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).
Earliest Settlement and the Mining Era (16th–17th centuries)
Until
the 16th century the entire area was dense, untouched forest. The first
humans to penetrate it were prospectors searching for ores and precious
stones, soon followed by miners. They extracted iron ore, and later
silver, copper and arsenic. Mining flourished under Kryštof von Gendorf
(Christoph von Gendorf), the royal mining governor who purchased the
Vrchlabí estate and turned the local ironworks into the largest in
Bohemia at the time.
Miners and lumberjacks from the Alps were
brought in to supply wood for smelters and to float timber down the
Elbe. These settlers built simple wooden huts (boudy) and, drawing on
Alpine experience, cleared patches of forest for meadows and summer
pastures. The characteristic “meadow enclaves” surrounded by forest that
still define the landscape today date from this period. King Louis
Jagiellon granted miners in the settlement of Svatý Petr (one of the
later parts of today’s town) tax relief between 1516 and 1521. Silver
from Svatý Petr was even used to mint royal coins; in 1621 nearly 10
tonnes of copper and silver were shipped to Prague.
Mining was
brutal—hard rock, floods, avalanches—and technology was rudimentary.
Many mines bore pious names such as “God’s Blessing” or “God’s Help.”
The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) brought mining to a standstill for
decades. By the late 17th century the ore was largely exhausted and
logging, cattle farming, and the collection of medicinal plants became
the main livelihoods. Scattered hamlets existed: Svatý Petr, Bedřichov
(originally a glassworks founded 1740 and later an ironworks that burned
in 1807), Labská (Krausovy Boudy), and Volský Důl (first mentioned
1676).
The Accidental Birth of the Name (1765–1807)
The modern
town’s name literally means “Špindler’s Mill.” In 1765 miller Špindler
moved his mill to the confluence of the Elbe and Dolský potok after
floods destroyed his previous mill in Svatý Petr. The mill was duly
named after its owner—standard practice.
At the end of the 18th
century the scattered mountain huts had only a small old chapel
(services three times a year). The local Augustinian monastery in
Vrchlabí was short-staffed after Joseph II’s church reforms, so the
mountaineers petitioned the emperor for their own parish church. The
petition was signed “written in Špindler’s Mill” (German:
Spindlermühle). Imperial officials, accustomed to German village names
ending in -mühle, mistakenly assumed this was the name of a new
settlement and issued permission to build the church “in the village of
Špindlerův Mlýn.” The locals accepted the name rather than argue with
Vienna. A second clerical error dropped the “r” from Spindlermühle.
Attempts in the 20th century to restore the “correct” spelling were
firmly rejected by residents.
The wooden chapel was replaced by a
proper brick church; the foundation stone was laid in 1802 and the
building consecrated in 1807. The mill itself stood until the 20th
century (later replaced by the Hotel Spindelmühle). On 13 July 1793 the
scattered settlements were formally united into one municipality under
this new name.
The Birth of Tourism (mid-19th century)
Tourism
began modestly. In 1864/1865 four travellers from Wrocław (Breslau)
stayed in the mill’s ground-floor rooms and “girls’ chamber.” They
returned year after year and spread the word. Locals quickly saw the
potential: huts were enlarged into guest houses, hiking trails were
built, and new professions—mountain guides and porters—appeared.
Count Jan Nepomuk Harrach funded the famous trail through Labský důl to
the Labská waterfall (1871). Countess Aloisie Černín-Morzínová financed
another trail upstream along the White Elbe (1889–1891). The decisive
boost came in 1872 with the completion of the carriage road from
Vrchlabí. Poor cottages were converted into hotels; the summer season
boomed.
Winter activities started with the Alpine “horn sledges”
(rohačky) originally used by lumberjacks. By the 1880s sledging was a
major attraction. In 1880 the Kraus brothers reportedly brought the
first skis to the area. Guido Rotter (Vrchlabí factory worker) and Count
Harrach popularised skiing in the 1890s by donating skis to schools and
foresters. In 1909–1910 a hydroelectric plant powered one of Europe’s
first electric sledge lifts. The Labská Dam (1910–1914) was built both
for flood control and to enhance the landscape.
Early 20th
Century – The Winter-Sports Capital
After the First World War the
town’s development was shaped by its mayor (1919–1936), MUDr. Wilhelm
Piek, a young doctor who married into the wealthy Adolf family (owners
of the Spindelmühle hotel). Under Piek the town acquired toboggan runs,
ice rinks, a hockey field, a summer swimming pool, and a ski-jumping
hill (1934). Winter became the main season. The Czech element grew
alongside the long-established German-speaking population.
World
War II and the Post-War Era
During the German occupation (1938–1945)
the town was part of the Sudetenland. In 1941 the occupiers staged the
German Ski Championships here. After the war the German-speaking
inhabitants were expelled under the Beneš decrees. The town returned to
Czechoslovakia and was gradually repopulated. Population figures
fluctuated dramatically: a 1950 peak of 6,669 (including temporary
workers and refugees) fell sharply in the following decades.
Under
communism the resort continued to develop, though infrastructure was
modest. After 1989 private investment transformed it into a modern ski
centre with 26 km of downhill runs (11 technically snow-covered) and 85
km of cross-country trails. Accommodation capacity now exceeds 10,000
beds.
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.
Location and Administrative Scope
The town lies in Trutnov
District, Hradec Králové Region, roughly 26 km northwest of Trutnov and
37 km east of Liberec, directly on the Czech–Polish border (with a
pedestrian crossing at the Przełęcz Karkonoska / Špindlerův Mlýn pass).
Its precise coordinates are 50°43′31″N 15°36′30″E (50.72528°N,
15.60833°E). The municipality covers a substantial 76.94 km² (29.71 sq
mi) and includes four main parts: Špindlerův Mlýn proper, Bedřichov (the
largest by population), Labská, and Přední Labská. The central
settlement sits at about 718 m (2,356 ft) elevation, but the full
territory ranges from ~700 m in the valleys to over 1,550 m on
surrounding peaks.
Topography and Terrain
Špindlerův Mlýn
occupies a glacial valley at the confluence of the Elbe River (Labe) and
the Dolský potok stream. The valley is framed by the Medvědín mountain
(1,235 m) to the west and the ridges of Kozí hřbety and Pláň to the
south/east. To the east rises Luční hora (1,555 m / 5,102 ft), the
second-highest peak in the entire Czech Republic. Higher elevations
feature subalpine plateaus, rocky outcrops, and areas above the tree
line, while lower slopes are covered in dense spruce and beech forests
interspersed with historic mountain meadows and pastures (enclaves
cleared in the 16th century by miners and lumberjacks). The terrain
includes classic glacial cirques, steep northern drops, and gentler
southern slopes toward the Bohemian basin — hallmarks of the ancient
Sudetes range formed from Paleozoic granite, schist, and other rocks.
Hydrology: The Birth of the Elbe River
The town’s geography is
defined by its position near the source of the Elbe (one of Central
Europe’s major rivers, flowing ~1,094 km to the North Sea). The Elbe
originates just northwest of Špindlerův Mlýn on the slopes of Mount
Violík (1,386 m), near the Polish border. Only about 1 km downstream lie
the Elbe Falls (Labský vodopád, ~30–50 m drop). The nearby Pančava
Stream joins the Elbe and creates the Pančavský vodopád — at 148 m (486
ft), the highest waterfall in the Czech Republic. A small artificial
reservoir, the Labská Dam (40 ha), was built in 1910–1914 near the
Labská district. The Elbe divides the Bohemian ridge here, separating
the main border ridge from a parallel southern ridge; all local streams
ultimately feed the North Sea drainage basin.
Climate
Špindlerův Mlýn experiences a classic cool, humid mountain climate that
varies sharply with altitude. The annual mean temperature is
approximately 5.9 °C (42.7 °F), with annual precipitation around
1,140–1,173 mm (higher at elevation due to orographic lift). Winters are
cold and snowy (snowpack often >3 m for 5–6 months), supporting a long
ski season from late November into April. Summers are mild, with July
daytime highs averaging ~19 °C. The region is notorious for rapid
weather shifts, frequent dense fog (especially on higher ridges), strong
winds, and occasional foehn effects.
Protected Areas and
Environmental Significance
Almost the entire municipality lies within
Krkonoše National Park (established 1963, 370 km² on the Czech side),
the country’s oldest national park and part of the UNESCO
Krkonoše/Karkonosze Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (shared with
Poland). The park safeguards unique subalpine “mountain gardens,”
glacial landforms, rare Arctic-alpine flora, and historic meadows. One
of the earliest protected zones in the range was the Labský důl nature
reserve (founded in the late 19th century). The combination of
high-mountain ecosystems, waterfalls, and river source makes Špindlerův
Mlýn a focal point for both tourism and conservation.