Today we spent the day touring in the local area. There were two little cities we wanted to visit. First was Loket. It has a famous castle (hrat in Czech). Along the ride to Loket we found a large dam on the Ohre River. Loket is located on a horseshoe bend in the Ohre River and the castle has an effective moat on three sides plus it's constructed on the highest piece of ground. After being used for a noble residence, it was used as a prison for around two hundred years. There's a porcelain exhibit as well as a macabre torture chamber in the dungeon area. The city has colorful architecture and we walked the cobblestone streets and found yet another dam.
Leaving Loket, we rode back to Karlovy Vary and found the gorgeous Russian Orthodox Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. The onion shaped spires were golden and super shiny. Inside the Church was under renovation. The area around the church was filled with expensive, colorful, and large homes and boutique 4 star hotels. We found another place to park downtown and we to find the baroque church of St. Mary. We walked along a pedestrian mall and the famous colonnades and by open thermal fissures and geysers. There was no smell from them compared to Yellowstone thermal activity. We found the church and the interior is stunning but no photography was allowed. By now it was raining lightly and it was time to head back to our hotel.
Back at the hotel we enjoyed an excellent Czech meal and then watched the German-Swiss World Cup soccer match and I did some route planning for our second week of traveling through the Czech Republic, Poland, and Lithuania.
We headed south to visit another famous castle. One might say this is a castles and cathedrals tour. But we're seeing so much more.
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