Konopiste, July 2

We woke up this morning, but Dempsey had allergy issues and decided not to go with us to Konopiste.  Alexandra and I took the metro to the main train station and on the way, Alexandra needed a coffee and pastry, so I obliged and we stopped at Paul's, a bakery next to Tesco.  At the main train station, we bought train tickets for Konopiste and Cesky Krumlov, tomorrow.  We arrived in Benisov, the town closest to Konopiste (only about 2 km away). We walked to Konopiste through the town of Benisov and then through a landscape of fields and forest until we reached an uphill crossing to the left, taking us up to the castle.  As there was a tour at 11:30, we had just enough time to make it to the entrance and await our guide, the same gentleman who had toured Dempsey and me when we were last there.  The castle is stuffed with dead animals, weaponry, and hunting trophies.  It has an interesting history: King Vaclav IV was imprisoned by his own nobles in the castle's round tower, and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, lived here with his wife, Sophie Chotek, until their assassination in Sarajevo in 1914.  In addition to remodeling the castle into its current appearance, the archduke was a keen hunter.  He surpassed all his contemporaries by recording, stuffing and displaying a significant number of the 171,537 birds and animals he shot between the years 1880 and 1906.  We took the third tour, which shows off the personal apartments of the archduke, his wife, and their three children.  Due to the fact that Sophie was only a countess, and not an archduchess, the couple was shunned by the Hapsburg court in Vienna, and hid themselves in Konopiste.  After the tour we had a fine lunch of soup and bread in the castle restaurant.  I had a wonderful venison soup with vegetables and noodles. Alexandra had potato soup.  Once finished there, we were off to an ice cream parlor next door for a gelato apiece: pistachio in my case, chocolate in Alexandra's.  Then we toured the Strelnice or shooting range, where the archduke used to hone his skill as a marksman against moving mechanical targets, all of which have been restored.  We also toured a raptor and owl sanctuary, and there were a gyrfalcon and kestrel among them which appealed to me especially.  Afterwards, we walked all around the palace, its terraces and its now dry moat.  One of the best reasons to tour Konopiste is to explore its 555-acre park, which boasts several greenhouses and an unrivaled rose garden with cafe, and a deer park.  Around 4:15 p.m. we began our walk back to the Benesov train station, and from there we took a "milk train" which stopped in almost every town along the way.  When we got back to the Prague train station, we made our way back home, collected Dempsey and had dinner at the Globe--they had hamburgers, and I had hummus with raw vegetables and pita bread.  I left directly afterwards, wanting peace and quiet fir a little while, to write my blog, and to pack for tomorrow's foray to Cesky Krumlov.  Dempsey, her son Bryan, and Alexandra are staying to play Trivial Pursuit with other restaurant patrons.  It should be fun!