Sloup

The castle carved into a sandstone block was founded at the beginning of the 14th century by the Ronovec family, and the first documented holder was Čeněk of Lipá. After 1330, the estate passed to the Berka of Dubá family, and during the Hussite Wars, the robber knight Mikeš Pancíř of Smojno settled here for a time, from where he launched raids into Lusatia and, despite sieges, held the castle for a long time. In 1639, during the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish army of General Banér burned the castle down, and it was never restored. About a hundred years later, Count Ferdinand Hroznata made the rock available to hermits, who carved chapels, dungeons, and living niches into the rock and lived there until the hermitage was abolished in 1785. Today, Sloup is a popular excursion destination with preserved remains of the castle core as well as the hermit's quarters, which can be reached by stairs carved directly into the rock. The atmosphere of the place is created by a combination of rugged castle ruins and the quiet, almost mystical hermit architecture.