Castles on the rocks
Rotštejn
The remains of an early Gothic castle Rotštejn lies in the nature reserve Klokočí rocks, which was launched in 1985 with an area of 228.13 hectares. Rock area is developed in Teplice quartz sandstone layers, with the thickness up to 140 m above the village Klokočí Sandstones constitutes about 2 km long wall of rock, from which the seats allocated separate pinnacles. The southern edge of the counterbore Rotštejn mine with castle ruins, where the developed rock window, which was established at the intersection of fissures in less paved and easily weathered parts sandstone gradual linking of cavities in the rock wall. The rock walls rise to a whole range of different sized niches and caves. Sandstones are also adorned with a trough limestonepavements and honeycomb. Most of the vegetation in the upper parts of the platform consists of monoculture pine forest and less accessible places grow natural pine woods. In the ravines and on favorable sites have been preserved and beech forest debris. Dry soil on sandstone bedrock and pine plantations have relatively dull herb layer. The plains prevails blueberry and cranberry. Locally, the extended heather, broom tortuous and appear rare subalpine and alpine species such as Deer Fern, and cervix. On the edges of the rock walls nesting Black Redstart, raven, kestrel and Owl.
Gothic Castle Rotštejn was founded in the second half of the 14th century by Markvartics, by the early 16th century, was abandoned. Occasionally, however, was to shelter and storage purposes used as the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), but the rock carved spaces served population of the immediate area in the 20th century.
Contact
Geopark UNESCO Český ráj
Jiří Vlasák
e-mail:vlasak@geopark-ceskyraj.cz
http://www.geopark-ceskyraj.cz
