Hey there my Hive friends and followers!
Although my Czech homeland is very small in terms of area, there are hundreds of amazing castles and chateaus here whose origins date back to long centuries ago. When me and my sister were little kids, our parents often took us on tours around these castles and chateaus but honestly, we were not much interested in them back then. I have never really been a fan of old, historical stuff as I don´t find these things that exciting but I recently realized that over the years, I have been slowly changing my attitude towards old architecture and it seems that I have been particularly growing fond of medieval castles and churches.
The Middle Ages are referred to as the Dark Ages for a reason but at the same time, there is something fascinating about this historical era and I can feel it the most when looking at these monumental pieces of Gothic architecture scattered around my country.
A couple of days ago, we went for a trip to one of the most famous Gothic castles in the country, the legendary Okor Castle. Built in the 13th century, the castle is located just outside of Prague and it only takes a short bus drive to get there. Right after arriving to the castle though, we realized there were two major problems. First, we didn´t check out the internet before going and to our unpleasant surprise, the castle was closed that day. And second, the weather was getting more and more horrible so I soon gave up on the idea of taking some nice colorful pictures of the castle.
After the initial disappointment, however, I decided to still give it a shot and make the most out of what we were left with - a closed and abandoned old castle towering eerily under sinister, cloudy skies. This set up was literally calling for some dark, ghostly photo shooting so I wasted no time and started clicking from wherever it was possible to get.
When checking out and editing the photos later in my laptop, I was considering putting them all in monochrome, just like I did it with this post about a concentration camp in Poland but eventually, I decided to leave them in the original colors so that you can get an idea of what the place really felt like. I know the pictures look as if they were taken in the evening but in fact, it was around the noon, it was just this insanely cloudy that day... Without further ado, here is a little collection that I compiled from those photos for you.
I hope you enjoyed the shots despite their grim atmosphere. I actually forgot to mention that the Okor Castle is mostly just ruins these days but I guess you figured that out from the photos. The castle has a very long and turbulent history, it has witnessed many historical events, eras, wars and reconstructions. It fell into disrepair at the end of the 18th century and was decaying since then until 1965 when it was given the status of a Cultural Monument of the Czech Republic and has been preserved ever since but already in this ruined form.
During the summer season, the castle is visited by masses of tourists and it´s also the venue of many cultural events and festivals. Actually, as I´m thinking about it right now, I´m glad that we got to visit this iconic castle on the day that we did because we literally had the castle just for ourselves, which is something you don´t get to experience every day :)
To find out the exact location of the Okor Castle, feel free to check out the Pinmapple, I pinned it there ;)
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