The Linden of Jan Gurre

A pilgrimage site exists because of this tree. In 1626 the Jesuit apothecary Jan Gurre is said to have had a vision beneath it, and to have proposed a Loreto chapel and the Church of the Holy Spirit on the spot partly so that the lime itself would be preserved. What grew out of that is the Rimov complex, big enough that South Bohemians came to call it the European Jerusalem, and the lime is still standing beside the church at the centre of it. The trunk is completely hollow and kept going by an adventitious root running down through the middle of it. On 15 September 1996, fifty-one people got inside at once and someone counted. It is 760 centimetres round, measured in 2008. Age is unresolved. The national conservation agency recorded 600 years in 1999 and 650 to 660 in 2008, while other experts on the same record put it nearer 400. The crown is going: 19 metres tall in 1981, roughly 12 to 15 now, as the old limbs die back and the tree lives off stump sprouts. It was protected in 2000 and took nearly half the national vote as Czech Tree of the Year in 2008. Look for it by the Church of the Holy Spirit; our pin is placed from the address rather than surveyed.