Hradecká Gate
Your walk begins where the old road from the east entered Třeboň. Hradecká Gate is one of four gates of the former town fortifications, and it takes its name from Jindřichův Hradec, the town this path led to. It closes Masaryk Square on its eastern side. The oldest core of Třeboň grew up along this road, the Vitorazská stezka, so the gate was probably among the very first to be built.
Before you walk through, look at the painted decoration. At the end of the 17th century a cross was painted on the gate together with the arms of the Rosenberg family and of the town. The gate's original name tells you what once lay outside: it was called the Gate of the Long Bridge, after a causeway of logs and brushwood that began here and carried travellers across the marshes.
The documented construction took place between 1525 and 1527, as part of a complete rebuild of the town walls driven by Štěpánek Netolický, a man whose name you will meet again on the square. After the great town fire of 1562, Jan Vlach rebuilt the gate, and later fires brought later rebuilds. What you see today is the state of 1875.
One piece of the defences survives almost hidden: a narrow lane along the old wall, now part of the neighbouring building that houses the town's art school. It runs to house no. 96 nearby, which used to be a bastion and the town armoury. From the gate it is about 100 m, one minute on foot, to the Old Town Hall.
