Lešany: Military Museum, Castle History and Educational Trails

Lešany combines a military technology collection, castle history and marked trails to create a versatile destination. You can explore historical exhibitions and buildings and then get to know the surrounding area, its history and its sights on educational trails. When choosing your accommodation, it is particularly interesting whether you want to focus on culture, a trail with fixed stops or a combination of both forms.

Military Technology and Castle History

The Vojenské technické muzeum Lešany displays more than 700 historical tanks, cannons, motorcycles, armoured, freight and passenger vehicles, as well as missile technology, communications and engineering equipment and logistics material dating from 1890 to the present day. Since 1996, the museum has been located in the former artillery barracks between Krhanice and Lešany near Týnec nad Sázavou. As part of the annual opening of the exhibition season, events featuring demonstrations of historic military technology in motion take place in the museum arena. Among the biggest events of the year are the Tankové dny, held on the last Saturday at the end of the summer holidays.

Zámek Lešany also takes visitors into another historical era. The castle was rebuilt from an older manor house in the middle of the 16th century. After 1683, the St. Vitus Chapter at Prague Castle gave Zámek Lešany its present four-winged form. The attractions include an Art Nouveau tour on the first floor and the exhibition “Největší záhady a tajemství světa” on the ground floor and in the chapel. The Pamětní síň Františka Hrubína in the Lešany municipal office building presents an exhibition about the life and work of František Hrubín connected with the region.

Educational Trails with Different Starting Points

The Historií Lešan educational trail leads through the surroundings of Lešany and introduces visitors to the nature, history and sights of the municipality and the local region. The Podlešanský mlýn educational trail starts at Krhanice railway station and ends in Lešany-Nová Ves. It is 5.5 km long and has six stops with information boards. This makes it possible to plan the route around a clearly described course and fixed information points.

The “Za Františkem Hrubínem do Lešan” hiking route follows a yellow-marked section between two ponds to the edge of Lešany and then continues to the village square. From Zámek Lešany, another route follows yellow markings to the edge of Nová Ves; it then continues on green markings to Kamenný Přívoz.

For planning your day, the trails offer different forms of orientation: Podlešanský mlýn connects a fixed starting point with six information boards, Historií Lešan focuses on nature, history and sights, and the Hrubín routes use yellow and green markings respectively. This allows you to distinguish between stops, thematic impressions and a route with clearly defined waypoints.

Other Places for Your Search

For further orientation, you can also view Petroupim, Postupice, Chrást Nad Sázavou, Neveklov, Dunice, Pravonín, Smilkov and Vracovice.

For the higher-level travel overview: Okres Benešov.