Houska Castle Day Trip from Prague: Legends, Facts and Opening Hours 2026

A Houska Castle day trip from Prague takes you about an hour and twenty minutes north of the city, to a castle on a sandstone outcrop in the forests of the Kokořínsko region. Houska is known for a legend: that it was built over a hole leading to hell, which its chapel seals. The documented history is an early Gothic castle of the 13th century, rebuilt as a Renaissance residence, with a chapel whose wall paintings date from around 1300.

This guide keeps the legends and the documented history apart, lists the 2026 opening days and ticket prices, explains how the guided tours work (they start every hour, on the hour), and shows how the castle fits into one private car, either on its own or added to our Mělník and Kokořín trip.

Opening days, tour rules and prices come from the castle's official website and were checked on 2 October 2026; travel times come from our trip planner. The castle publishes opening hours only for the 2026 season, April to October; dates for 2027 have not been published yet, and nothing is published for November to March, so check before you go.

What is documented: the history of Houska Castle

The castle administration attributes the foundation of Houska to King Přemysl Otakar II in the 13th century, at almost the same time as the nearby castle of Bezděz and by the same builders; the timeline on the castle's website gives the years 1280–1290. The same history page records a fortified settlement on the rock from the late 9th century, first in wood and later in stone.

The castle later belonged to the lords of Dubá, the Wallensteins, the Kounic family and others. Renaissance rebuilding gave Houska the appearance it has today; the castle describes itself as a Renaissance chateau with the elements of a Gothic castle. The most valuable room is the original Gothic chapel, with wall paintings from the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, which the castle rates as a rarity in Central Europe.

In 1924 the castle was bought by Josef Šimonek, president of the Škoda Works. The chapel was restored in 1928 and the reconstruction of the whole castle was completed in 1930; until 1939 the family used Houska as a summer residence. During the Second World War it was used by the German army, from 1943 as a depository of Jewish and Masonic books, and from 1950 it housed an archive of the State Library in Prague. In the 1990s it was returned to the original owners in restitution, and in 1999 the current owners opened it to the public, for the first time in its history.

The legends: a gateway to hell and a faceless monk

Everything in this section is legend, and the castle presents it as such: its website summarises a magazine article from 1997 and invites visitors to come and make up their own minds.

The best-known story says that Houska was built on a rock with a cleft leading down to hell, and that the castle chapel stands directly above it to keep the opening closed. The same story adds that the castle has no obvious purpose: it does not guard a trade route, it was never a royal seat, it has no source of water, and its defences supposedly face inwards, as if to keep something in rather than out. A separate legend tells of a figure in a black monk's habit, without a face, who watches anyone who tries to visit the castle at night or stay until morning.

What you will see: the guided tour and the Inferno

Houska can be visited only on a guided tour. Tours start every hour, on the hour; the last tour, and the last entry to the outer courtyard, is one hour before closing time. The castle does not publish the length of the tour or the language of the commentary, and we found no regular English-language tour listed, so ask the castle before your visit what is available on your date. If you arrive at twenty past the hour, you wait forty minutes for the next tour, so we calculate at least an hour and a half for the visit. The car park is about 700 m from the gate, a walk the castle describes as a comfortable ten minutes.

The former carriage house holds the Inferno (Peklem in Czech): a hand-carved mechanical scene in limewood, twelve metres long and two metres high, with eleven moving pictures of punishments for earthly sins, loosely based on Dante's Divine Comedy. It is outside the main tour, self-guided, with a separate ticket.

Opening hours and tickets 2026

The castle published the following for the 2026 season. The closing time is the end of opening hours; the last tour starts an hour earlier.

• April: Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00–17:00.
• May, June and September: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–17:00.
• July and August: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00.
• October: Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00–16:00; the first tour is at 10:00 and the last at 15:00.
• Mondays: closed throughout the season.
• November to March: no opening hours published. Treat the castle as closed unless its website says otherwise. Dates for the 2027 season had not been published at the time of writing.

Admission as listed on the castle's website: adults 180 CZK; reduced 130 CZK for children up to 15, seniors and students; family ticket 520 CZK for two adults and two children; the Inferno 80 CZK per person; dog fee 40 CZK.

Combining Houska with Mělník and Kokořín in one day

Houska lies in the same sandstone landscape as Kokořín Castle, a detour of about 42 km from our Mělník and Kokořín Castle trip. That trip is the usual starting point: an hour and a half at Mělník château above the confluence of the Elbe and Vltava, then an hour at Kokořín, about four hours and forty minutes in total from your Prague hotel and back (both places are described in our Mělník and Kokořín guide).

If you add Houska in the trip planner with a stay of an hour and a half, the day grows by about two hours and a quarter: roughly 45 minutes of extra driving plus the 90 minutes at the castle. The whole day then comes to about six hours and fifty-five minutes.

Two shorter options: Kokořín and Houska without Mělník (an hour at Kokořín, an hour and a half at Houska) is about five hours and a quarter. Houska on its own, with the same hour and a half at the castle, is just over four hours door to door: the drive is roughly an hour and twenty minutes each way, two hours and forty minutes in total.

The planner calculates distance and time, it does not know opening days. Days that work for all three places: Tuesday to Sunday between May and September, or a weekend in April or October.

How a private day trip works

You travel in a private car with an English-speaking driver, up to eight people, picked up at your Prague address. You choose the stops and how long you stay, and the planner shows the route and total time before you book. There is no fixed schedule, which helps at a castle where the next tour may start half an hour after you arrive. Houska is not one of our fixed trips: you add it as a stop in the trip planner, on its own or with Mělník and Kokořín, on a date when the castle is open.

Photo credits: Houska Castle (title photo) — MartinVeselka, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).