Loket: the castle and the town near Karlovy Vary
Loket is a small town wrapped in a bend of the river Ohře, about fifteen minutes by car from Karlovy Vary. The castle sits on a rocky spur with the water curling almost all the way around it, and that bend gave the town its name: loket is Czech for «elbow».
Most people come for half a day from Karlovy Vary, or stop here on the way from Prague. The twelfth-century core and the castle have been a protected urban conservation area since 1950, and little has changed since.
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The castle
The stone royal castle was founded around the third quarter of the 12th century, under Vladislav II (1140–1173). The border fortress became necessary after German ministeriales, under the protection of Margrave Depold of Vohburg, began occupying and settling part of the Sedlec region on both sides of what is now the state border.
It was built in early Gothic and extended later in late Gothic and Renaissance styles. The plan is oval, dominated by a prismatic tower from the middle of the 13th century. The eastern part holds a two-winged palace with 16th-century bastions; opposite the tower stands the house of the burgrave and governor, from the early 15th century.
Czech monarchs stayed here often and used it for diplomatic negotiations. In 1795 the castle was converted into a prison, and it served as one until 1948. It is open to visitors today.
The town
The town grew below the castle after 1230, when the seat of the regional administration was moved here from Sedlec. Castle and town together formed a single defensive unit.
Church of St Wenceslas. First mentioned in 1240, when the craftsmen and the families of the castle garrison acquired their own parish church below the castle slope. Surviving records no longer make it possible to tell whether the building was the castle rotunda or a town church. Its present form comes from a thorough Baroque rebuilding in 1725–1734.
Town hall. Early Baroque, to a design by Abraham Leuthner. Construction began in 1682 and finished fourteen years later. The two-storey building carries a small tower in the gable and the town’s stone coat of arms; early Baroque vaults survive inside. The last major reconstruction was completed in 1989.
Chapel of St Anne. It stands where the town’s single gate once was, built in gratitude that on 26 July 1742, during the War of the Austrian Succession, French troops spared the town instead of sacking it. The escape was credited to the intercession of St Anne. Some of the Baroque sculptures that once decorated the chapel are now in the museum in Sokolov.
Holy Trinity column. Erected on the square in 1719, probably to a design by Jan Karel Stülp. Its ground plan is a triangle, the symbol of the Trinity. The Holy Trinity group crowns it, archangels sit below, and lower still are the town’s coat of arms and statues of saints: Wenceslas, Sebastian, John the Baptist, John of Nepomuk, Florian and the Virgin Mary. The year of construction is hidden in a chronogram within the prayers inscribed on the faces of the pylon.
Marian chapel. First half of the 18th century, Baroque. The literature describes it as an important stop on the processions that made their way to the pilgrimage church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary at Chlum Svaté Maří. It has recently been restored.
The open-air theatre
The amphitheatre was built in the spring of 1949 by the townspeople themselves, on an idea from František Kamil Neubert, who worked with the Havlíček amateur theatre company. It opened on 2 July 1949 with Dvořák’s Rusalka, performed by the ensemble of the National Theatre in Prague.
Getting there
By public transport from Prague you change in Karlovy Vary, and the journey eats most of the day. It makes far more sense to combine Loket with the spa town itself: it is a quarter of an hour away by car.
We drive to Karlovy Vary from Prague and from Prague Airport, and Loket can be added as a stop along the route — the driver waits while you walk the castle and the square.
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Updated 24 Aug, 20:38
