Not far from Pardubice, a hill rises from golden and greenish fields. If it weren’t for the fact that it exceeds the surrounding flat terrain by more than eighty meters, hardly anyone would start calling it “the mountain”. But the fact that it rises above the landscape to a height of 305 meters above sea level and has a beautiful view far and wide, it is ostentatiously called Kunětická hora. The local people have a warm relationship with it and it has been some time since it earned the friendly nickname “Kuňka”. Several thousand years ago, the mountain provided stone for the production of blades for prehistoric weapons, later the local rock was used to build old Pardubice. Kuňka was mined until 1920.
The once rounded hill was eroded by a quarry, which caused a part of the castle, which has been completing the silhouette of the mountain since about the 13th century, to collapse. Today, “Kuňka” has been reconstructed and its walls are taken over by a “real dragon”. Don’t believe it? Come and see. It’s still a cub, so don’t worry.
It is said that Kunětická hora opens once a year. In its bowels , you can then walk through an underground maze, which, in addition to richly decorated corridors, consists of monstrous halls with golden ceilings and walls inlaid with precious stones. In the magnificent labyrinth, ghosts of deceived monks from the nearby Opatovice monastery, which was burned down by the Hussites in 1420, wander around. They are looking for a treasure that they lost through their own fault.
