Konopiste

Konopiště (Zámek Konopiště) is a four-winged château about 44 km southeast of Prague, founded as a Gothic fortress around 1294 and converted into a Baroque and later historicist residence over the centuries. It is best known as the last private residence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand d'Este, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, who bought the castle in 1887 and spent the following decades transforming it into a lavish home filled with his personal collections. Just weeks after hosting Kaiser Wilhelm II in the rose gardens here in June 1914, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo — the event that triggered World War I. The castle preserves his apartments largely as he left them, along with the Este Armoury (one of the three largest arms collections in Europe), thousands of mounted hunting trophies, and the room containing over 1,000 portraits of St. George. The bullet that killed him is displayed in the castle's museum. The surrounding 225-hectare English landscape park, with its rose garden and Italian Renaissance statues, is open year-round and free to explore.