Medieval Křivoklát

Křivoklát is a village of a few hundred people on the Rakovnický stream where it meets the Berounka, about 50 km west of Prague, in the wooded Křivoklátsko UNESCO biosphere reserve. The castle above it is one of the oldest and most important of the Bohemian kings: a hunting seat first mentioned by the chronicler Cosmas in 1110, rebuilt in stone under Přemysl Otakar II in the 13th century and remodelled in late-Gothic style under Vladislav II Jagiellon at the end of the 15th, when the Royal Hall — one of the largest Gothic halls in the Czech lands after Vladislav Hall in Prague Castle — and the chapel with its carved altarpiece took their present form.

The castle later served as a state prison: Jan Augusta, bishop of the Unity of the Brethren, was held here from 1548 to 1564, and the English alchemist Edward Kelley, Rudolf II’s disappointed magus, from 1591 to 1593. The Fürstenbergs owned it from 1733 until they sold it to the Czechoslovak state in 1929, restoring it in the Romantic taste after a fire in 1826. It is now managed by the National Heritage Institute, with guided tours of the Royal Hall, chapel, library and prison tower, and it hosts the Křivoklání medieval festival in September and the Advent fair in December. Trains from Prague via Beroun stop at Křivoklát station, a 15-minute walk below the castle.