Průhonice park

While I was teaching English, I often had to travel just outside Prague to some businesses in Čestlice. On the way, I'd always see this neo-gothic tower sticking up over the town. I later found out that this was part of the château gardens in Průhonice, which is an UNESCO-protected area. Here are some pictures of the park.

Křivoklát Castle

Hrad Křivoklát


Some shots of the 'interior'. Photography wasn't allowed in any of the rooms however. This irked me, especially since there was a chapel with a beautiful gothic altarpiece, and another room with some 15th/16th century paintings and sculpture. And a library to die for - at one point it was the 3rd largest collection in Bohemia.


These forests used to be a favored hunting area for the local aristocracy.


I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't write down who this person is. I can only remember that it was some prince or another. One of the Fürstenbergs maybe?


A local cat, and quite possibly the largest slug in the world. Largest I've ever seen, at any rate.

Roztoky

This morning after class I traveled up the Vltava river, just north of Prague, to a town called Roztoky. There isn't much to the town, but I wanted to see the Roztocký zámek (Roztoky Château) and its associated museum.

The museum (Středočeské Muzeum v Roztokáchu Prahy) is made up of several exhibition spaces in two different buildings. There was the "history of the château", especially interesting because, aside from the usual names and dates, the coats of arms of the people associated with the area were displayed. Included was, I believe, the coat of arms of Eberhard of Reims, which you can also see on a boss on the chapel ceiling. There is also a large hall with a decorated wooden ceiling which you can apparently get married in these days, if you so desire. The only visible throw-back to the château's medieval existence was the moat.

There were temporary exhibitions on marionettes (Bohemia is known for its puppeteering, among other things) and decorative arts, both of which I perused.

Nothing significantly earth-shattering about any of this, but it was a pleasant way to spend 2 hours.

Okoř

This last Monday, being Easter Monday, was a national holiday. So, with no classes to teach, I thought it'd be a good day for Rebecca and I to go a short distance northwest to the small castle ruins of Okoř.

The castle was originally built in 1359. Naturally, it was updated throughout the centuries, but fortunately for medieval purists like myself, it was abandoned in the 18th century and all that older stuff crumbled away, leaving some decent gothic ruins. For a little more info, read here.

After a picnic (I made some meat pastries, and brought some apples, red wine, and chocolate - what's not to like?), and a tour of the ruins, we went on a hike through the village and farmland to the north. We picnic'd again, and met a cute little kitten on the way back. Below are some pictures, in no particular order.

Stuff

Today, while I was in Čestlice (a town just outside the southeasternish part Prague) I saw something new - a pheasant in flight. I've only ever seen pheasants either in aviaries or as roadkill, so it was nice to see one alive and enjoying life. Which reminded me of another first sighting. Waay back when I was living in my school-provided flat in Smichov, I saw a hedgehog scurrying about. But, I have pictures of neither. O well.

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In other news, my Czech lessons are going well; I can confidently say nemluvím česky moc dobře ale studuju (I don't speak Czech very well but I am studying). I've also learned all the essentials required for explaining my presence to the receptionists or security guards at my clients' places of businesses - the latter of which almost never speak English. However, by this point most of them recognise me and remember that I'm supposed to be there once or twice a week.

Although Czech is a very interesting language, and a bit of a novelty to someone who's only studied Latin and Romance languages, it's not particularly useful in the grand scheme of things; it's only spoken here in the Czech Republic. I fully intend to continue my lessons, particulary since the school provides them free of charge as long as I'm employed. However I was also considering taking up German, as it (like English, Spanish and French) is a much more international language. Also I've run across many publications that I'm interested in reading - connected either to my interest in medieval combat treatises ("Fechtbücher") or medieval embroideries - that are only in German. So, whereas at the present moment it is literally impossible to save money, I'm hoping that as soon as that obstacle is overcome, I'd like to put aside some money for private German lessons.

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: