Český ráj, and a visit to Hrad Kost

At 10:00 I met Rebecca, Chase and Shannon at the end of Line B metro, Černy most. From there we caught a bus that took us outside Prague to the city of Mladá Boleslav, where we transferred to a train that would take us farther into the countryside in a vaguely northeastern direction towards the region known as Český ráj. Since the “Bohemian Paradise” is quite a large area, I chose an interesting castle as a focal point for our hike: Kost.

Thus we hopped off the train in the village of Libošovice. Now, when I say “train” I mean this quite loosely. I thought that the trains that took Natasha and I through the mountains in Switzerland were tiny—three cars long, in order to make all those switchback turns—but this particular train that took the four of us through the decidedly flat crop fields of Bohemia was… one car long. One! And on a related note, none of us saw any other sets of tracks, leading me to believe that that one train car is THE train car, going back and forth on its one track.

Once in Libošovice, we sat down to start eating through all the food I had stuffed into my bookbag—two loaves a bread, some cheese, some salami, and a pair of Valencia oranges. (Due to a gap in communication, Rebecca, too, brought some bread and fruit to share. My theory was that we might all get horribly lost, but at least we wouldn’t immediately starve to death.) After lunch, we easily found the 2.5 km trail towards Kost. Along the way we found apple trees, which had delicious fruit. And then we found something even more exciting to eat from: walnut trees! All the available walnuts, however, were too far up to reach. So, we encouraged Chase to climb into the tree, and shake it. Voilà! Walnuts! Shannon volunteered for the next tree-shaking operation.

Before we knew it, we were at the castle. Construction began in the 14th century. It’s situated on a chunk of rock—naturally, to make it more defensible—although this doesn’t make it any more visible from the surrounding areas. In fact, it’s so well hidden that an army can march quite close to it and not realise that it’s there.

Part of the wall is decorated in a style that was popular at some point in the late middle ages (unfortunately I’ve forgotten specifically, I’ll do some research and get back to you all on this), in which the surface is “shaded” to make the stonework appear three-dimensional. In other areas you can see the dimples in the individual stones that aided in the walls’ construction.

During the tour we learned (after the tour guide realised that we were only pretending to understand what she was saying, she gave us the abbreviated version in broken English) about the origin of the coat of arms associated with the castle (or, more appropriately, the Kinský family). Once upon a time there was a lady riding through the forest alone. She was attacked by three wolves, and saved by some gentleman or other. At least that’s all of the story that I understood and/or remember. But, because of this, the coat of arms is a red field charged with three wolf teeth. We saw an 18th(?) century painting depicting the lady on horseback trying to fend off three wolves with her riding stick, which is what prompted our question about the story behind it and eventually led to the explanation of the heraldry. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures inside the rooms, so you will have to visit the castle yourself to see it. While your there, note also the portrait of a woman that’s got a bullet-hole through the canvas. Another interesting story here: the lady was so talkative that, to prove a point, her husband executed her in effigy. As the story goes, she never spoke again.

There was also a small collection of arms and armour, although there were a few replicas interspersed with the genuine articles, which I wasn’t all that pleased about. At least they could’ve been obviously marked “replica” or “copy” because even though I may know that they’re not the real thing, other people may not. And this, in my opinion, is misleading and goes against everything I believe about history and archaeology.

Outside of the castle, we sat down to eat once again, near a patch of grass that had mushrooms growing in them, a variety that I know my mother will recognise instantly. That brought back nice memories.

We then hiked our way back to Libošovice by a different route. While waiting for the train to arrive we did a little exploring through the village, visiting the church and admiring the cottages and the chickens and just generally enjoying being in a quaint little town in the middle of Autumn.

There are plans in the making for a return trip before too long, to visit some more castles and explore another small chunk of Paradise.

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Bonus Image! Chase considers how best to lay siege to the castle: