Teplá

Czech nobleman Hroznata originated the monastery in Teplá as a compensation for the fact that the Pope freed him from the participation in the Third crusade. Hroznata invited the Premonstratensian monks from the Strahov monastery in Prague to come over.

Later Hroznata himself became a member of the order and the caretaker of the property. One day robber-knights kidnapped him, imprisoned him and asked for ransom. Hroznata forbid the abbot of the monastery to pay it and in 1217 died in prison. At the end of the 19th century Hroznata was beatified. The monastery Church of the Annunciation of the Lord was built at the turn of the 12th and the 13th century as a Romanesque-Gothic three-nave hall church. Christoph Dientzenhofer made several Baroque changes on it at the turn of the 17th and the 18th century. In the chapel the Hroznata´s remains have been buried. The monastery library with more than 100 000 books is unique. Recently there is a hotel in the complex and a golf course in the park.