Observation tower Kleť

This guide to the observation tower on Klet above Cesky Krumlov opens with two official signs that can't agree on the chairlift's length, a small mismatch that turns out to suit the mountain. It follows the tower itself from its construction for Prince Josef Schwarzenberg between 1822 and 1825, through decades as a surveying point, to the day inspectors quietly declared the country's oldest stone lookout tower unsafe. For close to two centuries it simply stood watching the Sumava ridgeline.