Okor Castle

Okor stands in a shallow valley on the Zakolansky brook, a fourteenth-century castle on a rock outcrop surrounded by a water moat, with a tall fragment of the palace wall and the shell of a chapel still standing to their full height and the rest reduced to foundations. It was abandoned in the eighteenth century after Swedish and later damage and has been a picturesque ruin ever since - which is precisely its role now. It is one of the closest castle ruins to Prague and a standard Sunday destination, reached by bus or by the cycle route along the brook, with a pub and a beer garden at the foot of it. It has been used repeatedly as a film location, including for Czech fairy-tale films, and the courtyard hosts summer concerts and a well-known music festival weekend. There is not a great deal to see inside; the point is the shape of it and the afternoon around it.

What you actually see

• A moated rock outcrop - the castle sitting in water in a shallow valley.
• Standing palace and chapel walls - fragments at full height above foundations.
• A pub at the foot - the beer garden that makes it a Sunday destination.
• A film and concert set - used for fairy-tale films and summer music.

When to go

April to October. Two hours.

Honest expectations

It is a small ruin - an hour covers the site. Opening is seasonal and weekend-weighted. It gets busy on warm Sundays. Concert days change the access and the ticketing.

Nearby

Prague is twenty kilometres south-east; Budec, an early Slavic site, is north.