In Budějovice
Biskupská rezidence — on the way to the walls
On foot 19 min · By car 6 min
On the walk from the square to the walls stands a striking building with a tower, today's bishop's residence. The town paid for it, the Piarists built it and a bishop moved in. On such a narrow street it has an unusually long façade — try counting windows: each was originally meant to be a classroom.
It is the seat of the České Budějovice bishop and from it the diocese is run — larger in area than the whole South Bohemian Region. For a Baroque palace it is strikingly bare, and there is a reason: one sentence in an imperial decree of 1785 decided it. The public cannot go inside; it is a stop along the way — and the detour to the best-preserved stretch of Budějovice walls with Železná panna takes two minutes from here.
Practical details
- On foot 19 min · By car 6 min
On site
- 🔴 Look at the façade and search for what is not there. No columns projecting from the wall, no decorated central gable, no clock, no vases, a plain tower. For high Baroque it is bare — because the emperor ordered thrift.
- On such a narrow street, an unusually long front. Try to count the windows and imagine a classroom behind each.
- The corner of Biskupská and Radniční — where a Piarist church was planned but never built.
- From the building it is two minutes to the walls with Otakarka and Železná panna.
- Photo: the full-length façade and the tower separately.