Out of Town
- Cesky
Sternberg
- Melnik
- Karlstejn
- Terezin
- Kutna Hora
- Konopiste
Cesky Sternberg
This hulking castle, on a sheer ridge above
the Sazava River, dates from the 13th century. It probably owes its survival not only to
its impregnable position, but to being owned by the same family, the Sternbergs (Sternberk
to the Czechs), for almost its entire life. It suffered heavy Baroque remodelling in the
17th and 18th centuries, and the only remaining traces of its Gothic personality are in
the fortifications.
Nowadays its most impressive features are the
views - up from the river, and out from the castle windows. The scenery on the train
journey up the Sazava River valley is itself worth the ride. Don't get off at Cesky
Sternberk station, but one stop on at Cesky Sternberk zastavka, across the river from the
castle. A road and then a footpath climb around behind the castle.
The tedious 45-minute tour of the castle
reveals an Italian Baroque renovation, very heavy on stucco ornamentation. Highlights
include the rococo kaple sv Sebestiana (St Sebastian Chapel) and the 'Yellow
Room', with fine views over the countryside. From here you can see trees marking
out a 17th-century French-style park across the river, the only part of a planned
Sternberg chateau that was completed before the money ran out.
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Melnik
On a prominent hill above the confluence of
rivers Vltava and Labe, Melnik began as a 9th-century Slavonic settlement. Its castle was
the second home of Bohemia's queens from the 13th century until the time of George of
Podebrady. A solidly Hussite town, it was demolished by Swedish troops in the Thirty
Years' War, and the original castle gave way to the present chateau.
The town, about 30km north of Prague, is the
centre of Bohemia's wine-growing region. The best vineyards are descended from Burgundy
vines imported by Charles IV. This is an easy day trip, good for lazy strolling and wine
tasting.
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Karlstejn
Karlstejn Castle was founded by Charles IV in
1348 as a royal hideaway and a treasury for the crown jewels and his holy relics. Perched
on a crag above the Berounka River, looking taller than it is wide, it's unquestionably
the most photogenic castle in the Prague region - and the most visited in the Czech
Republic, with coachloads of tourists trooping through all day. Get there early to beat
the crowds.
Heavily remodelled in the 19th century, it's
now in amazingly good shape. The best views are from the outside, so if the tours are sold
out, relax and enjoy a good tramp in the woods.
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Terezin
Even were it not for their barbaric use by
the Nazis, the massive strongholds at Terezin (Theresienstadt in German) would still be a
chilling sight. Though founded in 1780 by Emperor Joseph II as a state-of-the-art bulwark
against the Prussians, they never saw military action. In the 19th century the town within
the Hlavni pevnost (Main Fortress) became a garrison, while the so-called Mala pevnost
(Lesser Fortress) served as a jail and a WWI prisoner-of-war camp.
In 1940 the Gestapo established a prison in
the Mala pevnost. At the end of 1941 they evicted the townspeople from the Hlavni pevnost
and turned it into a transit camp and ghetto, through which some 150,000 European Jews
eventually passed en route to extermination camps.
Terezin became the centrepiece of an
extraordinary public-relations hoax. Official visitors to the fortress, which was billed
as a kind of Jewish 'refuge', saw a clean town with a Jewish administration, banks, shops,
cafes, schools and a thriving cultural life - plays, recitals, concerts, even a jazz band
- a charade that completely fooled the International Red Cross, among others.
The reality was a relentlessly increasing
concentration of prisoners (some 60,000 eventually, in a town built for a garrison of
5000), regular trains departing for Auschwitz, and the death by starvation, disease or
suicide of some 35,000 Jews in the camp.
Though lacking the immediate horror of places
such as Auschwitz, Terezin still has a powerful impact. This is a highly recommended, and
fairly straightforward, day trip from Prague.
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Kutna Hora
It's hard to imagine today, but in its time
Kutna Hora, 70km southeast of Prague, was Bohemia's second-most important town. In 1996 it
was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.
In the late 13th century, silver ore was
found in these hills, and a town sprouted. In 1308 Wenceslas II imported a team of Italian
minters and established his central Royal Mint here. The town's power grew, splendid
churches and palaces arose, and in 1400 Wenceslas IV moved the royal residence here. In
less than 150 years Kutna Hora had become one of Europe's biggest, richest towns, and
Bohemia's economic mainstay. But in the 16th century the silver began to run out and
decline set in, hastened by the Thirty Years' War. A Baroque building boom came to an end
with a devastating fire in 1770.
Today Kutna Hora is a shadow of its old self,
but still sports a fine collection of architectural monuments. With its pastel-hued town
square dotted with cafes, medieval alleys with facades ranging from Gothic to
neoclassical, and a cathedral to rival sv Vita (St Vitus), comparisons with Prague are
hard to resist.
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Konopiste
The French-style chateau at Konopiste dates
from 1300. It had a neogothic face-lift in the 1890s from its best-known owner, Archduke
Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, whose assassination in 1914 set off
WWI.
The archduke was an obsessive hunter, as you
will see from a tour through the wood-panelled chateau, packed with a grossly over-the-top
collection of dead animals and an armoury of hunting weapons. In 25 years, he dispatched
several hundred thousand creatures on his 225 hectare estate - and kept a detailed tally
of them all.
Nowadays the wooded grounds, dotted with
lakes, gardens and statuary, are really the best reason to visit - and a relaxing antidote
to the heavy tourist scene around the chateau.
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