Lednice–Valtice Cultural Landscape

The Princes of Liechtenstein transformed their properties Feldsberg (Valtice) and Eisgrub (Lednice) into one large and designed private park between the 17th and 20th centuries. During the 19th century, the princes continued transforming the area as a large traditional English landscape park. Feldsberg was part of Austria until 1919, Lednice (Eisgrub) part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, both member states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Habsburg rule, with the Austrian-Bohemian border running through the park between the two castles. The 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain stipulated that the city of Feldsberg, which in 1910 was about 97% inhabited by German-speaking Lower Austrians, became part of Czechoslovakia.

The Baroque and neo-Gothic architecture of the chateaux are married with smaller buildings and a landscape that was fashioned according to the English principles of landscape architecture.[3]

In 1715 these two chateaux (castles) were connected by a 7 km (4.3 miles) long landscape allée and road, later renamed for the poet Petr Bezruč. The Lednice Ponds are situated between the town of Valtice and villages of Lednice and Hlohovec; as are the Mlýnský, Prostřední, Hlohovecký, and Nesyt Ponds. A substantial part of the cultural landscape complex is covered in pine forests, known as the "Pine−wood" (Boří les), and in areas adjacent to the Thaya River with riparian forests.[3]

In 1918 the region became part of new Czechoslovakia. The Liechtenstein family opposed the annexation of Czech territory into Sudetenland by Nazi Germany, and as a consequence their properties were confiscated by the Nazis, and the family then relocated to Vaduz in 1939. After World War II the family made several legal attempts for restitution of the properties. Post-war, they had passed into ownership of Czechoslovakia: its Communist regime did not support returning large estates to exiled aristocratic landowners.

After the Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution in 1989, the Liechtenstein descendants again renewed legal attempts for restitution, which were denied by the Czech state, the present day owner of the properties.[4]

St Hubert Chapel

In addition to the castles, there are many large to small residential pavilions located throughout the designed landscape, often serving as chateau or hunting lodges.[5]

• The Colonnade − Rajsna (German: Reistna)
    — a Neoclassical colonnade on the top of a hill ridge above Valtice (like a gloriette) from the 1810s to 1820s
• Belvedere
    — a belvedere landscape element.
• Rendezvous (or Temple of Diana)
    — a hunting lodge in a form of a Neoclassical arch from the 1810s
• St Hubert Chapel (Kaple svatého Huberta)
    — a Gothic Revival column structure from the 1850s dedicated to the patron saint of hunters, situated in the Pine wood
• Border House (Hraniční zámeček)
    — a Classicist chateau built in the 1820s directly on the former (until 1920) borderline between Lower Austria and Moravia

Temple of the Three Graces

• Temple of the Three Graces (Tři Grácie)
    — a semicircle gallery with allegorical statues of Sciences and Muses and a statue of the Three Graces from the 1820s
• Pond House (Rybniční zámeček)
    — at the shore of one of the Lednice Ponds

Nový dvůr

• Nový dvůr (German: Neuhof, New Farm)  — a Neoclassical farm finished in 1809, originally used for sheep husbandry, nowadays for horse breeding
• Apollo Temple (Apollónův chrám)
    — a Neoclassical hunting lodge from the 1810s, ashore of one of the Lednice Ponds
• Hunting Lodge (Lovecký zámeček)
    — a Neoclassical house from 1806
• John's Castle (Janův hrad or Janohrad)
    — a Gothic Revival style folly of "artificial ruins" (Czech: umělá zřícenina, German: künstliche Ruine) in style of a castle, finished in 1810
• Minaret
    — a Moorish Revival style "minaret" observation tower 62 metres (203 ft) high, located in the Lednice Castle garden (finished in 1804), that provides a view of the entire landscape. On clear days the Pálava Hills and Malé Karpaty Mountains can also be seen from the towers.
• Obelisk
    — an obelisk erected in memory of the peace treaty of Campo Formio (1798)

Pohansko

• Pohansko
    — an Empire-style hunting lodge finished after 1812, it houses an exhibition of Břeclav Town Museum:
  close to the lodge there are both an important archaeological site of Great Moravian remains and reconstructed parts of the Czechoslovak border fortifications
• Lány
    — an Empire-style hunting lodge from the beginning of the 19th century

• Kordiovský, Emil – Klanicová Evženie (eds.), Město Břeclav, Muzejní a vlastivědná společnost, Brno (2001).
• Památkový ústav v Brně: text on the reverse of a tourist map, Shocart, Zlín (1998).