EN
The earliest villegiaturas emerged in the vicinity of Prague from the beginning of the 1850s – recreation villa colonies for Prague’s upper middle class. Rural villegiaturas were a peculiar mass manifestation of the life-style of the modern, especially Czech, bourgeoisie as well as an important step towards urbanization of rural landscape. Recreation rural villegiaturas emerged usually in close connection with older rural residences in romantic landscapes, featuring river valleys, abundance of forests, rock formations, ruins of medieval castles and so on. Easy accessibility from Prague provided by modern means of transportation, such as railroads and, to a lesser extent, steamboats, were an important pre-condition for the existence of villegiatura.