The town of Tachov today opened the reconstructed Svetce riding hall, which is the second largest in Central Europe after Vienna’s; its restoration took 23 years and cost CZK 180 million, including CZK 61 million paid from European subsidies via the IROP programme.
In addition to tours, the neo-Romanesque and neo-Renaissance riding hall will serve as a multifunctional social and cultural centre. It houses exhibitions of herbalism, Bohemian Forests, and period clothing, in addition to stables, a blacksmith’s flat, an exhibition of ironwork, a carriage corridor and living rooms for the nobility and their visitors.
The building is 60 metres long and 26 metres high; the largest part of it is a 40-by-20-metre arena. Nobleman General Alfred Windischgratz had it built between 1857 and 1862, but It fell into disrepair after WW2. In 1999, a single vote saved it from demolition in a vote in the Tachov town assembly. It has the status of national cultural heritage site.
There is a possibility of a virtual tour.
