Vlašim

Vlašim is a town in Benešov District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, known in German as Wlaschim. It has about 11,000 inhabitants and lies on the Blanice River in the Vlašim Uplands, about 17 kilometres southeast of Benešov and 45 kilometres southeast of Prague. Its history is bound up with Vlašim Castle, probably built in 1303 by a local noble family that took the town as its name; the castle and the town are first mentioned in writing in 1318. Ownership passed through several noble houses, ending with the Auersperg family, who held the estate from 1744 until the end of the Second World War. The original Gothic castle was rebuilt in Renaissance style in the sixteenth century and sits within a large English landscape garden with romantic pavilions and gates. The town is the home of Sellier and Bellot, a maker of ammunition that employs more than 1,500 people, and of a second tier football club. It also has the late Gothic Church of Saint Giles, built in 1522 and 1523, and a small airport open to national public traffic.