Journey to the Southwest

The weather remained very pretty for the rest of the weekend, so I convinced my dad and my sister to go on a trip in the direction of Plzeň. I did not bother to convince my dog, of course, but took her anyway. The first place we visited were the castles Točník and Žebrák, which my sister and I made a brief excursion to last year in much worse weather (it was so foggy that it was impossible to see either of the castles from many of the places where I took pictures today). Unlike last time, the goats who live under Točník ventured out of their pens and showed their interest in visitors, which indicates that they are often given snacks. Despite the beautiful weather, we didn’t meet too many people.

Our second stop was Zbiroh Chateau, which lies just over the border of Central Bohemia in the region of Plzeň. Unfortunately, the grounds of the chateau were closed, so there were no good places nearby from which we could see the building. We decided to view it from a nearby hillside instead. Zbiroh was founded in the fourteenth century as a castle, but was turned into a neo-renaissance-style chateau in the late nineteenth century by a baron who soon went bankrupt and had to sell it to the Colloredo-Mansfeld family. Alfons Mucha painted the Slavic Epic during his sojourn at Zbiroh between 1912 and 1928.

We reversed course from Zbiroh in the direction of Hořovice, where I hoped to visit the grounds of Hořovice Chateau. Although we were convinced that this chateau was also closed, we eventually found the entrance, which we initially mistook for an employee entrance. The grounds were larger and more interesting than I expected, with an allée of imposing deciduous trees leading to the northern gate and another, more unusual allée of willow trees to the south of the first.

We also saw the statue of Friedrich Wilhelm, last Prince-elector of Hessen-Kassel and erewhile owner of Hořovice Chateau. Friedrich Wilhelm was unpopular in Hesse, where his reactionary politics and pro-Austrian orientation did not win him many friends. He was also disliked for his untraditional lifestyle, making no secret of his mistress and mother of eight children, and marrying a divorced woman far below his station. Friedrich Wilhelm bought the chateau and several other properties for his children, who would otherwise have been left with nothing following the occupation of Hesse by Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War. He died in Prague in 1875.

Our last destination was the Holy Mountain in Příbram, a baroque complex built in the seventeenth century. Příbram’s Holy Mountain is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Czech Republic and can be visited when travelling down the Camino de Santiago through Bohemia. As the lavishly ornate exterior indicates, much of the Holy Mountain complex was designed by Italian architects amidst Bohemia’s forcible re-Catholicisation, with the generous financial support of the Jesuit order.