Litovel – Brewery, Trails and City History

Litovel combines regional beer culture with routes exploring history and nature, as well as specific buildings and collections. There are various ways to choose what interests you most: a brewery tour with tasting, an easy nature trail, or a circular route exploring the city’s history and architecture.

Brewery Tour and Haná

The tour of the Litovel Brewery introduces visitors to the traditional production of Litovel beers. It takes them through the brewhouse and cellars, includes the brewery museum and ends with a beer tasting. The programme thus combines the production process with a look at the brewery as a regional theme: it has grown alongside the Haná region for more than 130 years. The production process and regional roots offer two different ways to explore Litovel’s brewing culture.

Hiking Trails with Different Focuses

The “Historie a příroda Litovle a okolí” (History and Nature of Litovel and Its Surroundings) nature trail is 3.5 kilometres long and classified as an easy walking route. All three loops on this trail begin and end within Litovel’s built-up area. The length and difficulty describe the nature trail; the locations of the start and finish apply to the three loops.

The “Historická Litovel” (Historic Litovel) circular route has a different focus. It traces the city’s history from its founding in the 13th century and passes buildings of particular architectural interest in the historic centre. Those primarily interested in architectural history will find a tangible link here between Litovel’s development and its architecture.

City History at the Town Hall and Bridge

The town hall is mentioned in a surviving parchment document from 1287. It has been remodelled several times, including in the Late Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles. The year of the document provides a historical reference point, while the later renovations represent further periods in the building’s history.

Přemysl Otakar Square also preserves a distinctive architectural link to the city’s history. During its redesign in 2014, a stone bridge over the Nečíz was uncovered. It is 8.5 metres long and 7 metres wide, and its paving has been preserved. The bridge is believed to date from around the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. Thus, 2014 marks when it was uncovered, while the dating of the bridge itself remains a well-founded assumption.

Museums: Crafts and Accordions

The Litovel Museum is housed in the original building of a 19th-century shooting range. Its permanent exhibition, “Litovelská řemesla 1. poloviny 20. století” (Litovel Crafts of the First Half of the 20th Century), focuses on local crafts from the first half of the 20th century. It is continually updated with new and interesting objects; its focus remains on the crafts of that period.

The Muzeum harmonik (Accordion Museum) houses a very different collection: around 330 accordions made by nearly 40 Czech and foreign manufacturers. Some instruments are more than 150 years old. Visitors can try playing selected accordions or heligons themselves. The collection offers an introduction through instruments and sound, while the Litovel Museum focuses on local craft history.

When planning your stay, you can choose from a range of interests: beer culture with a tour and tasting, exercise on a nature trail described as easy, city history along the historic circular route, or the two museums’ distinct areas of focus. This distinction helps you find the part of Litovel’s offerings that best matches what interests you most on your trip.

Discover more destinations: Olomouc, Žerotín, Hněvotín, Huzová, Bystročice, Ujezd, Blatec, Ústín

For the overview of the wider travel region: Olomouc District.