Now, in real time

Alrighty! I can do this! Here are some photos from our first trip out of Prague into the country side. On the joint suggestion of Rick Steve (oh, Rick Steve) and one of our very gracious host-students, Lubos (that s should have a hacek and be pronounced like 'sh'), we visited the quaint town of Karlstejn and its impressive castle; only a 40 minute train ride out of town. We arrived at around 11 and started our assent. Everyone on the trip ended up going, although we went in three seperate groups at three diferent times.

Here's Karlstejn, as viewed from the castle. The castle itself is named (ready?) Charles Castle (and Karlstejn mean Charles Castle in Czech). Big surprise there. Is there anything that Charles IV didn't do? Anyways, as Holy Roman Emperor he built this castle to protect, as our eloquent tour guide put it, "the crown jewels and holy relics in the 14th century". In fact it seemed like she ended every sentence with "in the 14th century" so we didn't really get an idea of what the castle was used for in other centuries.

The castle has three main compounds that were built by Charles IV, all for the protection of crown jewels and holy relics. The first one is the 'imperial palace' on the right which was where Charles had his bedroom and audience hall (unfortunately, pictures of the interior were not allowed. I don't see why as nearly everything inside was a replica).

Here are the other two significant buildings: the Great Tower (on the left) and the Marion (?) Tower on the Right. Sadly, this is the most normal pose I've made for the whole trip but the girls are helping me to look more normal (this was one of four attempts). We only visited the Marion Tower on our tour, which seemed like a big sell to buy the more expensive ticket to visit the Great Tower which houses a supposedly gorgeous chapel. But we still got to see some of the treasure so preciously guarded here including a replica of the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor and a precious gem given to one of Charles' wives dating from the 4th century BC.

The courtyard between the Marion and Great towers. The castle was only beseiged twice: once during the Hussite Revolution and again during the 30 years war, but it was never conquested.

The location of the castle was chosen because it was thought to be the exact center of the Holy Roman Empire, and today it sits fairly close to what could be called the heart of Bohemia.


That's all for now- I'll try to keep up with this 'real-time' thing as best I can. Tomorrow we will take our second program-led excursion of the term, which is one of many fieldtrips that aims to acquaint us with the research interests of the faculty at Charles. Sblohem!