Karlstejn castle

Needed to escape the heat of the cit today and took a metro then train out to Karlstjen - the Czech trains are SO cheap for a 40 min journey it cost me less than £2 return!!! In the UK I'd be paying over £50 for the pleasure. Although they did make it a little difficult to find the platform although we fared much better than the crowd of German tourists

Great ride through the countryside and then a 30 min walk up a fairly steep hill to the old castle of Karlstejn which was originally built by Charles IV as a summer residence but then became extremely important when he was named Holy Roman Emperor as it needed to house all his holy relics and the Crown Jewels. The castle has been renovated a fair bit over the ages and the only way you can see it now is via guided tours as visitors in the past wrecked the place with graffiti. We had a mass of US students join us for tour 1 which stressed the nervous guide who was struggling a bit with his English. The highlight was tour 2 where we ended up seeing the Chapel of the Holy Cross, where Charles IV would have kept his jewels. The walls were lined in gold and 128 pictures of various saints. Precious stones hung over the entrance to the chapel it would have been a very special place in its time

Running for the train home managed to twist my ankle - this is a theme for me. In the evening we had tickets to hear a chamber orchestra in the Municipial Hall. Due to a mix up in the tickets we got moved to the FRONT row - I dread to think how much they should have cost. It was stunning to hear Smetana's Ma Vlast performed in his home city and even more to see the interchange between the flute, oboe and clarinet - another great day