Bores

Bores is a small hunting château hidden deep inside the Libavá Military Training Area, on the Oderské vrchy hills in the Olomouc district of the Czech Republic. It stands beside the road connecting two long-vanished villages, Velká Střelná and Jestřabí, and for most of the year it sits off-limits to visitors, locked inside an active military zone.

How did Bores come to be?

The building's story starts far more modestly than the word "château" suggests. In 1882 a hunting lodge went up here for the noble family that owned the surrounding forests and farmland. It wasn't until 1930–1931 that Count Alfons Wrbna-Freudenthal had the plain lodge rebuilt into a proper hunting château, and it's from that renovation that the name "Bores château" dates. In January 1937 the count sold both the building and its land to an industrialist named Pivný from Loštice, who poured considerable money into the estate. He didn't get to enjoy it for long — after Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland, the property changed hands again amid the upheavals of the occupation.

What happened after the war?

Everything around Bores changed for good after 1945, and especially once the Libavá Military Training Area was carved out between 1947 and 1950. The army absorbed more than twenty villages and hamlets, whose buildings became targets for artillery and infantry live-fire drills. Many of them — including Velká Střelná and Jestřabí, the two villages flanking Bores — were deliberately demolished over the following decades and now survive only as names on old maps. The château itself survived, but it ended up inside a closed military zone where civilian access is tightly restricted to this day.

Can visitors actually see the château?

Yes, but only once a year. The Libavá training area stays closed to tourism for the entire year except for a handful of exceptional open days tied to the "Bílý kámen" (White Stone) cycling and hiking event. On that day, marked routes lead right through the grounds where Bores stands, letting visitors reach the site without needing a special military permit. It's one of the very few chances to see, up close, a landscape that spends the rest of the year reserved exclusively for soldiers and live-fire exercises.

What should you know before planning a visit?

The Libavá Military Training Area covers more than 235 square kilometres of hills, forest and the remnants of abandoned villages, most of it permanently closed to the public. If you're visiting Bores during one of the rare open days, it's worth planning a longer route that also takes in the surroundings of Velká Střelná and Jestřabí — it's the only realistic way to get a feel for what this corner of Moravia's cultural landscape looked like before the training ground swallowed it. Because the terrain is a former live-fire range with a real risk of leftover ordnance, stick strictly to the marked paths and never wander off the designated route.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bores château open to visitors year-round? No. It sits inside the closed Libavá Military Training Area and is only publicly accessible during occasional open days, most notably during the "Bílý kámen" event.

Why is it called a "château" if the building started as a hunting lodge? The name stuck after the 1930–1931 rebuild, when Count Alfons Wrbna-Freudenthal turned the plain 1882 lodge into a more representative, château-style residence.

What's around the château itself? Bores stands on the road between two vanished villages, Velká Střelná and Jestřabí, both demolished after the military training area was established.

How do you get to the "Bílý kámen" open day? The route and meeting point are announced each year by the event organisers — check local Libavá-area announcements, since access to the military zone is tightly controlled and details can change from year to year.