Let's Go to Český Šternberk

For our second Let's Go outing of the year (the first is here), we piled into our rental bus and headed out on a 45 minute drive south-east of Prague to Hrad Český Šternberk.  Located in the town of the same name, the castle has the distinctive honor of having been owned by the same family for its entire existence - over 750 years - and is now inhabited by the 20th generation descendant of the founder.  And it is also one of the most well preserved Gothic Bohemian Castles.  I loved it because it was such a gorgeous day, spent with great friends, in beautiful surroundings.  I give you, Hrad Šternberk.

The family tree from the founder to present.

The children's wing...we were not allowed in.

The infant Jesus of Prague with Mary.

Devín Castle

On our way home from Bratislava, we took a quick detour to see one of the oldest castle remains in Slovakia, Hrad Devín.  Situated just a few kilometers away, the city of Devin is just inside the Slovakian/Austrian border, and on the banks of the Danube and Morava rivers.  This location made it one of the most coveted pieces of land back in the day.  And by back in the day I mean way way back...to between 10,000 BC to 2,000 BC.  In the past few centuries everyone from the Celts to the Romans to the Russians have built fortresses upon this ridge of land.  They did this because it allowed them to control trade along the rivers, as well as traffic along the Amber Road.  The Russians even erected the Iron Curtain just in front of the castle, and it stood until the Velvet Divorce in 1989.

The final fortress built upon the land, Hrad Devín, was probably built sometime in the mid-800's, and added on to for the next couple of centuries, until the last additions were made in the 1500's.  As it stands today, there is not much of the original castle left. After his defeat in the Battle of Pressburg, Napoleon I of France had his men destroy it because he still thought of it as a threat.  But what is left is extremely impressive and we had a lot of fun exploring the lands and hearing the tales that go with it.

The view as you are walking up to the grounds.  I doesn't look like much.

The remains of a church built in 850.

They use sheep to keep the grass cut around the grounds.  No motorized machines at all are used at the site.

The watchtower is probably the most famous part still left of the castle.  (That is it on the right side of the picture, sitting right on the water, and it is known as Maiden Tower).  Legend has it that a virgin maiden was locked in that tower for many years, and finally leapt to her death to escape.

We explored the nooks and crannies of each piece of rock.  We ran through the doorways to see what ruins lay on the other side and we wove our way through the maze of steps that took us to the top.  And finally, we tried on a bronze pair of butterfly wings and found that we made very cute butterflies.  And then we headed home, tired and happy to have seen a small bit of Slovakian history.

Bratislava

Each October we get a week off for Fall Break.  I still haven't figured out why we get that week off, but I certainly won't complain about it. This year we decided not to spend the week traveling, but rather recovering from all of the traveling we to have been doing.  But just because we had a great staycation planned, does not mean that I could squash the travel bug completely because that would just be crazy (I jest).  So on Tuesday, the girls and I packed up the car (B was away for work) and took the short drive to into Slovakia.  Bratislava to be exact.

Bratislava is an interesting city with a long history.  As part of the Velvet Divorce in the early 1990's, Slovakia became it's own country and Bratislava became the only national capital to border two countries - Austria and Hungary.  By declaring its independence, Slovakia was finally free to find out who it was as a city without the influence of those that had controlled it up until that point - everyone from the Austrians and Hungarians to the Russians and the Serbians.  

We set out on foot, though we could have taken one of these...

Tourist train Prešporáčik.

The town is compact enough that we could see everything we wanted to by foot.

Michael's Gate is the only city gate still standing in the city.  It also is one of the oldest structures still standing, dating back to the 1300's.  Also, right next to the gate, on the right hand side in this photo, is the narrowest house in Europe.  It is the single door, and two windows above it and measures only 130 cm wide (about 4 feet).

On the other side of that gate is the Old Town square.  And it is where we began our game of finding the bronze statues that are hidden in plain site all over the city.  We found the famous four, and then got a bit distracted by the other sites around us...

Napoleans soldier, Schone Naci (the only silver one), Hans Christian Anderson, and Cumil - the man at work who seems to just be loafing (or lucking up ladies skirts)

As fun as the statues were, we had to get back to our mission of getting to the Blue Church.  It is only open to the public for two hours in the evening and two hours in the morning.  But since those two hours are from 6-8 am in the morning, I knew we had to make it to the evening hours or we would never get inside.  We passed through a museum courtyard, and stopped to play the piano they had set up...

Wandered up a hill and past a church or 4...

And then there is was - the famous Blue Church.

It kind of resembles a candy church, doesn't it?  It's actual name is the Church of St. Elisabeth and is a tiny, one nave Catholic Church built in 1907.  It is not one of the oldest churches we have even visited, nor one of the more ornate, but it is one of the only ones that looked like it walked right out of an animated fairy tale.

By then it was dinner time, so we stopped in for some pasta and headed back to the hotel.  But we were up and at it early again the next morning, since we knew we only had a few hours to see the UFO lookout tower and the castle before heading to our final stop just outside of town, and then heading home.

We stopped for breakfast and a MadHatter photo snap.

They wanted their picture taken at the gate.

We passed the National Theater...

And this gorgeous walking path

While walking here.

The UFO bridge and its look out tower are two of the most modern and distinctive sites in Bratislava.  The bridge itself is the world's longest cable-stayed bridge to have only one pylon (which the UFO lookout is built on) and one cable stayed plane.  Built in 2005, the UFO restaurant and lookout tower, is 95 m (311 feet) tall and takes 45 seconds to reach by elevator.  Once outside, you can see for 100km all around on a clear day.  We did not have a clear day, but we did get to enjoy some amazing views.

They looked like aliens, fittingly.

The restaurant.

Back on terra firma, we wound our way back to the other side of the Danube and towards the castle.  Which took us back up, up, up but this time we didn't have an elevator, just our own two feet.

We made it to the top and wandered around for a bit.  We didn't take the tour as it was over an hour and we still had to have lunch and make one last stop so we wound our way back down, down, down...And we ran into this...

Who can say no to visiting the International House of Art for Children?  Especially when it only cost 3 Euros for all 3 of us to visit.  And play.  And goof off for half an hour or so...

We made silly faces in the mirrors.

We tried on a whole slew of crazy hats...

We climbed, and slid and bounced to our hearts content.

We even learned a few things...

Sadly, we had to leave, but not before leaving them a note about how "vere vere fun" it was!  We grabbed a quick lunch, packed up the car and headed to our final stop of the day, Devín Castle.