The Krkonoše Museum in Vrchlabí

The main attractions of the Krkonoše Museum in Vrchlabí are Krkonoše flora, fauna and minerals as well as history and local ethnography. It can serve as an informative gateway to the Krkonoše National Park for every visitor. 

The foundation stone of the Krkonoše Museum in Vrchlabí was laid in the 1880s by the Krkonoše society in Vrchlabí. The first name of the museum was Riesengebirgsmuseum, because in this part of the Krkonoše Mountains people spoke mostly German. The zoologist and botanist Viktor von Cypers-Landrecy (1857─1931) was the main figure of the local natural history association and museum. At the end of the First World War, the museum moved to the building of the Augustinian monastery in Vrchlabí, where it still is today. Since 1966, the museum has been managed directly by the Krkonoše National Park Administration. From the beginning, the museum had very valuable collections of local natural history. For example, the botanical collection contains about 6,000 items that document the transformation of the local flora. Part of the exhibition is also dedicated to probably the most famous native of the place, the botanist Josefina Káblíková, who ran a pharmacy in Vrchlabí with her husband and was one of the most important European botanists of her time. Although her collections are mostly displayed in other museums in Bohemia and abroad, the local museum has about 100 original plants from her collection. The zoological collection contains mainly specimens from the surrounding nature. Birds and mammals are the most numerous. One third of the collections are insects, most of which come from the collections of entomologist Jan Tichý (1890-1976). Valuable for its historical and documentary importance is the collection of gastropod shells, which comes directly from the museum's founder, V. von Cypers-Landrecy. The geological collection, which contains mainly minerals from the National Park, has a total of 1,500 exhibits, with the Giant's Mine, Harrachov and Herlíkovice sites represented the most. There are garnets, pyrrhotites, quartz crystals, magnetite ores and other minerals. There is also a beautiful monastery botanical garden in the immediate vicinity of the museum.

BAŠTA, J.: K historii Krkonošského národního parku. Živa, 4/2013, str. 65-69