Former Archduke Albert Avenue
Masarykovy sady
 

In 1813, following the order from Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, a forest inspector called Dünnbier set up a park in Saska Kępa quarter (Sachsenberg – in honour of the Duke’s name). The park was arranged on the plan of a triangle. Three radial avenues constituted the compositional axes. The terrace with a Doric portico in the corner of the Hunter’s Palace on Cieszyn Castle Hill was the scenic closure for the avenues. And the other way round; from the terrace a panoramic view of the avenues that separated radially in the new quarters of Cieszyn met the eye. That idea is still clear today in the layout of Czech Cieszyn ; the radial streets are: Masarykovy sady, Hlavní Třída street (former Saska Kępa) and partly Smetanová street. Originally the park was meant for the building of two-storey housing estates for the clerks who administered the Habsburg possessions. The ‘Saská Kupa’ (in Polish Saska Kępa) restaurant reminds us of the historical past of the place. Here one can find the ambience of the imperial monarchy. In its central part the broad Avenue was lined with numerous trees and bushes and walking paths were marked out, among which a statue of St. Jan Nepomucen, a shrine made of red brick and an Art Nouveau monument of Friedrich Schiller (made of white Carrara marble) were hidden. In the 19th century numerous stately eclectic villas were erected round the Avenue. They were situated in gardens with the inevitable magnolia trees as their embellishment. In the initial section of the Avenue two three-storey houses were built in 1874 with flats for the employees and the head office of the Archdukal Komora Cieszyńska. During the Nazi occupation they struck universal terror in people because they constituted the Gestapo premises.

In this place we finish our walk along the route of the Cieszyn Dukes from the Habsburg line. We keep in mind the fact that the period of their rule – although it evokes a lot of questions and is the source of numerous controversies – still left a lot of permanent traces that enrich the culture and tradition of both Cieszyn and Cieszyn Silesia.