West of Prague
Autumn is usually very grey in the Czech Republic and one is lucky when more than one weekend during the entirety of November and December turn out to be sunny. The good weather allotted for this gloomy period fell on Saturday, which is why my sister Naty, our dad, and I made a long trip around the sights just to the west (and northwest) of Prague. We made our first stop at the castle Oko ř , whose golden walls above frosty fields we saw in the warm glow of the rising sun. The castle was founded in the latter half of the thirteenth century, but it is unclear by whom. It switched hands numerous times and was heavily damaged during the Thirty Years’ War, but it’s final transformation into a ruin was caused by the dissolution of the Jesuit order, who had been the castle’s last owners. We continued north-westward for a little over half an hour to stop by the unfinished Cathedral of Our Lady in Panenský Týnec. We were the first people there, much to the annoyance, it appeared, of a