2 Castles and chateaux Bečov nad TeplouReason to visitThis chateau contains a unique relic, which after the Crown Jewels is the second most valuable treasure belonging to Czechia: A splendidly decorated golden box, commissioned in the 13th century by the Belgian monastery of Benedictines to hold the remains of St. John the Baptist and St. Maurus. It is among most beautiful examples of the goldsmith’s art of the Middle Ages and is the only one of its kind in Central Europe.Of historical interestThe last owners of the chateau, the de Beauforts, were ordered to leave the estate after 1945 because of their collaboration with the Nazis in occupied Czechoslovakia. They buried the Reliquary of St. Maurus under the floor of the chapel in the hope that they would one day return for it. If a foreign merchant had not appeared some years later and started to negotiate with the Czechoslovak state over the purchase of an unspecified valuable object, probably no one would have learned of its existence. This tangled case, which top Czechoslovak criminologists worked to unravel, was solved in 1985 and became the inspiration for a detective novel.Náměstí 5. května 13364 64 Bečov nad Teplou actionURI(http://zamek-becov.cz ):
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