Today’s big excursion was to the small town of Loket. After a scrumptious breakfast at our hotel, we packed up for the day and headed to the bus station to catch a ride to the nearby town known for one of the oldest stone castles in the Czech lands.
One appeal of going to Loket is that you get a smaller scale view of Czech life and avoid the hustle and bustle present in the cliché Czech tourist destinations we have traveled to date. The calming river that surrounds the town by 270+ degrees provides a serene ambience to welcome travelers. As usual, our first stop was to grab some grub and a couple of adult beverages. Despite being small, Loket is home to one of the best breweries in the region and naturally home to the place we grabbed our bite to eat.
After lunch we strolled around town snapping pics of the quaint village with its steep streets that wind their way up to the hillside castle. Loket Castle, founded in the second half of the 12th Century, has been geographically placed exactly where you imagined in the fairytale books your parents read to you as a kid; built into the cliffs edge and soaring well over one-hundred feet into the air with water directly below. 
We went on a self-guided tour through the castle seeing many of the house wares that were used through the years, the dining hall, a room filled with weapons, the tower and of course the prison and torture chambers. It was quite interesting how the prison cells and torture rooms seemed to consist of almost as much area as the rest of the castle. This wasn’t really the case, but it sure seemed like there was a disproportionate amount of square footage allocated to killing and causing harm to others as there was to common living space. As you can see from the images below, you would think that the forms of corporal punishment used in Loket would deter so many individuals from a life of killing and stealing. 
Before leaving Jennifer rubbed the nose of some mythical creature that has been a part of the castle for many years. Apparently if you touch his nose accompanied by an offering, you will have good luck. I am willing to bet it is something that was installed in the last decade as a revenue source for the new owners of the castle (just kidding).
This evening we grabbed a bite to eat at a traditional Czech Restaurant/Bar and couldn’t have been happier with the food they served. Jennifer ordered a chicken dish with fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, all gratinated in a cast iron pan. Sam chose a pork loin dressed with brie cheese and gravy accompanied by Czech mashed potatoes.
After our heavy meals we took the long way home to both burn some extra calories and check out a couple more sites. Our first stop was at the Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Peter and Paul followed by a dark glimpse of St. Lukas Angelican Church.
Tomorrow we will do some more touring of Karlovy Vary before heading back to Prague to catch a train for our next destination… somewhere east and outside of the Czech Republic.
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