September 19: Loket

Today's blog post is provided by your intrepid photographer, Nan.

We had a leisurely sleep in - didn't even make it to the hotel breakfast - and decided to go for a walk and found a lovely little cafe and had lattes. We walked down to the river snapped a few shots, then I ditched Howie back at the hotel because he is not feeling quite 100% and all he could think about was getting on his as posterior.

I decided I would explore around town and went back to the same cafe, had another latte and treated myself to a nice passionfruit cheesecake for breakfast. 

Took a bike path back down to the river and ended up beneath the castle. I don't think Howie mentioned this in yesterday's blog post but the castle and central square of Loket are on what is almost an island. The river wraps around the town area, which would have been ideal for defending the town and castle in times of attack as the land connection is quite narrow and other than this little bit, the castle is almost completely surrounded by water. 

Across the river is an amphitheatre that would easily hold a few hundred people and looks like a place for summer concerts and theatre. Carrying on, I followed the path further which took me to parts of the town which are not inside the "moat area" and on a cobblestone bicycle trail not dissimilar to what we encountered earlier in our trip on the ride from Prague to Dresden. Walking along the trail, I could see that the wall for the castle reached all the way down to the river and provided a fortified vantage point for sharp shooters and archers if mauraders attempted to scale the walls below the castle. What was amazing to me was that there were houses built right into the walls. I presume this is a modern development! 

This gets Howie's goat. What is called here a "double bed" is in fact two twin beds pushed together. However, in this case, it really is two separate twin beds pushed together. Usually, it is two twin frames pushed together then a king size matteress laid on top. Both parties get one blanket each so there is no pulling a big blanket over to your side, leaving your parter to freeze to death as Howie usually does.