Karlstejn Castle and Dobrichovice

Firstly I must apologise for calling our lovely host in Cesky Krumlov Steven. His name is Petr. No idea where I got that from. In order to make amends, I am posting pictures of his beautiful breakfasts that he delivers to his guests.

Today we headed off to Dobrichovice, a very small town about 40minutes drive away from Prague. It was an unusually short drive for us – just over 2 hours – but fate played us the joker card and had us driving another hour trying to find the damn Karlstejn castle.

First of all google took us on a route that deposited us at a quarry. The castle definitely wasn’t there and it was a dead end. We then tried again but no phone signal meant making a guess as to turn left or right; we made an incorrect guess and ended up taking another twenty minutes on a very roundabout route to get to Karlstejn.

When we got there, we found you had to join a tour in order to see the castle. You couldn’t even have a quick mosey round the ramparts without enduring 50 minutes of boringness. (Note to Jan and Nik: I’ve been scarred by Fenestrelle!) grrr! Still we ate our lunch by the river which was pleasant.

After checking in at the very nice Panska Zahrada, we walked along the river to check out the station for tomorrow’s trip to Prague and then had a fascinating walk gawping at the amazing mansions (or Dachas) that are second homes to the rich from Prague. Dobrichovice is famous for these villas and a book has been written about them. I think the residents hate that author as they must be sick of people like us peeking through their railings.

The houses are magnificent. Many of them were originally built in the late 1800’s when CZ was booming with coal, engineering and textile industries. Some were built in the Italian Tuscan villa style and some were like mini Russian palaces.

On our return we took advantage of our hotel offer of free entry into the wellness centre opposite. It was lovely to have a swim in the pool and afterwards we squeezed ourselves into a small jacuzzi already occupied by another couple. I’m sure they were hoping for some privacy but share and share alike I say. It was very handy actually as we got chatting and they told us it was a public holiday tomorrow. Hmmm…could be rather busy in Prague tomorrow then.