Czech Castles - Zvíkov

Let us start my occasional series of posts on Czech castles with the castle often referred to as the "king of Czech castles" - Zvíkov. I first went there with a tour by an archaeological society on our way up from the Šumava to Prague Airport. It was a perfect point for breaking the journey.

Few castles can have such a naturally defensible position: Zvíkov stands on a rocky promontory at the junction of the Vltava and Otava rivers accessible only along a narrow strip of land (see photo above). Also in the photograph you can see the tower which has atear-shaped footprint designed to deflect artillery. The castle's defences were so impenetrable that the Hussites were unable to take it after four months of siege. 

As you enter the castle's courtyards you discover that Zvíkov is not just an impressive fortification. The castle was a royal residence and the two-storey arcaded palace is lovely. Inside the palace you will find an absolute gem - The Chapel of St Wenceslas. Here restorers found under a coat of whitewash a series of late 15th century wall paintings. There are further paintings on the walls of the arcade and in the Wedding Hall. 

Zvíkov is less known and less visited by foreign tourists, although plenty of Czechs enjoy the castle's treasures. One reason for this is the absence of easy public transport links or tourist minibus routes. However there is a beautiful way to arrive at the castle: take the boat from Týn nad Vltavou or Orlík dam.

Carp Harvest at Olsina

Two years ago my husband and I watched the carp harvest at Lake Olsina near our house. This time I came with Salamander and stayed at her house by the lake, this meant we could be up before dawn.

For three weeks the lake has been slowly draining, until yesterday evening I was able to walk almost to its middle. There the carp were bunched in a channel of low water, running the gauntlet of hungry gulls, herons and egrets. I woke at 6 and just had time for a cup of tea, before hunting horns announced that the harvest was about to take place.

We climbed up on to the lake dam wall just in time to see the men start dragging their flat-bottomed metal boats out along the channel. The water had fallen even lower and the carp were now restricted to the area near the sluice. A net was dropped and then the men in the boats began banging on their boats and hitting the water to herd the fish towards the shore.

The sun started to rise and the wet mud glistened. The nets tightened and the water started to boil with fish. On the shore a line of men hoisted the fish out of the water and into plastic barrels. When these were full, their flapping contents were emptied into scales and weighed. Most carp were then sent up a conveyor belt and into vast tanks on the back of a lorry. These will then be transported to holding places, from whence they will make their way to the large barrels one sees in the middle of Czech towns in the run-up to Christmas. Quite a few however did not make it that far, but went straight to the stall on the side of the road. Locals arrived in their droves (not to see the harvest as we did) but to buy carp so fresh and recently caught that it was fighting to get out of their carrier bags.

One could not help but feel sorry for these lovely creatures with their bright scales and their mouths opening and closing in the alien air-filled environment. Only a few months ago I swam with them in the warm waters of the lake. But my sorrow for them was not so great that I did not buy two bits of freshly fried carp, which I ate with my fingers from a paper plate. They were delicious. As I commented to Salamander it reminded me of eating fish and chips on a British summer holiday - it was even raining.

Salamander has been doing some interesting posts on her blog about the history of the Czech fishponds

Zumberk

Zumberk is one of those well kept Czech secret places, so well kept that my Czech friend had not heard of it. She even corrected my pronunciation, thinking I was talking about somewhere else. And yet Zumberk was only forty minutes drive away.

I found a short reference to it in a guidebook and as I was passing I dropped in. I couldn't believe my eyes. There it was - a perfect fortified village with fairytale towers, standing above a still small lake. And there was more - in the manor house the South Bohemian Museum displayed a wonderful collection of South Bohemian painted furniture.


I have always coveted the examples of Czech painted furniture I have seen, but here was a treasure trove: the finest examples of the local styles. The exhibition highlighted the subtle and not so subtle differences between the folk art from different areas of South Bohemia. And the building was fascinating too.

Unfortunately Zumberk is not geared to the British visitor: it is where I was asked to translate by the guide, but then we were, we were told, the first English speaking group to visit. And they did have a folder of English translation they can give you as you walk round, which allows us to spend as much time as we want to gaze at the exhibits.

Farming and the landscape

Our Czech home is an old farmhouse in a hamlet near Horice Na Sumave in South Bohemia. The village is made up of a number of similar farmhouses and a number of newer houses and cottages. The traditional layout of a village in South Bohemia is of gated courtyard farms fronting on to a green on which there is often a pond and a chapel. Ours is slightly different as it is spread out around a valley.

Each farm was allotted several small parcels or strips of land spread around the village on which the farmer would grow crops or graze animals. I understand that these land parcels were rotated between the farmers. But nevertheless farmers would often end up with small patches of land several miles apart. The land was and is rich, as can be seen by the substantial nature of the farmbuildings.

When the Communists came the land was collectivised and in many villages large ugly concrete collective farm buildings were built. By the end of communism many of the old farm buildings had fallen into such disrepair that they were torn down, converted to another use or left to rot. The restoration of the farmland to private ownership has seen the growth of the commercial, EU-subsidised farms.

Our local farmer has bought in to the new brave new world wholesale, he has filled the fields around the village with cows. Gone is the mixed-use farmland. Gone too are the wildflower-filled haymeadows, the orchards stand unharvested. The old paths are blocked with electric fences. Czech farmers have recently seen the a large drop in milk and grain prices, so great (25%) that they claim they are unable to break even. I wonder whether he now regrets his choice.

Elsewhere in the area there are some welcome developments in farming practice. The number of organic farms is growing, although still quite low, in the Sumava there are now 95 such farms an increase of 12 in 2009 alone.

Prachatice

As part of my research for the Archaeological Society trip to South Bohemia (see previous post) it was interesting to return to Prachatice the other day. It has been at least two years since I went there last and quite a bit of restoration has been taking place, including to the decoration on the renaissance buildings around the town square. Many have created using sgraffito, a process by which the design is scratched (hence the name) into the plaster.

I don't usually do posts in which the main content is photos, but it seems appropriate here. I hope you enjoy them.

Boletice Church

Yesterday I did a circular walk from Kajov (a town with a church that merits its own post) over the hills and through the forests of the Boletice Military area. The walk which I had calculated would take me 3 hrs actually took me 4.5; I stopped so much, admiring and photographing the view. As I have said before the Boletice area is special, its military status means that it is not accessible to cars. Only determined tourists will make it there, for they must come by bike or on foot. Nature is therefore particularly rich there and the history, of which there is too little accessible or even visible, very special.

And nowhere is more special than Boletice church. The church is set apart from the modern village of Boletice (which was depopulated during Commie times and used as target practice) and sits on top of a small hill. I approached it from the forests above along a road empty of cars. The church made an impression long before I got to it. By the time I took the little lane to Boletice kostel, I already felt I was going somewhere special. The Church sits among trees, apples, cherries and plums. At its foot a trackway dotted with tank barriers reminds us of the area's current use. The church is Romanesque, the oldest in South Bohemia. I was unable to enter the building: signs warned that, despite the restoration work done so far, one should still take care. So I just walked around and then sat at a bench and contemplated this lovely building. Inside they have found wallpaintings under the graffiti left by Russian soldiers and lovely Romanesque and Gothic features. What is it, I thought to myself, that makes some people react in so brutish a way to such beauty, to such holiness. For make no mistake Boletice Church is a holy place.

This morning on my way to Cesky Krumlov I passed military vehicles going in the opposite direction, soon the peace of Boletice would be broken by the sound of guns.

The Ales South Bohemian Gallery – Collection Of Medieval Art

The other day my husband and I decided to play the tourist and go on a trip to the Castle at Hluboka, well not the castle as such but the Gallery which is to be found attached to it. So we joined the hoards of German schoolchildren as they wound their way up from the town below. The zigzag way offered good views across the Vltava and the fish ponds towards the blue hills and mountains of the south. The castle is built in the English Gothic style of Windsor and other Victorian palaces, a white confection of crenellations and faux gargoyles standing in beautiful gardens again of the English style. Unlike the Germans our way took us to the left into a conservatory of flamboyant cast iron and glass, then left again and into the Collection of Medieval Art of the Ales South Bohemian Gallery.

The collection was a revelation and one, which had it been say at the Tate in Liverpool, we would have made an overnight visit to see and thought it worth the money. There were two large galleries filled with medieval statuary (calvaries, saints, Madonnas with and without child, and pietas) and religious paintings from altar screens. The pieces had been gathered from all over South Bohemia, and featured the work of both local craftsmen and others working in nearby Bavaria. What was particularly striking to us was the familiarity of the places from which the art works had been taken, not only were they from large wealthy towns and abbeys such as Ceske Budejovice and Kajov, but from small local villages and churches such as Boletice and Novosedly, a sign of the wealth perhaps of this fertile region at the time. The oldest exhibit is a statue of St Bartholomew from Horni Drkolna from before 1300 – the saint is simply but effectively carved from a lump of limewood with a head out of proportion to the body. The Gallery allows one to move through the development of Czech Gothic art from that simple piece. As time goes by the artistic style evolves, developing more natural proportions, and even movement. The facial features change and vary, some show the influence of Byzantine art, others the become individualised.

Throughout our visit we were alone in the Gallery apart from the two gallery attendants that followed us round. The tourist hoards clearly preferred the excesses of 19th Century English Gothic to the sublime purity of the original medieval Gothic of Central Europe. It is a shame that this is so, this is a collection of international importance.

The Landscape of South Bohemia

As I was driving our Czech visitors to Tesco's I asked them what they thought of the Cotswolds. The response surprised me - the landscape reminded them of South Bohemia. It hadn't occurred to me, that I had managed to buy a Czech property in an area similar to my British birthplace and home. But on reflection I can see why they might say that.

Certainly the area around their home town of Holubov is similarly hilly, although it is far more forested than the rather bare Cotswolds. Both areas are very beautiful. A first glance at the hills around our house (see above) could deceive one into thinking one is in a slightly wooded part of the Cotswolds - the area around Stroud perhaps. But look again at the photograph and you will see the foothills of the Sumava mountains rising behind the hills. These are the steep hills that ring Olsina lake, beyond that there are steeper summits. South Bohemia would indeed be like the Cotswolds, if the Cotswolds were next to the Lake District.

A first look at the barn

The most impressive building in many ways was not the house but the barn that ran at right angles to the house. It was typical of the barns of this area in South Bohemia - two storeys with a balcony. Originally the barn would have formed one side of a courtyard, but the barn that would have been opposite the house had been removed at some time. This had the effect of opening the courtyard out to the sun and offering lovely views from the house into the orchard.

The back of the barn, like the house, was built into a hillside and so the upper floor had two doors opening onto the hillside . This meant that the sheep and other animals could walk straight into the top floor. This was not an unadulterated success as we discovered when we entered the barn.

Inside the barn was a tumbledown collection of tat - much as the attic had been. But this did not disguise the fact that the barn was remarkable. The ceiling consisted of a series of brick vaults springing from the granite walls. The animal stalls were made of huge blocks of granite with carved finials to tie the beasts to. However at one point the ceiling had given way and straw hung down from upstairs. "What happened?" we asked the owners. "Oh the sheep fell through the ceiling," they replied. The urine from the animals which had overwintered in the barn had destroyed the bricks. Concerned we asked whether the sheep were hurt - "Oh no," they shrugged, "They had a soft landing." I could not help thinking that that might not have been the case for the ones that fell through first.

Upstairs there was an open space with large exposed beams, however in places it did seem as though timbers were missing - taken perhaps to prop something up or feed the winter stoves. Crowded higgledy piggledy into the barn were chicken coups, unidentifiable structures, old beds, and even a couple of wild boar skins, discarded probably where the animal had been carved up. The roof was made of concrete tiles, which no doubt had fallen off the back of a lorry. These were far heavier than the traditional Czech ceramic tiles and were placing quite a strain on the remaining timbers. I didn't notice this in my first flush of enthusiasm for the house. Suddenly instead of a simple retreat in this lovely country, I could see potential, so much potential.

Klet - The Magic Mountain

I am convinced the Klet moves, that it floats silently over the landscape of the South Bohemia while no one is looking. It doesn't seem to matter where you go round here, whether you walk into the woods above our house, or drive home from Ceske Budejovice suddenly it is there, usually in a direction you didn't expect. The Klet sits watching over us all. Is it surprising therefore that the Czechs have long regarded it as a magical place?

And there is something else about – it is never the same. No matter how often you look at it, it shows another face. Today its peak was completely hidden in fine cloud with only the mast at appearing above the white. On summer days after a storm the trees breathe wisps of mist from its slopes, it is as if the ghosts of the forest are floating just above the trees. The autumn sun catches the different colours of its many trees, picking out a group and then moving on.

One winter before we bought the house, I came to visit with my friend here. It was my first Czech winter and a hard one. On our last day before we returned to Prague, we took a taxi up to the observatory at the top of the mountain. From there we walked down in the snow. I did not have proper boots and so we improvised with a couple of plastic bags - I must have looked an idiot to the man on his walking skis who passed us. The air was clear and bright, and caught in your throat. It was beginning to thaw and occasionally a pine tree would deposit a load of snow down the back of your neck. We laughed and shook it off. At the edge of the forest we ate a sandwich and drank tea from a flask, and made our way past the ex-army base into town. From there we took a taxi to the station and from thence we rode off to the city. At the beginning of our journey the little train crawled around the mountain's dark green flanks, past pine trees bent double with snow. And thus ended my first meeting with the magic mountain.

Why buy a house in South Bohemia

We heard a few days ago that the airport at Ceske Budejovice has got the go-ahead to become a full-blown international airport. This is great news for us personally and for the economy of Sothern Bohemia generally.

The nearest airport to Cesky Krumlov at the moment is over the border in Linz just over an hour's drive away. Otherwise it is fly to Prague and travel by either car or train down. The Prague journey is pretty easy and goes through some great countryside. And it is getting quicker with major track and road improvements happening as I write, but it does currently take about 3 hrs. An airport at Ceske Budejovice would change all that, especially one served by one of the British budget airlines. Suddenly the whole of Southern Bohemia could open up. We have been in the vanguard of Brits investing down here, but this news could mean that we will be followed by many more.

Why would one invest here (well why did we):

• this has to be one of the most beautiful parts of Europe - lakes, mountains and forests, and some great historic towns, of which Cesky Krumlov is the most famous
• there is skiing in the winter and walking, biking, climbing and canoeing in the summer
• you can buy a large run-down old farmhouse for about 25,000 pounds and still have change out 80,000 when you have done it up or you can get a cottage for less
• cost of living is cheap - you can buy the real Budweiser/Budwar (made in Ceske Budejovice) for about 25p in the local Tesco's
• you are right in the middle of Europe - under 5 hrs drive from Italy, less than one from Austria and Germany and 6 hours from the Med
• and of course you could do what we did, which is fall in love with this wonderful country.

On second thoughts - forget everything I have said. I think I'll just keep it the way it is - don't want everyone knowing about it. It can be our secret.