Sights and tourist destinations

  The majority of visitors want to see Hradec Castle. It was the Lichnovsky lineage who wrote the most significant chapter in its history. The castle houses valuable collections of antique furniture, glass and china, a library and a picture gallery. 

    Hradec, though, does not mean only the castle. Many other places are worth seeing, too – among them the Church of St. Peter and Paul from the 16th century, stations of the Cross called the Silesian Calvary and unique relics of fortifications called Šance from the Silesian Wars, which gave its name also to the latest tourist attraction, the Šance Observation Tower, situated 522 m above the sea level. From its top there is a marvelous view of Opava region and both the Beskydy and Jeseníky mts. You should not miss a 19th century wonder of technology, a 3.5 km long Weisshuhn`s Paper Mill Race leading through three tunnels built in slopes and two aqueducts.

            Bezruč´ s lookout is situated in the park of Hradec Castle, about 2 km to the south of the White Tower. Follow the blue tourist sign. The lookout is made of wood, located on four stone pillars 435 m high above sea level. Its height is 9 m and it has 16 steps. From its top there is a wonderful view of the castle premises, the Moravice river, Stránka hill, Hanuše hill, parts of Podolí and Branka villages and a rock above Branka, and a wide plain stretching beyond Opava as far as to Poland. It is the place where two branches of Bezruč´s path meet, one leading from the west across Hanuše hill and the village of Žimrovice, the other from the east through the village of Bohučovice, Záviliší valley and Kalvárie hill. In the era of the Lichnowsky lineage the lookout was called Wilhelmshöhe to commemorate the transformation of the Prussian kingdom into the Prussian Empire. The information about it was inscribed on the memorial stone in the middle of the meadow opposite the stairs. The emperor Wilhelm II with his retinue visited the lookout during his short stay at the castle in September 1913. On the edge of the wood, about 20 m to the southwest of the stone pillar, a half-a-metre tall flat stone with the inscription Fanny Baude can be discovered. Local old people still use this name for the lookout.