We left Prague pretty early and headed to our last stop within Czechia - Hluboka Castle - or as it is officially called "The State Chateau of Hluboká" (Château in Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czechia).
The original Hluboka castle dated from the late 1200s, with a Gothic style castle built in the town of Hluboká nad Vltavou. The castle was expanded in the 1700s in the Baroque style, and then again in the 1800s to the Romantic style it currently has.
The Schwarzenberg family bought the castle in 1661 and held it until 1939 when the current owner Adolph Schwarzenberg was forced to flee to avoid the Nazis. Adolph was an opponent of the Nazi regime and the Third Reich and posted "Jews Welcome" signs. He refused to receive Hitler after the Czech region was captured by the Germans and as such was seen as ant-German and a target for arrest. He fled to Switzerland and then onto the USA. The Gestapo seized the castle and the Schwarzenberg estates from Adolph's adopted son, Heinrich Schwarzenberg, who was also anti-Nazi. Heinrich was held in the Buchenwald concentration camp, but released in 1944.
After the war, in the absence of the Schwarzenberg family, the National Administration had seized the castle under the Beneš decrees, which allowed them to seize Nazi property. Schwarzenberg raised a protest against this, but the case was still 'pending' 60 years later. The Prague court ruled, in 1946, that the property could not be seized as Schwarzenberg was not a German traitor and ordered 100,000 crowns to be paid to the family for expenses while the case was resolved. The Czechoslovak government was under heavy Soviet control at the time and kept the estate and the crowns. Adolph eventually settled in Austria with his wife and passed away in 1950. The castle remains a National Cultural Monument of Czechia.
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| Gargoyle |
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| Gardens |
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| Coat of Arms |
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| Path up to the castle |
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| Inside |
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| The door handles were slightly freaky |
We didn't stay too long at the castle, instead driving to our fourth country of the trip - Austria and the capital city Vienna.
Vienna (or Wien) is a city we had visited briefly in our first Swedish trip, but one that I had very few memories of. The area was first founded as a Celtic settlement of Vedunia, that was captured by the Romans and turned into Vindobona in the 1st century AD. The Germanic Baiuvarii settled the town in the 700s and Vienna was established in 1155 as the seat of the Babenberg Lords of Austria. The Habsburgs made Vuenna the seat emperors of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1500s until the empire fell in 1806. Vienna then became the capital of the Austrian Empire. Vienna has been one of the largest German speaking cities since the 1700s, only overtaken by Berlin in the 1900s. The name Wien/Vienna comes from the river Wien and the English name comes from the Italian version of the name.
We arrived mid afternoon and the temperature was already starting to rise. The kids were exhausted and just wanted to crash out in our apartment, but Kris and I had to work out parking.
Our apartment for this part of the trip was Vienna Living Apartments, which were in an old building without air conditioning (which was not surprising), but the biggest issue was parking. The apartment was listed as having parking, which is one of the reasons we chose it, but there was short term (max 2 hours between 7am and 8pm) across the road, but there were two other options. Schloss Schönbrunn was nearby, but parking for 24hrs in its carpark would have cost around €75 (approx $125 AUD), the recommended option was about a 5minute drive or 30 min walk away. When I checked online and saw that it was €7.50 per day, we decided that would be where we would park.
But first we would check out the palace.
Schloss Schönbrunn, or Schönbrunn Palace was the summer residence of the Habsburgs. The name means Beautiful Spring and comes from an artesian well on the property. The palace is 160 hectares, has 1441 rooms and has been open to tourists since the 1950s. The area was first purchased by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II in 1569, and the purchase included a Mansion known as Katterburg. The area was filled with game for hunting. The palace was added in the mid 1600s and this was also time of the first mention of the name Schönbrunn. When the Habsburgs fell, the palace became a museum under the ownership of the Austrian Republic.
We drove to the carpark and found park - realising that it was under a large shopping centre. We picked up some food for dinner and some supplies and then walked back to the apartment. By now it was getting pretty warm, around 30 degrees, but with high humidity, but the walk wasn't too bad.
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