The chateau in Nové Hrady, a tiny town near Litomyšl, is one of the few typically Rococo heritage buildings in the Czech Republic. The building, constructed in 1774-1777, was designed in the style of French summer residences. It is thus often nicknamed Little Schönbrunn based on the palace in Vienna, or Czech Versailles based on the French royal chateau.
The former granary building in the chateau garden contains the First Czech Cycling Museum, featuring exhibits from the mid 19th century to the present. The ground floor is reserved for velocipedes from more than a century ago, including unique accessories such as original cycling maps, carbide and oil lamps. Do not miss the prizes from the earliest races organized in the Czech Lands.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.