Örebro Castle, Örebro, Sweden - SpottingHistory.com

For over 700 years Örebro Castle has kept a watchful eye on everyone crossing the bridge on the River Svartån. The oldest part of the castle, a defence tower, was erected in the latter half of the 13th century. This tower was added to in the 14th century to make a larger stronghold. The castle was expanded during the reign of the royal family Vasa between 1573-1627 to the impressive Renaissance castle.

After Vasa family Örebro castle was left to decay, but the main restoration took place in 1758-1764 by Carl Johan Crondstedt. After him the castle was used as a residence of county governor. The castle was finally restored to the 16th century appearance between 1897-1900.

Today there are guided tours, an exhibition centre and the castle is a very worthwhile sightseeing destination.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Gábor Dániel Szelley (15 months ago)
Very beautiful, interesting place but i couldnt find a great swedish restaurant in that area.

Sivakumar Annadurai (2 years ago)
Beautifully maintained and it's very well lighted from outside. Heard that it's a restaurant now inside. But it looks great at the river side.

Sissara Chansiri (2 years ago)
It's so beautiful. I got a lot of pretty pics around the castle area. It's worth to come. Örebro is a cute city. I really feel impressed.

D Wasem (2 years ago)
Really nice water castle / palace. Small, but interesting museum about it's history. Depending on the time of year open for guided tours only on the weekend. Nice park around.

Gionatan Torricelli (2 years ago)
Very original building that had a central position on the ancient history of the Sweden. The visit of the castle, its garden and the center of the city can be done easily in one morning. It should be visited if traveling from one side to another of the Sweden.

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Photo from Flickr, copyright Frans.Sellies

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Kromeriz Castle and Gardens

Kroměříž stands on the site of an earlier ford across the River Morava. The gardens and castle of Kroměříž are an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a European Baroque princely residence and its gardens and described as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The first residence on the site was founded by bishop Stanislas Thurzo in 1497. The building was in a Late Gothic style, with a modicum of Renaissance detail. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was sacked by the Swedish army (1643).

It was not until 1664 that a bishop from the powerful Liechtenstein family charged architect Filiberto Lucchese with renovating the palace in a Baroque style. The chief monument of Lucchese's work in Kroměříž is the Pleasure Garden in front of the castle. Upon Lucchese's death in 1666, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla completed his work on the formal garden and had the palace rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the Turinese school to which he belonged.

After the castle was gutted by a major fire in March 1752, Bishop Hamilton commissioned two leading imperial artists, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and Josef Stern, arrived at the residence in order to decorate the halls of the palace with their works. In addition to their paintings, the palace still houses an art collection, generally considered the second finest in the country, which includes Titian's last mythological painting, The Flaying of Marsyas. The largest part of the collection was acquired by Bishop Karel in Cologne in 1673. The palace also contains an outstanding musical archive and a library of 33,000 volumes.

UNESCO lists the palace and garden among the World Heritage Sites. As the nomination dossier explains, 'the castle is a good but not outstanding example of a type of aristocratic or princely residence that has survived widely in Europe. The Pleasure Garden, by contrast, is a very rare and largely intact example of a Baroque garden'. Apart from the formal parterres there is also a less formal nineteenth-century English garden, which sustained damage during floods in 1997.

Interiors of the palace were extensively used by Miloš Forman as a stand-in for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace during filming of Amadeus (1984), based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who actually never visited Kroměříž. The main audience chamber was also used in the film Immortal Beloved (1994), in the piano concerto scene.

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