Today was also a day I had booked a tour that would take up the entire day so I got up at 6 and was out the door to breakfast by 7. After breakfast I had enough time that I didn't want to just sit around so I walked up to the National Museum and the monument to St Vacislaw in front of it and took a couple pictures and then turned right around and headed back to the hotel to be picked up by the van. The real irony is that I passed the starting point for the tour twice but since I had booked from the hotel I didn't want to cause any confusion and not show up for the van ride. Of course, all the van did was drive me around the corner to the starting point again. If I had realized where it was when I booked my tours I would really have booked them right at the office instead of the hotel.
After sorting out the tours we departed for the Konopiste and Karlstejn Castles tour. I think we kicked off at about 9am and we had approximately a 45 minute to an hour drive to the first castle Konopiste. We didn't run into any traffic, nor did the driver have any issues with the car. He drove like a Bostonian but other than that things were fine. The British couple obviously didn't trust him much but I thought he was safe. We had 2 American couples, from Virginia and Las Vegas and one British couple. The oldest were from Vegas and obviously retirement age. The other two couples were probably in their fifties. They were all nice people but the Vegas folks were the loudest. Our guide was named Helena and she struggled with annunciation in English a lot so it was difficult to understand her at times especially when it appeared she was going on a set speech given by the company. When she was off script she seemed to speak a bit easier but she also had a difficult time following what people were saying or asking. In any event she did well overall and I liked her.
Konopiste Castle was owned by Franz Ferdinand. Those of you who are World War I buffs might recognize his name because he was assassinated by Bosnian terrorists and that kicked off the events that started World War I. The Castle it self was built in the 13 century originally but then redone several times right up to the 19th century where Franz had it redone for the modern including modern plumbing, electricity and an elevator among other amenities. He was also an avid hunter so the decoration has a lot to do with hunting as well as having a collection of his trophies. There is also a sizable weapon collection that he inherited as a child of 12 or so that is on display in the upper floors. The inside of the castle is quite impressive. The main guide turned us over to a tour inside the castle. The castle guide was a younger girl who was actually very good at English and very knowledgeable about the subjects at hand. She spoke about almost everything we saw in the castle. I liked her a lot. Of course they didn't allow us to take pictures so I had to buy the book at the end. The main issue with this castle was that the outside was hard to photograph. There are no good angles to it from any distance as it is on a hill surrounded by trees. The guide said the best spot was across the lake but we didn't get a chance to see that. I took what pictures I could of it but it was not easy.
After Konopiste it was about an hour drive overland to the second castle Karlstejn. The drive was mainly through country roads and though a bit windy it was not the sickening experience of the day before. It was however a bit hot and I am sure it was in the mid to high 80sF during the course of the day and also humid. The AC in the van was not the best in the world but it did take some of the edge off. At the end of the drive we had dinner at a restaurant near Karlstejn Castle. I didn't get the name of it but surprisingly we had roast pork and potatoes with a cabbage soup for starter. I ordered a beer and got a Pilsner Urquell. The food was good but it is a bit repetitive to have pork each day for lunch.
After lunch we walked the short path up to Karlstejn Castle. This one is very impressive from the outside. It was a bit more easy to take pictures of Karlstejn than Konopiste. We arrived with a few minutes to spare before our tour started. Again our main guide would hand us off to a castle tour. I took a few moments to scout out some picture locations and then bought a Magnum Gold ice cream bar and ate that. That about took up the time and we were moved in with a much larger tour this time than Konopiste. This guide was also a younger girl that spoke English well and had a good sense of humor. She had a very good knowledge of the subject matter and was, well, smoking hot. The inside of Karlstejn is not much to look at. It was built in the 13th to 14th centuries and was meant to house the crown jewels of the Austria-Hungary Empire. It was renovated a few times and the most recent had all of the Renaissance period decorations removed from the interior and exterior. It for all intents and purposes feels more like a functional castle than a royal palace though Charles IV did actually stay there at points. The castle is made up of 3 towers and one housed the crown jewels. Apparently the castle was attacked several times and the Swedes came the closest but did not capture the main tower where the jewels were housed. For the record the Czech Republic is one of the only countries that does not commonly display its crown jewels. They are only shown every 5-10 years on special occasions, and then to only 10000 people and are put away again. So even though the insides of the castle were a bit dull I quite liked listening to and looking at the guide so it worked out well to me. This tour took approximately an hour or so because we did see several rooms as well as a courtyard.
After the tour was over we walked the long way down and around the castle rather than back the way we came. This afforded me the chance to get several different angle pictures of the castle and also to find a reasonable magnet though I couldn't find a book for it. I will probably look when I search the gift shops of Prague before I leave. The walk may have taken 45 minutes or so the long way around with the couple stops for pictures and shopping. After that we were back on the van and driven into Prague to the starting point again. I am fortunate that it is no difficulty to get back to the hotel from the starting point and I tromped back through the heat to drop off the stuff I bought and use the facilities before heading back out to dinner. It was an earlier return than Cesky Krumlov. I did use the opportunity to crank on the AC in the room too.
I trudged out into the heat and wandered around in circles for probably 45 minutes before deciding to eat at Mama Lucy's Steakhouse which was just a corner off the Old Square. I was indecisive before this point and I guess I took it as a good sign that the restaurant was displaying a poster from the NHL premier in Prague between the Bruins and the Coyotes. Unfortunately it was signed by the Coyotes and not the Bruins but Chara and Krejci were featured more prominently in the picture so that was nice. I ordered a dark beer which had a really awful name like Velpopovicky Kozel. It was a decent beer and I enjoyed it and had two during the meal. For dinner I opted for a the bacon cheeseburger which was many times better than the McDonald's version if a bit more expensive. The waitresses were really cute if hideously under-aged so overall it was a reasonably good experience. Their light beer was just a Pilsner Urquell and I'd had that before a couple times now.
After leaving that place I opted to have another beer or two at a place right on the square whose name was difficult to find. They served Krusovice beer and I enjoyed that enough to have two after all. It was a simple Pilsner style but it was tasty enough. That carried me past the point where the sun was visible over the buildings any longer and I really had to use the bathroom. So I raced back to the room to call it a night.
The pictures for today are found here.
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