Loket Castle

Loket takes its name from the elbow of the river that wraps almost completely around the rock it stands on, and the geography is the point: from the far bank the castle, the town roofs and the water read as one closed loop. The castle core is Romanesque, with a rotunda and thick walls, extended in Gothic and later periods and used for a long stretch as a town jail before restoration turned it into a museum. Inside there is a porcelain collection reflecting the local industry, an archaeology display and a torture exhibition of the kind that fills many Czech castles. The small square below has arcaded houses, and a riverside path circles the entire rock.

History

The German name Elbogen, "elbow", refers to the hairpin bend of the Ohře, and the castle was known as Stein-Elbogen, the rock at the bend; tradition says it was founded in 870 by the margraves of Vohburg. Excavation dates the stone castle to the third quarter of the 12th century: the Romanesque castle had two towers, a church and a building on the site of the present Margrave's House, and it guarded the merchant road from Prague through Cheb to Plauen and Erfurt, later serving as a frontier fortress and administrative centre of the region. By the turn of the 13th century a settlement had grown up around its walls, later raised to a royal town and first recorded as a town in a deed of 1234, and from the 1250s the castle was enlarged into a Gothic stronghold, with a new wall and semicircular towers under Ottokar II. Queen Elisabeth of Bohemia took refuge here with her children, and in the spring of 1319 King John took the castle by persuading the guard to open the gate for a friendly visit; their three-year-old son, the future Charles IV, was held for two months in its underground prison, yet as emperor he often stayed at Loket. The castle took most of its present form in the reconstruction of the 1390s (Wikipedia, Loket Castle).

What's there

• The river loop - the Ohre curling almost the whole way around the castle rock, seen from the far bank.
• The Romanesque rotunda - the oldest surviving part of the castle, reached inside the walls.
• The porcelain collection - displays of the West Bohemian porcelain industry in the castle rooms.
• The town square - the small arcaded square of pastel houses just below the castle gate.

When to go

April to October for the riverside paths and the open courtyards; the castle runs a shorter route in winter. Summer weekends bring rafting groups and an open-air opera season at the amphitheatre by the water. Early morning gives the best light on the rock when viewed from the far bank.

What to expect

The interior is a fairly standard castle museum, and the torture chamber display is more lurid than informative. The climb from the car parks below is steep and cobbled. Loket is small enough to fill quickly on summer weekends, and the square's handful of restaurants get overwhelmed at lunchtime.

Nearby

Karlovy Vary is fifteen kilometres east, and the Ohre valley path continues downstream to the Svatosske skaly rocks.

Key facts