An (un)ordinary weekend

Hayley got the bug in her bonnet to go "Castle Hunting" for the weekend, sounded like a good idea to the rest of the family and so we hired a car and off we set.

Castle hunting in the Czech Republic is not a really challenging thing, you can drive in any given direction for 15 minutes and drive right up to a castle of some kind. If its not a castle it'll be a monastery, church or some other amazing building.

We have a picture map of the CR with the major castles and chateaux in picture on the map. One can scarcely make out the towns for the castles! Anyway, you can point to any point on the map and you'll find a castle or 2 under your finger, if you like the sound of it, then you've got a good place to start, it's really that simple.

To begin with we went to the Karlstein Castle via the Koněpruské Caves. We got to the caves expecting to freeze down below - apparently the average temp in the caves is about 10 degrees even though its a cooking summer outside. It was actually quite refreshing to walk into the cool caves.

There are a bunch of quarries nearby and on the way to the cave mouth we came upon this quite unique little display. People have arranged stones into shapes and messages on the valley floor, and viewed from the top, looks quite amazing.

The Czechs love their graffiti and will mark any surface you give them, walls, floors, covers, bus stops, chairs and I would say they are one of the most tattooed and pierced cultures on the planet - I've not seen anything like it. So I guess, why should a valley floor be any different? In this case i think its quite creative - Its when they spray paint every building and wall etc wherever there is a gap it gets a bit much - they definitely could use a Giuliani here!

Bugz and the babies descend into the depths... Most of the tour occurs on the middle of 3 levels at about 40M below the surface, but the known depths go to about 70M.

There are dozens of stunning calcite formations in the cave - this one called "The Organ" because it looks like the pipes of an organ hanging from the ledge. The scale is difficult to see here, but the width is about 3M where the stalactites hang. There are a lots of other examples of "Pigs Ears", "Roses" and I can't remember what else. Very pretty to look at and in the main, very very old.
This stalagmite has disintegrated from internal pressures - it is about 250 000 years old and you can see the strata in detail layer by layer in the broken rock. Some of the roses we saw were over 1.5 million years old! Better not tell Kent Hovind though, I wonder if he has a theory on how these geological formations can be completed in 6000 years. He sure has time enough to think about it now - 10 years in jail is a long time...
As the tour came to an end Amber began to get restless, she kept telling me she was afraid and then the defining moment came... The tour guide said they would like to show us one last thing on the tour - "The darkness of the caves" with this she switched off the lights. That darkness is so deep... Amber couldn't cope - good thing she was close to me and I could talk her through it, but those lights couldn't come on soon enough. Poor thing, by the time there was light again her little face was wet with tears and everyone in the cave knew with no doubt that there was a distressed baby in there with them.

We soothed strained nerves with some ice cream and went on our way. Next on the itinerary was Karlstejn Castle. One of the more important castles in CZ - it was Charles IV summer home and keep for the jewels of the empire. Lovely place, well maintained... This is the view from the approach.
From the car park to the castle is about 3 Kms uphill through the town of Karlstejn. Needless to say this is a great opportunity for parents to get some unscheduled exercise in as we cart hapless kids up the hill on our backs... Bugz and the babies at the beginning of the trek, castle in background
Any distraction will do if climbing hills is on the cards! Here the kids are in one of the dozens of shops that line the road to the castle. This little town must make an absolute mint from tourists - there are hundreds of them, and they are all buying something.

There are taxi services that run to the top of the hill, many of them horse-drawn much to the delight of our horsie people. This one approaching has a wedding party aboard - they are going up to the castle for the ceremony. Now that's cool! What a venue.
Another reason to stop - the almost perpetual need for refreshments and then the consequential stops to offload the refreshments again. Here, in the very welcome coolth of a rockface I am a quite willing table...
View of the castle courtyard from the main gate. There was a lot of restoration work going on when we were there - scaffolding everywhere, not pretty on photos, but a great sign.
The girls catch up with the horsies that brought the bride to the wedding - they were convinced that she was a princess.
From the other side of the courtyard, the view back onto the castle - stunning

Although the castle is on a hilltop, the hill is lower than others nearby, defensively a bit weird, but apparently effective enough. The tower in this view from the battlements is the well tower - the original huge wheel use to hoist the water up all those levels is still in place from Charles time - 1300's My favourite 3 girls in the bell tower
After dinner at the foot of the mountain in a very pleasant pub we had a bit of a drive to Kutna Hora (Cowl Hill) for our doo doos.

Our diggs for the evening - Penzion Centrum turned out to be an interesting place. I think the newest piece of furniture in the room was from the early '70's and not in any worthwhile condition. There were only gauze curtains hanging on the windows which faced the road, so no nakedness allowed and when the sun comes up, we are going to be awakened by merciless babies who have no problem jumping on their sleeping parents and whose boredom is very unsympathetic to the state of the tired old people in bed.

There was a Jacuzzi bath in the bathroom (with no plug - this had to be requested from the tannie at reception), I think it was one of the first ever made, but when I saw it I could imagine soaking for a bit in the bubbles... there was gonna be some time spent in the tub! So Hayley turned on the jets while the girls were in the bath to show them what a jacuzzi is... and as one would expect, 30 years worth of rust and what must be the beautiful remains of 500 other people's baths rushed out... let me stop telling the story here.

This old church was in front of the penzion - pretty by street light, this shot is from our balcony.

In the morning we went down for breakfast, and here in the dining room is some dude passed out on the couch with a full ashtray the size of a fruit bowl on the table next to him, some arbitrary cartoon channel on the small TV against the wall playing, curtains still all drawn and the room smelt like someone had left an old tractor idling in there overnight. Needless to say, we opted to have breakfast in the garden. If anyone is planning to stay the the Penzion Central in Kutna Hora - DON'T!

Kutna Hora is an unusually pretty little town, originally wealthy from the silver mines here and steeped in history - it seems that there isn't a town anywhere that isn't. This is the view down the boulevard that leads to the Church of St Barbara an amazing building behind me in this shot.

The girls are checking out all that's going on in the valley below

This is the church - it took a little over 500 years to complete due to a stack of delays, wars and other things, glad they did finish it though... have a look
This is a view from the side where the lighting was better, the shot above really needs to be taken in the late afternoon when the intense back-light has gone away.

Inside the place is stunning and also undergoing lots of restoration.

View over the town from near the church

This is the Corpus Christi chapel near the church. It was an ossuary previously but they had buried the remains beneath the floor, until the renovations (which included excavating the floor) were underway. They had photos of the piles of bones dug up on display absolutely unbelievable! I'm glad that this decorating style has gone out of fashion. There is another ossuary in the neighbourhood where the remains of about 40 000 people decorate the building! We decided against visiting it though - can you imagine trying to explain something like that to Amber and Saz? "Well sweetie, some people just like having lots of dead people's bones on the walls to make the place look pretty... you know, we have posters of winnie and barbie, plants and teddies - they have dead peoples heads in rows because they think it looks nice... "

Here the girls draw up a storm while we looked around

Below is the "Stone Fountain" built in the 15th cent, and originally used to store drinking water for the towns folk. Water still running perpetually and you can't get past any water without A&S getting a bit wet...
It's nearly lunch time!
We found this stunning restaurant along the road to the Church - really great location, the view is down over the valley - I didn't want to leave...
Peekaboo...
There was going to be another castle on the way home, but we had difficulty finding the one we wanted and instead discovered a new sleepy town built on the banks of a large river with people swimming and generally having a ball - we'll be going back to do it some more justice soon.

We drove past this one without even expecting it - never mind it can be a day trip for another weekend.

The kids still wanted one more castle, so we stopped in at Hrad Radyne, our local ruin - and had a look around. This one has been re-built in large part, but not roofed or anything and the open floors have fallen through so its cavernous inside - I'd love to be a time-travelling fly on the wall!


Short walk in the surrounding forest and its time to go home and get ready for another week.