Bechyně

Bechyně stands above the confluence of the Lužnice and Smutná in southern Bohemia. A Slavic fortified settlement occupied the site by the early Middle Ages, and King Ottokar II bought it in 1268 and ordered a stone castle built. In 1323 King John raised the village around the castle to a town and provided for its fortifications.

Hussite armies captured and burned Bechyně in 1422 and again in 1428. Noble families including the Sternbergs and Schwambergs later held the estate. Peter Vok of Rosenberg acquired it in 1569 and rebuilt the castle during a period of Renaissance prosperity, before selling the town to Adam of Sternberg in 1596. Bechyně was damaged and plundered in the Thirty Years' War, but recovered and developed as a spa town in the eighteenth century.