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Go on a journey into the memory of the Štramberk Tower

Welcome to this exciting journey into the memory of the Štramberk Tower – a journey that will reveal many of Štramberk’s deepest secrets, stored away in the Tower’s memory for over seven centuries as it quietly watches over the town below…

A small mountain town in the middle of the Štramberská vrchovina (Highland), stretching across slopes of Zámecký kopec, Kotouč, Bílá hora, Libotínské vrchy and Červený kámen, along the foothills of the Beskydy Mts., called „Moravian Bethlehem“ for their picturesqueness. Štramberk was founded by the Moravian margrave Jan Jindřich Lucemburský (1322-1375), son of the Czech King Jan Lucemburský (1296-1346), younger brother of the Roman emperor and Czech king Karel IV (1316-1378), on December 4, 1359 by giving the settlement (first recorded in 1211) surrounding the castle the statute of a town.
Štramberk Castle offers a huge range of possibilities for all kinds of events – company meetings, team-building events, celebrations, social events, and much more… All in the beautiful surroundings of this 13th-century gothic castle…

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Built in medieval times, much of the original castle has survived, including the massive castle walls, the area enclosed by the walls, and the reconstructed tower which now offers visitors spectacular panoramas of the town and its surrounding countryside. This tower – known locally as the ‘Trúba’ (meaning ‘tube’ or ‘pipe’, height 40 m, 10 m in diameter) – has become a well-known symbol of the castle, the picturesque town of Štramberk, and the beautiful region that surrounds it.

Nobody knows for sure who actually built the castle here in Štramberk, but we do know that it existed long before it was first mentioned in a document dated 4 December 1359.

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Attractions at Stramberk castle

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As long ago as 1904, it was deemed necessary to build a covered shelter for visitors and hikers. To minimize costs, a simple timber-framed and wood-tiled ‘veranda’ was built. Unfortunately, this structure was destroyed by a spring storm in 1905, when powerful winds carried it away and scattered its debris all over the hillside. So the Ostrava architect Josef Pokorný – working free of charge – took just three months to draw up plans for a new shelter, also to be made of wood. The building took a further three months to complete, with the architect supervising a team of workers from the Kopřivnice railway works (who were on strike at the time). The structure cost one thousand gulden, and was named the ‘Mědínek’ shelter. On 18 and 19 August 1906 there were two wonderful days of celebration at the Štramberk Tower. The local branch of the Czech Tourist Club ceremonially opened the new chalet. As tourist numbers grew, the old shelter – damaged by exposure to the elements, and in a poor state of repair – was no longer adequate for their needs. In 1924, the local branch of the hiking club decided to renovate the shelter during the winter months, extending it and installing furniture. The new building, designed by the painter Bohumír Jaroněk in a style inspired by local folk art and crafts, was opened to the public in 1925.

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In 1925 the Štramberk branch of the Czech Tourist Club – a hikers’ organization – celebrated 30 years of activity. To mark the occasion, local members opened two buildings – the restored ‘Jaroněk’s shelter’ below the castle tower (named in honour of its designer Bohumír Jaroněk) and the newly built ‘Rašín cottage’ (now known as Dr Hrstka’s cottage). Building work on the cottage began in the early spring of 1925 to plans by the architect František Grossman, with construction supervised by the builder J. Gregor from Zubří. The cottage was opened to the public on 1 August, when it was presented to the local branch of the Tourist Club. On the ground floor there were 2 communal bunkrooms with space for 14 people – one for 10 men, and the other for 4 women. On the upper floor – with access via an outside veranda – there were 4 rooms containing 12 beds in total. In 1928 several alterations were made to the surrounding area, with the castle walls modified to create a courtyard where the owners of cars or motorcycles could park their vehicles. After the Second World War the cottage was renamed in honour of the doctor and local historian Dr Adolf Hrstka.

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This cave was formed by natural gravitational processes in the limestone massif below Dr Hrstka’s chalet. The tunnels in this type of cave are narrow, tall and regularly shaped. At a depth of around 40 metres below ground, small stalagmites and stalactites can be seen. With a depth of 51 metres, this is the second deepest fissure cave in the Czech Republic (after Kněhyně at 57.5 metres).

The cave was found when digging the foundations for Dr Hrstka’s chalet on 20 November 1924. It was named in honour of the Czech writer and patriot Dr František Sláma, whose stories and novels set in Štramberk often feature the mysterious network of tunnels and caverns under the town’s castle.

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There are hundreds of tropical fish in tanks with a capacity of several thousand litres, various species of snakes and lizards.

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Mini Zoo Štramberk
 

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An exhibition of renowned painter of primeval ages and adventures Zdeněk Burian, who passed part of his life in Štramberk, was originally opened in 1992 below the Square, since 2011 is in the baroque taproom house no. 31. The museum is visited by Burians admirers from all corners of the world.

ZDENĚK BURIAN
11. 2. 1905 Kopřivnice – 1. 7. 1981 Praha

The name of the world famous painter and illustrator Zdeněk Burian will be always connected with never ending human desire for knowledge. Mysterious cave Šipka, a former dwelling of Neanderthal man and also a Burians playground, inspired him in his later work. He closely collaborate with palaeontologists to reconstruct fossil plant, animals and human beings. Soon his works became famous not only in the Czech Republic and today you can find his paintings, describing the life in primeval period, in many galleries around the world. More than 10 000 realistic book and magazine illustrations still fascinate children and adults. He spend his childhood partly in his hometown and partly in nearby Štramberk, a town which in the early twentieth century lived a very intense artistic life. The exhibitions in the town had a considerable influence on Zdeněk´s awakening artistic soul. When the painter J. Goth saw some examples of Burian´s work in Prague, he immediately recommended him to apply to the renowned Prague Academy of Art. His studies, however, brought hard times for Zdeněk. Without the support of his parents he twice almost died of hunger and exhaustion, and he only survived thanks to his incredible determination and strength of will, which he modelled on the heroes of adventure books. Just like his heroes, he won back his own life: “I would never have survived if I had not had lessons from the very best teachers: Jack London, Thompson Seton, Rudyard Kipling, Zane Grey and Rex Beach. They taught me that the most important qualities in life are determination, self-denial and discipline.” From this time right until his death, Burian stayed faithful to the genre of adventure writing and created wonderful works of art that never cease to amaze us with their suggestive perfection. He illustrated his first book, The Adventures of David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson, when he was sixteen, and his last illustrations were published over sixty years later. During the intervening years he became – as if without any effort – one of the most famous painters of prehistoric scenes in the second half of the twentieth century. His art is reminiscent of an unending call for the original purity of life, the nobility of the human soul and respect for the perfect order of existence. Many people would say that he did not really fit in today´s world, and they may well be right. Because Zdeněk Burian belonged to one of the next worlds. He was a poet with his brush, a pilgrim with a guitar and a song on his lips. He loved autumn, and New Zealand. Mountains, forests and the fresh, clean air. Horses and dogs. And good people too. The extent of his work is incredible. He created thousands of drawings, oils, gouaches, watercolours, pastels and distempers. He illustrated over five hundred books, painted hundreds of book covers and illustrations for magazines. His work covers a huge range of subjects, from ethnography to geography, palaeontology and anthropology. He both illustrated children´s books and painted remarkable sets of portraits of pictures with various themes, most of which ar unknown today, like his illustrations for unpublished books. He mastered a range of artistic techniques, and reached absolute perfection in his gouache illustrations and drawings in white ink on black. Zdeněk Burian – a name which has been lovingly repeated by thousands of admirers of the Romantic for over seventy years. An outstanding painter of the prehistoric world, an unforgettable illustrator of adventure stories, a hiker and traveller in both body and soul, a faithful playmate in our childhood, a silent companion in adolescence, and a true friend in adulthood. He has never betrayed those who are close to him.

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After 150 years the Town Brewery revived the local tradition of brewing beer in Štramberk at the location where beer used to be brewed and tapped centuries ago. Today we brew light unfiltered Pilsner type lager and dark unfiltered Flek type lager named Trubač. During his beer exploration tour, Stan Sesser, a beer expert and reporter of the Wall Street Journal, labeled local dark beer as “the best dark beer of 2006 in Central Europe”. You can also taste some of our special beers with sour cherry or plum flavor. Local homemade cuisine is famous for its specialties prepared not only in beer. Hot pork scraps go without saying and that is only the beginning of the exquisite gourmet experience.

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The Šipka cave is the best-known karst formation in the Štramberk area. In 1880 Karel Jaroslav Maška, a schoolteacher and archaeologist from Nový Jičín, found the lower jaw of a Neanderthal child aged between 8 and 10 years in a rock alcove in the oldest inhabited part of the cave formation, on the edge of an area that had been used as a fireplace in prehistoric times. This amazing find – just 24 years after the discovery of a skull and bones in the German Neanderthal valley – made Štramberk famous all over the world. Maška had already found a set of bronze items from the Late Bronze Age, and in 1880 he also discovered the Šipka cave. His research and archaeological finds proved that the cave had been inhabited alternately by prehistoric hunters and large predatory animals.

Archaeological digging found around 80 thousand bones and teeth in the sediments on the cave floor, from various animals. The most recognizable pieces belonged to a bear, which evidently used the cave as its den. Other animals whose remains were found at the site included cave-dwelling lions, hyenas, woolly rhinoceros, mammoths, bison, aurochs, muskoxen, leopards, wolverines, reindeer, and elk. Remains of 130 different animal species were found in the cave.

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Porady i inne atrakcje

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This botanical garden and arboretum is located in an old limestone quarry area, called Dolní Kamenárka, and its surroundings. The terrain is very rugged with a significant elevation. The current area of the newly established garden is almost ten hectares, the first plantings took place here in 1999 and it has been under development since. Calciphile and thermophile plant communities of the Štramberk origins constitute a major part of the future exposition of the stone garden.

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