This is a magnificent example of an intact Gothic Castle. About Fifty kms south of Prague, and down in the Sazava river valley, it is Huge and powerful looking, and from the river, sits high on this Hill. It is quite a sight to see from the train as you round the bend coming into this small town.
The castle was built in 1241. Its 13th century architects hadn't foreseen the danger of long-range firearms and its reinforcement became a necessity. Český Šternberk castle's fortifications were improved through the construction in the north of a three-story tower, which was connected to the castle by a rampart.
In 1467 the castle was seized by the royal armies of George of Poděbrady (Jiří z Poděbrad). Later, the ruined castle was regained by Šternberk's aristocracy, who, by the turn of the 16th century, had reconstructed the castle, renewed its defensive system and expanded it with the construction of a new cylindrical tower in the south and the Dungeon in the north.
The castle managed to survive the looting of the rebels in 1627, during the Thirty Years' War. With the death of Jan Václav in 1712, the Holicý branch of the Sternberg family died out and its ownership passed to other families, who in 1751 built the lower palace next to the surrounding wall.
The ownership of the castle was returned to the Sternberg family in 1841 when Zdeněk of Sternberg from the Konopiště branch of the family bought it.
It remained in Sternberg's ownership until 1949 when it was "nationalized" by the Communist government of the Republic of Czechoslovakia. The family moved to a small flat in Prague and Jiří Sternberk, agreed to work as a steward in his own property and gave tours within the castle, which became a sightseeing spot.
After the fall of Communism and the Velvet Revolution, in 1992, thanks to the restitution's law, Český Šternberk castle returned to Jiří's son, the count Zdeněk Sternberg, the current owner of the castle.
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