the system of water works on the Elbe, which captures
the majority of snow water in the central part of the Krkonoše
Mountains. Since 1994, a small hydroelectric power station has been
operating in the dam.
Description
The dam is 41.5 m high,
153.5 m long and 55 m wide. The length of the water reservoir is 1.2 km,
its area is 40 ha. The II/295 road bridge, built in the 1980s, is 120
meters long and its highest pillar is 30 meters high.
Bell tower on Labská
The Belfry on Labská is located in the
part of Špindlerův Mlýna called Labská, at Jelení street in the Krkonoší
district in the Trutnov district. It was created in 1828, just like the
nearby cross. It has a wooden construction. In 2014, the bell was
renewed, which is equipped with an electronic control system and rings
automatically.
The initiator of the belfry was Alois Schier, who
worked in the service of Count Harrach between 1824 and 1832 at Krausový
Boudá, on the Labská slope. In 1828, thanks to him, a collection was
organized for the purchase of a bell. The money was found and the belfry
was built in the same year, together with the cross that is located
nearby. It was built by local carpenter Franz Eriebach. The bell was
cast in the Prague court bell maker by Karl Bellmann, it weighed 43.5
kg.
In 1867, the belfry was overturned and destroyed by a gale,
so it had to be rebuilt. The bell itself was not damaged, it ended its
service only in 1917 and was melted down. It wasn't until 1922 that
another public collection was held for a new bell, which was delivered
the same year. He always rang the bell at noon and at six o'clock in the
early evening. When the local goods rang, they would interrupt their
work and devote themselves to a short prayer. However, he never rang the
bell to announce the death.
In 1944, the bell was requisitioned
for the need for bell bronze and the emergence of military equipment of
the Second World War. Although the belfry was reconstructed by the
municipality in 1993, it was still without a bell. It rang again and was
re-consecrated only after 70 years, on September 6, 2014. A new bell
with a diameter of 33 cm and a weight of 20 kg was delivered, bought
thanks to the support of the former residents of Labská, with the
support of the Vrchlabí Patriotic Circle. This electrified bell with a
linear drive system rings automatically.
In German, the town used to be called Spindlermühle after the
Spindler family, who owned a mill in the village. Before that, however,
the village was always called Svatý Petr (now a part of the city).
However, in the request for permission to build the church, sent to the
emperor, it was also mentioned in the signatures - written in Špindlerův
Mlýn. The citizens drafted the request in this Špindlerů mill. And since
similar village names are common in German-speaking countries, a mistake
was made and the permission to build a church in the village of
Špindlerův Mlýn was returned. The citizens preferred to rename the
village so that they could build. Sending a new request could be taken
as an insult to an infallible authority, and the church would certainly
no longer be standing here.
In the stable cadastre from 1842,
Špindlerův mlýn appears as Břetenský mlejn (later it is commonly called
Vřetenový mlýn), which was a naive translation of the German
Spindelmühle (Spindel – spindle, Mühle – mill).
The oldest surviving record of Špindlerův Mlýn comes from the beginning of the 16th century, when several cottages served as a refuge for miners working in nearby iron ore smelters. Between the years 1516–1521, the Czech King Ludvík Jagiellon allowed the miners deadlines for paying tithes and relief. The mining of silver, copper and arsenic ores attracted Kryštof from Gendorf, who later acquired the Vrchlabí estate and contributed significantly to the fact that Vrchlabí was elevated to the status of an upper town in 1533. One hundred years later, in 1621, a load of copper and silver worth about 10,000 guilders even traveled to Prague from St. Peter. In the 17th century, mining was interrupted by the Thirty Years' War. After that, the mines changed hands, but efforts to resume mining proved futile. The last attempts to resume mining took place at the beginning of the 20th century.
From the beginning of the 19th century, tourism began to develop in
Špindlerův Mlýn. In the second half of the 19th century, several
abandoned cottages were transformed into a mountain resort. The
construction of the road from Vrchlabí in 1872 contributed to increasing
the accessibility of the entire area. In 1888, a spa began to operate
here. At the end of the 19th century, in 1894, there were a total of 18
hotels and restaurants on the territory of Špindlerův Mlýn. Thus,
tourism (hospitality) slowly began to replace pastoral (that is, cattle)
and mining economies.
Until the 20th century, it was popular to
spend time here, especially in the summer, and gradually winter sports
began to be practiced here. The first chairlift was put into operation
here in 1947, leading from Svaté Petr to Pláň. As of 2016, there were a
total of 43 hotels, 134 guest houses and 23 mountain huts. The center is
mainly visited by Czech tourists, Germans, Poles and Dutch also come
here in large numbers.
After the Second World War, grazing
management and agriculture in general ceased to operate here at the
expense of tourism.
Winter
The city ranks among the best-known and most visited winter
sports centers in the Czech Republic. The bed capacity is around 10,000
beds. Špindlerův Mlýn has ideal conditions for winter sports. The ski
and cross-country trails are open for up to 5 months of the year.
Professionally groomed downhill tracks of varying degrees of difficulty
reach a total length of 25 km. A total of 14 cable cars and lifts ensure
the transport capacity of 17,500 skiers per hour. With one ski pass, you
can ski on the slopes of 5 ski areas (Stoh, Medvědín, Hromovka, Horní
Mísečky and Labská). Most of the pistes here are covered with artificial
snow in case of lower snow cover.
Summer
Špindlerův Mlýn
offers many attractions even in summer. In the summer months, there are
ideal conditions for hiking and mountain biking. In Špindlerův Mlýn
there is, among other things, an aqua park, a bobsleigh track and a
ropes course. Špindlerův Mlýn became a crossroads of tourist routes. The
oldest hiking route in the Giant Mountains, the Harrachovská cesta,
begins in the very center of the city. It leads to Labská bouda. In the
vicinity, it is possible to visit the Špindlerův bouda tourist huts, the
ruins of Peter's bouda and others. The surroundings of Špindlerův Mlýn
can be walked along the hiking trails through Horní Mísečky, the Elbe
spring, Sněžné jámy and Labská bouda. In the southeast, the tourist
route leads to Výrovka or to Fries' huts and cottage Na Rozcestí. From
Špindlerův Mlýn, there is a fairly direct tourist route to Sněžka; it
measures approximately 10 kilometers.