Porta Praetoria, Regensburg, Germany

Porta Praetoria, a gateway to the city of Regensburg, dates from 179 AD. Among Porta Nigra in Trier, it is the only remaining Roman gate north of the Alps. Giant blocks of stone were used to construct this gate in the northern wall of the Roman military camp. It survives as a reminder of Castra Regina, the Roman settlement.

User Reviews

Carlos Villalobos (2 years ago)
Currently under construction. But still nice to see the Roman history from 179 AD staying alive and well in the city.

Andrea Madsen (2 years ago)
Built in 179 AD. Roman archway. It is pretty impressive how well it is preserved.

Alex Bridgeforth (2 years ago)
Love seeing this old Roman history come alive.

virtuosok (2 years ago)
I haven't found this one notice worthy, let alone remarkable. The gate may well be important and very ancient, but it is fully restored and feels new. Also, I haven't found any information around about gate history, significance etc. Overall, the landmark kept me wondering whether I might be blind or missing anything...

Iulian Dinu (2 years ago)
Very well preserved city landmark. I would have liked a bit more "on the spot" info about what it's history.

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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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