In Budějovice
Dominikánský klášter and Piaristické náměstí
Pěšky 18 min · Autem 7 min
Here you reach the very beginnings of Budějovice. Work on the oldest building in town started in 1265 together with the founding of the city. Inside, medieval wall paintings survive, including a St Christopher over ten metres tall.
A hundred metres from the main square stands the oldest building in České Budějovice — the Dominican monastery with the church of the Presentation of the Virgin, whose construction began in 1265 with the town. It is probably the first civic building raised here. Inside are medieval murals including St Christopher over ten metres high; the square in front was a graveyard. It is named after the Piarists who came five hundred years later.
Practical details
- Pěšky 18 min · Autem 7 min
- Opening hours: sezónní: v červenci a srpnu denně, v září o víkendech. Komentované prohlídky v červenci a srpnu v 11:00 a v 15:00
On site
The square stands on the site of a former graveyard; paving from 1995 recalls it — some stones have motifs pointing to that past. Worth looking down — a detail almost nobody knows and nowhere written.
From the south the square is closed by the monastery; on the west a 15th-century polygonal bastion now holds a gallery, and beside it Solnice (story). Opposite the monastery bell tower stands an avenue of Baroque saint statues made between 1739 and 1746 in the workshop of local sculptor Josef Dietrich.
Inside the church the ten-metre St Christopher is the most striking — compare with your own height to grasp the scale. In the transept you see ongoing work: restoration since 2007, what is uncovered and what still waits.
And then there is the frog. A stone frog from legend is set in the wall between presbytery and transept — something concrete to find, there for over seven hundred and fifty years. On the north wall are gargoyles as dragon and frog. With children: find the frog in the wall, both gargoyles, then check whether the frog is climbing to the roof.