Andělská Hora and Locket

After our walk in the forrest on Sunday morning, we headed out of Karlovy Vary to visit the castle at Andelska Hora.

It was founded sometime in the 14th century along the trade route to Prague. It is now in total ruin, but somehow that just feeds the fantasy. Walking through the rubble and ruin, you find yourself dreaming and imagining what used to happen there during that time. I would imagine the knights standing at the lookouts watching the approaching horseback riders coming over the hills in the distance.

The wind was blowing an outright gale and at some points, I could not walk foreward even though my leg was raised, just waiting to come down in front of me and my weight was leant forward - it somehow reminded me of brother bear on the cliff riding the wind. A & S had a really rough time of it with the weather with howls coming from them everytime the wind blew in their face. It was also very cold and the chill seemed to find us through our jackets and in the gaps.

Weather aside, it was definitely one of the better castle experiences I have had since being in Europe.

On leaving Andelska Hora, Colin's faithful GPS started to guide us to the next destination (only a minor glitch at the start where we had the wrong location pinned in), but when we started heading NE instead of SW, I questioned the GPS loudly enough for Colin to relook at the route and put in the new location. We also had some very interesting moments where the GPS got totally confused on itself with new roads popping up very inconsiderately and then others being blocked off just to confuse us all, so the poor GPS thought that we were riding across the fields on a number of occasions.

Our next destination was Loket on the other side of Karlovy Vary. This time, an older castle than Andelska Hora (from 1170) and one that is infact completely in tact and still in use.

The wind had turned into rain, so we visited the local restaurant for lunch within the castle walls before heading to the castle fortress.

The most grissly part of the tour is the torture chamber with all manor of exhibits of the methods and instruments of torture - dummies, sound effects, the works! Needless to say, Colin and I took turns to view the chamber with the girls playing outside.

On the route back home to Plzen, I set the way-points for the furthest out of the way towns and villages that I could find to get home (and added a cool hour onto the journey which only doubled the time to get home :)). We went through the smallest villages, that if there hadn't been a village starting and village ending sign, I am sure that we would not have known it was there. It also took us through some beautiful forrests on some rather more dodgy roads. It felt very good to be able to let whim and fancy steer our course home.