Shreckenstein and eastern Bohemia Czech Republic
As well as legends and chronicles, Schreckenstein has also given rise to countless fairy tales, of which that of Mathilde of Schreckenstein is perhaps the most enduring. Mathilde was captured with her lover by the dreaded Kuba, an inveterate huntsman who was so enraged when the gnomes secreted the lover out of the castle that as revenge he hurled the hapless Mathilde from the battlements.
On dark summer nights it is said that her cries can still be heard echoing around the ruins. As the castle was besieged no less than five times between 1621 and 1648, there are some who say that the rattle of armour and rapiers can also be heard in the nearby woods.
A few miles further down the Elbe lies the altogether less sinister town of Litomerice, again bypassed by the railway and so virtually untouched by the civic pride of the nineteenth century. The town is renowned for its being almost a museum of Octavian Broggio (1668-1742), a gifted architect who imparted several of his more imaginative designs to the town.
He was responsible for the interior of the Jesuit church and the rebuilt church of the Minorites. But it is the chapel of St Vaclav, begun in 1714 on the north slope of the cathedral hill, which gives the best idea of his work, many of whose profiles seem to have been inspired by the Austrian architect Prandtauer. In the nearby huddle of cottages where once coaching inns abounded are several ale houses (marked by the letter 'V' followed by the Czech name).
About four miles to the north-east of Litomeice is Octavian Broggio's one great house, at Ploskovice. The house was later brutally enlarged for Ferdinand I V (1835-48), who insisted on an additional storey which obliterates its proportions. The melancholy garden has plausibly been referred to by Brian Knox as the 'last despairing calculation of an exquisite order.
Eastern Bohemia Czech Republic
From Prague, the former Franz Josef railway runs to Kolin and Podebrady, situated in the heart of eastern Bohemia, a traditional Central European battleground. East of Podebrady unfolds the rolling landscape which witnessed near Kolin the only serious defeat the Austrians ever were able to inflict on their Prussian adversaries. The great victory gained by the Austrian Field-Marshal Daun over Frederick the Great on 18 June 1757 even compelled the Prussians to evacuate Bohemia.
Kolin Bohemia
Kolin itself is a dull place. Many of its oldest houses were rebuilt after a fire in 1734, although the Deanery church of 1360-78, being partly the work of Peter Parler, should not be overlooked. Chancel and nave have been described as 'two tragic acts joined by an irrelevant coup de theatre', a harsh judgement which overlooks the inspiring quality of the craftsmanship. Set above the country's version of Crewe Junction, with its detached belfry of the sixteenth century, it strikes a welcome note of artistic achievement and humanity.
Seolec and Kourim Bohemia
Close to Kolin are two more interesting settlements, Seolec and Kourim. The former is an old Cistercian abbey church of the fourteenth century, remodelled in the early eighteenth century by the wilful Santini. The latter preserves the best defences in Bohemia and has a low aisled Deanery church with an octagonal crypt.
But even these are overshadowed by the glorious architecture of Kutna Hora, known to the Germans for centuries as Kuttenberg, a royal town established in 1308 with at least one church which can stand comparison with any in Europe. Vaclav II (1278-1305) established his mint here, and it is perhaps worth pointing out that in the fifteenth century the population of the town was identical to that of London. By extraordinary good luck it survived both the Hussite wars and a fire in the 1770S to present the traveller today with a maze of streets each adorned with oriels and Rococo fronts.
St Barbara Church
The most important church in the town is that of St Barbara, with endlessly fascinating vaulting attributed to Master Benedict - the vault was closed in 1512 after his death. It is wholly composed of segments and constantly distracts the visitor from the late Gothic wall paintings and the pulpit's fine sixteenth-century stone reliefs. Only the Renaissance confessionals and handsome choir stalls offer some stability among the soaring ribs.
Near to this, if rather intimidated by it, is the Baroque church of St John Nepomuk, designed in 1734 by Kanka. In the Kamenny Dum, or former Town Hall, is another treasure, the Vaclav chapel, with ball-flower ornament and pinnacles. The nearby Ursulin convent is octagonal in plan and is the work of Kilian Dientzenhofer. It offers a more pleasing retreat than the dull mining museum expensIvely created in the rooms of the Town Hall. Of the other churches in the town, the Trinity, late Gothic of the 1490s, seems to be permanently locked and has no obvious means of access.
East to Hradeck Kralove
East of here the roads all seem to be sign posted to Hradec Kralove, known (as Koniggriitz) to military historians as the site of the decisive battle in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, a six-week engagement which ousted Austria from her position of supremacy among the German states. The battle, which was one of the bloodiest of the nineteenth century, saw the Austrians attempt to use their theatrical frontal bayonet charges for the last time.
The Prussian needle guns turned the battle into a massacre as one by one the Austrian regiments were mown down. The loss of officers was particularly high - on average a third killed, another third wounded - owing to their reckless habit of personally leading the bayonet charges. It can truly be said that Austrian bravery on that day was ill-served by the incompetence of the staff officers who repeatedly ordered these futile assaults.
As a reminder of this slaughter, various monuments on the battlefield have survived. Hradec Kralove itself has an oval Baroque chapel among the remains of its old fortifications and a rather severe Gothic 'White Tower' dating from 1574, but otherwise little to detain one. South of here lies the most beautiful town in eastern Bohemia, Litomysl, and another example of the beneficial effects of being bypassed by the railways. Its square still retains almost all its medieval arcades, only one of them falling victim to clumsy conversion into a cement-faced hotel.
The local Baroque mason was Jifi Beba, who seems to have been responsible for the north wing of the Town Hall and the houses in the square numbered 53 and 61. No. 110, U Vrytim, with a sturdy knight on its 1546 facade, offers refreshment.
The nearby Piarist's church is the work of Alliprandi and can be dated from 1714, while the Jan Avostalis house, constructed rather grandly between 1568 and 1575, is considered one of the most important works of Bohemian Renaissance. Its loggia on the second floor reveals a world of chivalry and battle - the whole of Bohemian nobility seems to be waging war across its walls.
From Litomysl, minor roads wind north to Nachod, with its Renaissance castle, via a broad valley which is almost a museum of Kilian Dientzenhofer churches: Broumov, Vernerovice and Hermankovice all boast examples of his art and will occupy anyone with a car for the best part of a day.
Southern Bohemia and the Rose Towns
Those who have seen enough of north and eastern Bohemia may wish to return to the west and to Austria through southern Bohemia and the so-called rose towns.
The sleepy countryside of southern Bohemia has also known more than its fair share of violence. The forerunners of the Schwarzenberg family, the Rosenbergs, contested almost every town here, choosing as their badge a rose and so echoing the more sanguinary conflicts of the Middle Ages in England.
At Slavenice, a former staging post between Prague and Vienna, the gabled square still recalls these troubled times with various contemporary inscriptions, while at nearby Telc (good restaurant at NO.7, Cerny Orel), Renaissance sgraffito adorns many of the two-storey houses. Telc itself is notable for the fourteenth-century castle of the Hradec family, which contains a pleasing old chapel, and the unique concentration of seventeenth-century facades which give the town the atmosphere of a stage set.
From Telc, a bus service frequently runs to Jindrichuv Hradec, whose castle contains a spectacular three-storey arcade and a rotonda by an unknown Italian architect clearly impressed by the theatrical possibilities of his commission. The gardens are untended, but the whole effect is impressive.
From Telc, it is only a few miles to the finest rose in southern Bohemia, the great gardens and palace of Cesky Krumlov. The town itself is not without interest and a couple of days could be spent enjoying its varied treasures.
The principal gate to the town is a massive essay in Serlio. Past this the streets twist off to right and left. Those houses to the east shelter the remains of various seventeenth-century monastic buildings before a bridge most picturesquely crosses the Moldau.
This leads eventually, after some inns best selected according to taste and instinct, to the town square (Cedok office on the right), a plain space only partly enlivened by the Town Hall and the nearby nineteenth-century Hotel Ruze (comfortable). The picturesque 'Kaplanka' next to the town church has an oriel and vaulted rooms which seem hardly to have altered at all since 1520.
The Church of St Vitus
The nearby church of Svaty Vit (St Vitus), however, with its empty triple nave, is less inspiring. But from it there opens out a magnificent view of tpe castle with its thirteenth-century tower. The immense rectangular mass of stone, with its late Gothic windows, again evokes Anthony Hope.
Inside, its cold maze of rooms seems a most unfriendly home for a wealthy princely family, and its staircases are cramped and ugly. The guide is clearly most impressed by the Rococo chapel dedicated to St George and the blue and pink long gallery. But it is the theatre which is most memorable. Its battered eighteenth-century gold stage is still intact.
Outside, the gardens seem to stretch as far as the Austrian frontier.
Less than seventy years ago, a private army dressed in white and blue guarded the castle's approaches, while an equally numerous army of gardeners attempted to meet princely demands and grow pineapples between the hedges.
No account of rumlov would be complete without reference to the legend of the White Lady, a hapless princess married to a monster of a man in the Middle Ages. Needless to say, her apparition is still a regular sight to some of the older villagers, heralding impending catastrophe and still, despite the rhetoric of communism, impressing some Czechs more than the combined teachings of Lenin and Marx. Her uneasy steps are all that remain of the lost order which ruled Krumlov for so long.
From here a road winds west to Prachatice, with more sgraffitoed houses, Husinec, once a home of itinerant musicians, and other villages which still have traces of a pre-industrial revolution existence. But if the dollars are runnin~ out, the road south leads past the fortified town of Rozmberk (Rosenberg) and a ruined monastery into the less gentle but also less melatlcholy hills of Upper Austria.
On dark summer nights it is said that her cries can still be heard echoing around the ruins. As the castle was besieged no less than five times between 1621 and 1648, there are some who say that the rattle of armour and rapiers can also be heard in the nearby woods.
A few miles further down the Elbe lies the altogether less sinister town of Litomerice, again bypassed by the railway and so virtually untouched by the civic pride of the nineteenth century. The town is renowned for its being almost a museum of Octavian Broggio (1668-1742), a gifted architect who imparted several of his more imaginative designs to the town.
He was responsible for the interior of the Jesuit church and the rebuilt church of the Minorites. But it is the chapel of St Vaclav, begun in 1714 on the north slope of the cathedral hill, which gives the best idea of his work, many of whose profiles seem to have been inspired by the Austrian architect Prandtauer. In the nearby huddle of cottages where once coaching inns abounded are several ale houses (marked by the letter 'V' followed by the Czech name).
About four miles to the north-east of Litomeice is Octavian Broggio's one great house, at Ploskovice. The house was later brutally enlarged for Ferdinand I V (1835-48), who insisted on an additional storey which obliterates its proportions. The melancholy garden has plausibly been referred to by Brian Knox as the 'last despairing calculation of an exquisite order.
Eastern Bohemia Czech Republic
From Prague, the former Franz Josef railway runs to Kolin and Podebrady, situated in the heart of eastern Bohemia, a traditional Central European battleground. East of Podebrady unfolds the rolling landscape which witnessed near Kolin the only serious defeat the Austrians ever were able to inflict on their Prussian adversaries. The great victory gained by the Austrian Field-Marshal Daun over Frederick the Great on 18 June 1757 even compelled the Prussians to evacuate Bohemia.
Kolin Bohemia
Kolin itself is a dull place. Many of its oldest houses were rebuilt after a fire in 1734, although the Deanery church of 1360-78, being partly the work of Peter Parler, should not be overlooked. Chancel and nave have been described as 'two tragic acts joined by an irrelevant coup de theatre', a harsh judgement which overlooks the inspiring quality of the craftsmanship. Set above the country's version of Crewe Junction, with its detached belfry of the sixteenth century, it strikes a welcome note of artistic achievement and humanity.
Seolec and Kourim Bohemia
Close to Kolin are two more interesting settlements, Seolec and Kourim. The former is an old Cistercian abbey church of the fourteenth century, remodelled in the early eighteenth century by the wilful Santini. The latter preserves the best defences in Bohemia and has a low aisled Deanery church with an octagonal crypt.
But even these are overshadowed by the glorious architecture of Kutna Hora, known to the Germans for centuries as Kuttenberg, a royal town established in 1308 with at least one church which can stand comparison with any in Europe. Vaclav II (1278-1305) established his mint here, and it is perhaps worth pointing out that in the fifteenth century the population of the town was identical to that of London. By extraordinary good luck it survived both the Hussite wars and a fire in the 1770S to present the traveller today with a maze of streets each adorned with oriels and Rococo fronts.
St Barbara Church
The most important church in the town is that of St Barbara, with endlessly fascinating vaulting attributed to Master Benedict - the vault was closed in 1512 after his death. It is wholly composed of segments and constantly distracts the visitor from the late Gothic wall paintings and the pulpit's fine sixteenth-century stone reliefs. Only the Renaissance confessionals and handsome choir stalls offer some stability among the soaring ribs.
Near to this, if rather intimidated by it, is the Baroque church of St John Nepomuk, designed in 1734 by Kanka. In the Kamenny Dum, or former Town Hall, is another treasure, the Vaclav chapel, with ball-flower ornament and pinnacles. The nearby Ursulin convent is octagonal in plan and is the work of Kilian Dientzenhofer. It offers a more pleasing retreat than the dull mining museum expensIvely created in the rooms of the Town Hall. Of the other churches in the town, the Trinity, late Gothic of the 1490s, seems to be permanently locked and has no obvious means of access.
East to Hradeck Kralove
East of here the roads all seem to be sign posted to Hradec Kralove, known (as Koniggriitz) to military historians as the site of the decisive battle in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, a six-week engagement which ousted Austria from her position of supremacy among the German states. The battle, which was one of the bloodiest of the nineteenth century, saw the Austrians attempt to use their theatrical frontal bayonet charges for the last time.
The Prussian needle guns turned the battle into a massacre as one by one the Austrian regiments were mown down. The loss of officers was particularly high - on average a third killed, another third wounded - owing to their reckless habit of personally leading the bayonet charges. It can truly be said that Austrian bravery on that day was ill-served by the incompetence of the staff officers who repeatedly ordered these futile assaults.
As a reminder of this slaughter, various monuments on the battlefield have survived. Hradec Kralove itself has an oval Baroque chapel among the remains of its old fortifications and a rather severe Gothic 'White Tower' dating from 1574, but otherwise little to detain one. South of here lies the most beautiful town in eastern Bohemia, Litomysl, and another example of the beneficial effects of being bypassed by the railways. Its square still retains almost all its medieval arcades, only one of them falling victim to clumsy conversion into a cement-faced hotel.
The local Baroque mason was Jifi Beba, who seems to have been responsible for the north wing of the Town Hall and the houses in the square numbered 53 and 61. No. 110, U Vrytim, with a sturdy knight on its 1546 facade, offers refreshment.
The nearby Piarist's church is the work of Alliprandi and can be dated from 1714, while the Jan Avostalis house, constructed rather grandly between 1568 and 1575, is considered one of the most important works of Bohemian Renaissance. Its loggia on the second floor reveals a world of chivalry and battle - the whole of Bohemian nobility seems to be waging war across its walls.
From Litomysl, minor roads wind north to Nachod, with its Renaissance castle, via a broad valley which is almost a museum of Kilian Dientzenhofer churches: Broumov, Vernerovice and Hermankovice all boast examples of his art and will occupy anyone with a car for the best part of a day.
Southern Bohemia and the Rose Towns
Those who have seen enough of north and eastern Bohemia may wish to return to the west and to Austria through southern Bohemia and the so-called rose towns.
The sleepy countryside of southern Bohemia has also known more than its fair share of violence. The forerunners of the Schwarzenberg family, the Rosenbergs, contested almost every town here, choosing as their badge a rose and so echoing the more sanguinary conflicts of the Middle Ages in England.
At Slavenice, a former staging post between Prague and Vienna, the gabled square still recalls these troubled times with various contemporary inscriptions, while at nearby Telc (good restaurant at NO.7, Cerny Orel), Renaissance sgraffito adorns many of the two-storey houses. Telc itself is notable for the fourteenth-century castle of the Hradec family, which contains a pleasing old chapel, and the unique concentration of seventeenth-century facades which give the town the atmosphere of a stage set.
From Telc, a bus service frequently runs to Jindrichuv Hradec, whose castle contains a spectacular three-storey arcade and a rotonda by an unknown Italian architect clearly impressed by the theatrical possibilities of his commission. The gardens are untended, but the whole effect is impressive.
From Telc, it is only a few miles to the finest rose in southern Bohemia, the great gardens and palace of Cesky Krumlov. The town itself is not without interest and a couple of days could be spent enjoying its varied treasures.
The principal gate to the town is a massive essay in Serlio. Past this the streets twist off to right and left. Those houses to the east shelter the remains of various seventeenth-century monastic buildings before a bridge most picturesquely crosses the Moldau.
This leads eventually, after some inns best selected according to taste and instinct, to the town square (Cedok office on the right), a plain space only partly enlivened by the Town Hall and the nearby nineteenth-century Hotel Ruze (comfortable). The picturesque 'Kaplanka' next to the town church has an oriel and vaulted rooms which seem hardly to have altered at all since 1520.
The Church of St Vitus
The nearby church of Svaty Vit (St Vitus), however, with its empty triple nave, is less inspiring. But from it there opens out a magnificent view of tpe castle with its thirteenth-century tower. The immense rectangular mass of stone, with its late Gothic windows, again evokes Anthony Hope.
Inside, its cold maze of rooms seems a most unfriendly home for a wealthy princely family, and its staircases are cramped and ugly. The guide is clearly most impressed by the Rococo chapel dedicated to St George and the blue and pink long gallery. But it is the theatre which is most memorable. Its battered eighteenth-century gold stage is still intact.
Outside, the gardens seem to stretch as far as the Austrian frontier.
Less than seventy years ago, a private army dressed in white and blue guarded the castle's approaches, while an equally numerous army of gardeners attempted to meet princely demands and grow pineapples between the hedges.
No account of rumlov would be complete without reference to the legend of the White Lady, a hapless princess married to a monster of a man in the Middle Ages. Needless to say, her apparition is still a regular sight to some of the older villagers, heralding impending catastrophe and still, despite the rhetoric of communism, impressing some Czechs more than the combined teachings of Lenin and Marx. Her uneasy steps are all that remain of the lost order which ruled Krumlov for so long.
From here a road winds west to Prachatice, with more sgraffitoed houses, Husinec, once a home of itinerant musicians, and other villages which still have traces of a pre-industrial revolution existence. But if the dollars are runnin~ out, the road south leads past the fortified town of Rozmberk (Rosenberg) and a ruined monastery into the less gentle but also less melatlcholy hills of Upper Austria.
Labels: Eastern Bohemia Czech Republic, Kolin Bohemia, Seolec and Kourim Bohemia
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