Two days, three castles

Our friends Bruce and Connie wanted to do something different for the 4th of July, so they proposed that we take a little trip. We decided to go to a VERY small town called Hluboka nad Vltavou, which just happens to have a castle! Bruce and Connie were in charge of the car rental, and I booked the hotel. After a few wrong turns trying to leave the city on the 4th, (no GPS's available) we headed out for the Bohemian area of the Czech Republic. Monday, July 6 is a major Czech holiday, so many Czechs were leaving the city as well, and we ran into a LOT of traffic. It's a good thing we are all very calm people!

It was a very beautiful hot and sunny day, so upon our arrival we headed straight to the castle.

We did tour the interior of this castle- the rooms are vast, as you might imagine, very well preserved and/or reconstructed; and the woodwork, tapestries, furnishings etc. are magnificent. Unfortunately, photographing the interior is not allowed.

Decorative and unusual door handles abound here - this is one we liked that was on a shop we passed on the way up the hill to the castle.

And this one is on the castle door. It seems the owners of the castle didn't much like the Turks, having helped conquer them once way back when, and this image is part of the coat of arms of the royal family.

While we were touring the interior, a thunderstorm came up, and so we waited out the rain in a glassed-in conservatory type area that was very pleasant. We saw a wedding party come through and pose for photos on the steps inside, then the bride and groom braved the rain for photos in the gardens. We stayed inside. :-)

The rain caused the temperature to drop by about 20 degrees (well, it felt that way to me) so we opted not to go swimming at the public pool - which even had a large, curvy waterslide. I was kind of disappointed! We wandered about the town instead, and after dinner and a game of cards, we headed back up to the castle for the night view. The change in the temperature caused some fog to roll in, making this scene even better.

On our way out of town the next day, we spotted this stork nest. Those are actually the baby storks- we passed Mama on her way home from the river a few blocks farther on.

We opted to stick to back roads as we traveled, and we were rewarded with beautiful sights around every turn. The countryside is so much like upstate NY that we felt right at home, except for the way the road would wind through small villages with centuries-old buildings close to the road, and sights like the one below that came into view as we crested a small rise.

This road was actually a fairly major route-note it's wide enough for one lane in each direction, unlike some of the roads we traveled later! The turnout in the front of the photo is a bus stop- there were stops like this on all the roads we travelled, many of them seeming to be in the middle of nowhere.

We goofed on the next photo, we had a better one to show how close the road actually was to these towers. The road doesn't go between them as we had first feared, but it passes just to the right of the towers. You could touch the first barbed-wire fence that surrounds the facility from the shoulder of the road, and a second fence is only a few feet beyond the first, and then the tower wall. Scarey! We were a little leery of going forward- we checked to be sure we didn't start glowing or something.

The countryside was filled with fields of various crops- wheat, barley and poppies! The cultivated poppies were mostly white ones as in the photo below, but some were pink, which made the countryside gorgeous. Red ones appeared to be a wild variety, and were visible along the road edge and in uncultivated fields. I had to look up the cultivation of poppies, and although some countries grow them for medicinal purposes, it appears that the Czechs grow them for their seeds. A few years ago the Czech Republic was the world's largest producer of poppy seeds.

Most of the smaller roads like the one below are lined with fruit trees. It is hard to see, but these are cherry trees, with fruit ready for picking. We also drove on roads lined with apple and pear trees, and I imagine that folks in the area appreciate such bounty.

When we arrived at Zvikov Castle, we were elated to find that this one is NOT on top of a hill. It is on a promontory at the confluence of the Vlatava and Otava Rivers. Although this castle is listed as being ruins- we found there was much to see. The displays in the rooms are open to view without a guided tour, so you can spend as much time as you want in each area.

This site had a lot of natural beauty rather than well-kept gardens. There were lots of trees to provide welcome shade as we wandered about. Below is kind of the "no-man's land" between the outer and inner walls. The wall on the left fronts the river, and if invaders got over that wall, they could be attacked by the defenders from the wall on the right.

Unfortunately, this tower is not open to visitors.

Part of the castle living quarters fell into the river and has not been rebuilt, and much of the building is in disrepair- but there is enough preserved to make this a wonderful visit.

This area is below ground, and probably was used for food storage and the kitchens.

This is actually an "up" staircase, leading to a minor tower with a great view - of the river, of course!

And oh look- there's a houseboat on the river!!

The chapel room is below- we photographed the English description (see below) because we were so in awe of the dates involved.

Another room with well-preserved wall decorations followed by the description....

And then, because the day was so beautiful, and because we had to go that way to return to Prague, we stopped at the Karlstejn Castle. This is a major tourist attraction and is listed in the Prague guides as one of those "day-trips from Prague". We walked up to the castle to tour the grounds but we did not take the guided interior tour.

View from the wall....

The Czech Republic has been described as the land of 1,000 castles - we only have 996 to go!