Bellarie Summer Palace
The rarely preserved Rococo garden structure, the only one of its kind in the Czech Republic, underwent extensive renovations in 2023–2024.
In the underground floor of Bellarie, you can visit a Baroque kitchen and a food preparation area equipped with 18th-century lifts. The larger lift transported food from the kitchen across three floors to the Upper Hall, while the smaller one, known as the magic table, lifted food to the preparation area and, once arranged, into the dining room.
A fascinating feature is the grotta, whose walls are decorated with stucco embellishments made of thousands of seashells, glass fragments, and mirror pieces. The walls of the halls in the upper floors are covered with 18th-century murals by František Jakub Prokyš.
The predecessor of today’s summer palace was a pavilion on an elevated terrace at the northwest garden wall, built between 1690 and 1692.
Its current Rococo appearance was achieved between 1755 and 1757. While the lower floor remained almost unchanged, the addition of the second floor with an open gallery transformed the structure into the style of Lower Austrian Rococo. A possible prototype seems to be the Upper Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy.
