806 Swedish-Norwegian Cousins; The London Tube; Czech Castles

10:54Rick Steves:I could talk all day. This is so much fun. But I just want to close this delightful conversation with, speaking of sense of humor, A joke. How would a Norwegian joke about a Swede? And then, Hakan, you get your chance to give us a joke about a Norwegian.

11:06Swedish Tour Guide:Well, there was this incident a couple of years ago in Stockholm where they thought there was a Russian submarine in the archipelago of Stockholm. And they had one boat which could search for submarines. Of course, they didn't find anything, but there was this joke that, how do you sink a Swedish submarine? I don't know. You know? You swim down and you knock on the door. That's right. That submarine was a fact as a matter of fact. It was a whiskey-type submarine. The brand, the Russian submarine, got stuck on a rock in the Stockholm archipelago. And it was, of course, called the Whiskey on the Rocks because that's what it was.

11:49Swedish Tour Guide:Whiskey on the Rocks is whiskey with ice, right? You can't get that in Norway. Do you know why? Why? Because they don't have any ice. Do you know why? No, why? Because the woman who knew the recipe has died. When I grew up, when I was 13 years old, I met my first Norwegian. I actually, honestly believed that it was a stupid person I was going to meet. Because we grow up with these kinds of jokes. Yes, we do. All the time. Do you know why the National Library has been closed in Oslo? Why? Because somebody stole the book. That type of... Do you know why a Swede brings sandpaper to the desert? No.

12:27Swedish Tour Guide:They need a map. And all those jokes we tell about each other And we grow up thinking the others are stupid Then we meet them And we get to know them And they are lovely people Do you know what the Norwegian nickname for Swedish What? We call them for söta bror It means sweet brother Or sister Well that's delightful Yes

12:51Rick Steves:That makes me happy Yes Me too Very good Hey Hakan Frondin from Stockholm and Paul Johansson from Oslo. Tusen tak for giving us a little insight into your beautiful cultures. Tak so. Tak se make.

13:08Rick Steves:It's home to the world's largest castle and more than a thousand others. Guides from the Czech Republic recommend their favorites that you can visit in a little bit. But first, let's figure out how to get around London like the locals do, mastering the web of color-coded subway lines they call the Tube. That's next on Travel with Rick Steves. I was recently in London for 10 days working on a new TV show. It was very rare for me to stay in the same hotel for such an extended stay, and I really got into a London groove, the tempo of the city. Analyzing the changes in the last decade, as well as how stable it is, I saw how the iconic sights and experiences are pretty much the same.

13:50Rick Steves:One thing I did tune into was what an accomplishment it is to keep a city moving, a city of several million people, and I learned to appreciate the underground subway, known lovingly as the Tube. My guide for much of this shoot was Catherine Alcock, and zipping around underground London without Katie, I enjoyed both her mastery of the system and her fondness for it. For Katie, every subway line had a personality, and each stop had its quirks, and she knew how to play the underground puzzle during different times of day brilliantly. Fascinated by this intimate relationship she seemed to have with London's subway system, I just had to invite Katie on to travel with Rick Steves.

14:30Rick Steves:So to help us both take the tube and mind the gap, I'm joined right now by London Blue Badge guide Catherine Alcock. Katie, thanks for being here. Oh, thanks for having me. Are you still in love with the tube? Always.

14:43Norwegian Tour Guide:Every Londoner is, I think. You can't be a Londoner without loving the tube.

14:46Rick Steves:I just think it is so great for travelers to understand that the tube is your friend.

14:52Norwegian Tour Guide:Absolutely.

14:53Rick Steves:Londoners love to complain about this line's delayed and there's too much crowds here and so on. But if the tube's not running, London's not running.

15:01Norwegian Tour Guide:Absolutely, yeah. It really does grind to a halt without the tube. And on the very rare occasions when we have strikes or we have some sort of event that's taken the tube offline, you really feel it and you're grateful for it when it's back.

15:15Rick Steves:So now I love to be able to bring people onto my TV shows and introduced them, my friend and fellow tour guide, Katie Alcock. And you were so helpful for us as we were filming our show. And you joked that when you got your gig as a tour guide, your friends joked, wow, you got a job where you get paid for telling the same stories over and over, right?

15:35Norwegian Tour Guide:That's right.

15:36Rick Steves:But one story I don't know if you'd tell over and over, but I think it really is fascinating that I learned from you, was how the origin of the tube sort of was connected with the advent of train connections from London to the rest of England. And when we go to London, I've always marveled at how many train stations there are in London. Can you tell me why there's so many train stations?

15:59Norwegian Tour Guide:Yeah, it's one of the unique features of London, really, that there are so many of these mainline train stations that if you're going to a different part of the country, you need to go to a different train station. And the reason for that is that they all started as separate independent businesses, effectively. In the early days of rail, where you had these sort of magnates who would go out and decide, right, I'm going to build a line that's going to connect London to the north or the northeast or the west or whatever it might be. And they would buy up a bit of land in London that was available.

16:30Norwegian Tour Guide:They would build their railway and they would build their station. And so you end up with these bizarre situations like you have at King's Cross, where you have one big station, King's Cross, right next to another big station and St Pancras, both serving slightly different parts of the country. And you think, why on earth would you have two right next to each other rather than just one? And it's because originally they were independent businesses.

16:51Rick Steves:So with the industrial age and the technology of railroads, these Carnegies and Rockefellers of Britain would see this as the way to get really, really wealthy and powerful, was to have this private train line. And if we think of London, they just fan out. Everybody's got their swath of the country. and they all come into London and then London is sort of burdened with this reality that you got six or eight train stations and they're all at the edge of town, nothing going to the center of town. So they had to connect them. And there was a kind of a beloved tunnel digger that was nicknamed the Tube or something like that.

17:32Rick Steves:Tell us a little bit about that.

17:34Norwegian Tour Guide:The early lines, the very early lines were created completely manually. You had men who would sort of effectively dig a big hole It was what was called a cut and cover method. So they would dig a hole, they would sort of get the bits in there, and then they would sort of move along the route as they, cutting and covering as they went. But after a few years, it was decided that, well, some machines were invented to make a better job of it. These machines would sort of bore a big circular hole out into which these train lines could be laid, and it gave it that circular shape, and that's where we get the nickname, the tube.

18:07Rick Steves:That was a whole new frontier, was the ability to burrow under the city and dig these long, long lines and move people around quickly. That's more than 100 years old. Within a generation or so, the city was pretty well laced together. And today, I just love looking at the map of the tube. As somebody who lives in a city where we just can't figure it out and all we have is traffic snarling on the surface, you've got it snarling underneath.

18:32Norwegian Tour Guide:Yeah, absolutely. And the map is a very special feature as well, designed by a man called Harry Beck in 1931. and it was innovative in its day, and it's become almost as iconic as the actual structure itself.

18:57Rick Steves:Certified Blue Badge guide and art historian Catherine Alcock is helping us ride London's famous underground subway system right now on Travel with Rick Steves, and explaining for us why Londoners love its efficiency See and rely on it daily. Katie's featured in the Rick Steves London TV special that'll premiere next year. Now, I was really happy to learn that you live right downtown near Russell Square, near the British Museum, because you have to go every day to meet people to do your guiding. And you don't think twice. You just go down into the tube and you go where you want to go, regardless of the weather, regardless of the traffic.

19:34Rick Steves:You can get there quite reliably compared to hopping in a taxi. absolutely yeah absolutely many times i've hopped in a taxi because i just think well i'm i got the money and i got to get there in a hurry and i realized 20 minutes later i am totally snarled in traffic and i actually leave the taxi and then i do what i should have done in the beginning was go into the tube and get there in 10 minutes you know yeah it's something you find often

19:58Norwegian Tour Guide:actually people assume booking a car or or taking taxis is going to be the most efficient way to get around london and often i'll say to people why don't we take the tube and they say oh wouldn't it be quicker to take a taxi? And I say, no, no, much quicker to take the tube.

20:11Rick Steves:So as I was running around London with you, both updating my guidebook and then on the next visit, making our TV show, I was really enjoyed hearing your, you'd get into it and sit down on one tube line and you go, ah, the Piccadilly line. I love the Piccadilly line. Or another one, ah, this one's fraught and always delayed. And another one, this one's, you know, this or that. It was fun to think that a Londoner whose expertise with the tube is just like fluency in a number of things. The tube is part of your life and each line has a personality. Tell us a little bit about some of your lines.

20:46Norwegian Tour Guide:It varies from person to person but it is amazing how much agreement there is among Londoners which are the good lines which are the bad lines you know how how lines feel and it can be from as simple as the central line for example everybody hates the central line. It's the the red line that runs through the middle of the tube lap and it's incredibly hot it's poorly ventilated so it gets very warm in the summer on the central line you know we always joke it's who needs a sauna when you've got the central line it's very busy it connects a lot of very important places gets very crowded and so sometimes you got

21:18Rick Steves:to use it because it's the central line but you go oh no i gotta exactly yeah and it's going to be

21:24Norwegian Tour Guide:hot it's going to be crowded your day's going to be more stressful yeah what's another one One of my favourites, although this is maybe controversial, is the Bakerloo line, which is one of the older lines. And it still has some of its 1970s sort of train stock running on the Bakerloo line. So it has this very genteel feel to it. I always imagine it, you know, if it has a personality in my head, I imagine it as a sort of little old man in a bowler hat and a tweed jacket with a sort of a walking cane, you know, sort of pottering along. It doesn't go particularly fast. It's a bit creaky. The seats are sort of very plush and plump and you sort of bounce in them.

22:01Norwegian Tour Guide:And it just feels very comfortable and, you know, and elderly, I suppose, in a very endearing way.

22:06Rick Steves:It's sort of got a patina of age, almost an aroma, an aroma of age, I think. Tell us another line, Katie.

22:14Norwegian Tour Guide:The Victoria line, I think, probably competes for a lot of people's favourite tube line. Again, because it connects a lot of very important things, but also because it's just very fast and efficient, particularly in the middle of London. So it's one of the quickest ways. It connects King's Cross to Victoria if you're travelling across the centre of London. And those are two major stations. And sometimes, particularly if you're coming into London and then going out somewhere else, the Victoria Line is your friend sort of dashing across the centre of London in a hurry.

22:45Rick Steves:My sense is it's reliable and the departures are frequent.

22:49Norwegian Tour Guide:Every couple of minutes, yes. Every couple of minutes.

22:52Rick Steves:And it's really deep underground and it just zips.

22:55Norwegian Tour Guide:Yes, yeah.

22:56Rick Steves:So the friend of the commuter.

22:58Norwegian Tour Guide:Absolutely, yeah. It's very much a commuter line, but also gets a lot of tourism traffic because it is in the middle. Although the most tourist heavy tube line, I would say, is probably the Piccadilly line. And that's because it takes you through Covent Garden, where all the theatres are and the shopping is, and Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, Green Park for Buckingham Palace. You know, I think a lot of people who go to London, particularly in England, who go to London for a day trip, they are going to be taking the Piccadilly line at some point if they've come in for the theatre or for shopping.

23:26Rick Steves:or anything like that. So as a local, you know, you got to welcome the tourists, part of the economy, and you're all nice people. Absolutely. But you kind of roll your eyes when you go into the Piccadilly line because you're going to be with a bunch of people that just don't know the game. They're not fluent in using the tube.

23:42Norwegian Tour Guide:And it connects with Heathrow, the Piccadilly line. So a lot of the time you have people who are coming in from Heathrow or going out to Heathrow with lots of luggage and baggage. And there's often, I think at most stations, the odd confused looking person sort of consulting a map or, you know, sort of staring in confusion at something. So if as a Londoner you enjoy giving people directions and helping people find their way around, then the Piccadilly Line is the perfect place to exercise that urge.

24:07Rick Steves:And the newest line is the Elizabeth Line. What's the buzz about the Elizabeth Line?

24:12Norwegian Tour Guide:The Elizabeth Line is fabulous. I think, I don't know anybody who's got a bad word to say about the Elizabeth Line. It's new. I mean, it opened a couple of years ago to great fanfare. the Queen, the late Queen, opened it before she passed. And it was a long time coming, and we were all sort of getting very anxious, waiting for it to arrive. And the moment it opened, I mean, I know lots of Londoners who went out to ride it just for fun. You know, we didn't have to go anywhere, but we thought, well, hey, let's go and ride this new line.

24:37Rick Steves:Visitors should put that on their list to ride the Elizabeth Line.

24:39Norwegian Tour Guide:Yeah, absolutely, ride the Elizabeth Line, because, I mean, certainly one of the wonders for British people is that it's air-conditioned.

24:47Rick Steves:We're riding the tube beneath the streets of London with tour guide Catherine Alcock right now on Travel with Rick Steves. She's a prominent London-based guide and works with the Institute of Tourist Guiding. Katie also conducts tours in historic Oxford, Windsor, Bath, Canterbury, and Salisbury. You may have seen her on the Travel Channel's Mysteries at the museum and on the BBC. Katie also has a presence on Instagram and on Facebook at Catherine Alcock History.

25:14Norwegian Tour Guide:Customers, though, is already in the beginning of the line, unfortunately suspended. between the Green and Sain and Cuxbridge. There are more than the days that we are out of town and the Green and Sain due to a passenger exit.

25:28Rick Steves:So Katie, when the tourist is coming into London, there's millions of Londoners that are just, get out of my way, I'm going to work. Get out of my way, I've got to get home. Get out of my way, I'm going shopping or I have an appointment. And we're just kind of reading our map and stumbling and going in the wrong direction. What is your advice for getting comfortable with the tube? Are there apps that you like? Are there tips that you would advise for us not standing out as gawky tourists so that we're part of the flow? What's your advice?

25:59Norwegian Tour Guide:Well, I mean, I think there's some good practical advice to be given here. I think there are several very useful apps. The TFL app is very good. There's a tube map app, which is very good as well. You can put in where you need to go and it will show you the quickest way by tube. Also the map City Mapper, I think, is very good. City Mapper, you can put in where you need to go and it will tell you by bus, by train, by tube. Because, of course, London's public transport network is extensive. It includes buses, trams, trains, tubes, and you can get all of that on City Mapper. They're very helpful.

26:32Norwegian Tour Guide:But I think some of the most practical advice I could give, first things first, if you are riding the escalators in the underground, is to make sure that you stand on the right hand side. And if you have any luggage or big bags, you tuck that over with you on the right hand side. The convention in London is that everybody stands on the right of the escalator, and that allows the left-hand side of the escalator to be free, so that people who are in a desperate hurry, they're late for a meeting or something like that, can go rushing up or down on the left-hand side. And you'll find that if you do stand on the left-hand side, you'll get some very frustrated tutting and huffing behind you, maybe even a tap on the shoulder if it's a particularly irate person.

27:10Rick Steves:A lot of times you're going across London, and you can get off at one station, and it looks like it's just a station that serves another line. But there's a lot of walking that you have to do. And others, you just kind of just go down the stairs and you're right at the platform. Are you aware of that when you decide where to change?

27:26Norwegian Tour Guide:Yes, yes. And I think if you've been in London for a while, you sort of you pick up this bit of knowledge. And also, I mean, it has to be said, some of the larger stations, I mean, Kings Cross is a particular example. They have a lot of underground tunnels connecting these tube lines that people walk through. and the signs will tell you to go certain directions because actually what they're trying to do is to keep people walking around because that spreads crowds out. So if you've got lots of people walking through the tunnels, it's spreading the crowd out. And if you know the station well enough, you can know, okay, although it says turn left for the Piccadilly line, I know that if I turn right and head down these stairs, that'll be a shortcut to the platform.

28:05Rick Steves:The new thing in London that I'm so excited about is no more Oyster cards, no more wondering, am I going to travel enough for a day pass or a week pass, or if I leave early, would I get in on a special price? Now you simply tap your credit card, and the turnstile opens, and you go through, and then you tap when you leave, and the system calculates once you've done enough traveling to merit getting the day pass, you travel for free for the rest of the day. If you go three days where you've traveled enough to get day passes, it'll all of a sudden say you've paid enough for a one-week pass, and you travel for the rest of the week for free, right?

28:42Norwegian Tour Guide:Yeah, yeah. It just figures it out. It's an amazingly efficient system. And I think, you know, all of us have got very used to Oyster Cards. And you can still use an Oyster Card if you want to. But I think we'd all got so used to this idea of having to top it up and all this sort of faff. You're in a hurry, you turn up and suddenly there's not enough money on your Oyster Card and you have to go and load it up. And now it's not just a contactless card. You can use Apple Pay or Google Pay and things like that if you have that on your phone. So you can just go up, you know, swipe your watch, swipe your phone, swipe your card, in you go.

29:10Norwegian Tour Guide:Like you say, it gives you the best price.

29:11Rick Steves:I've talked to people that like to use their, if they have a watch, use their watch because they don't need to expose their phone or their wallet to people that might want to grab it. So if you're just being very safe from a theft point of view, the watch is a good idea. On my notes, I have quirky people, buskers, smells and sticky seats. Do any of those three things sound interesting for you to talk about?

29:31Norwegian Tour Guide:Yeah, buskers, I think, are quite interesting to talk about. So buskers, I mean, busker is a word we use in Britain. I'm not sure how widely used it is elsewhere, but a busker is someone who is playing a musical instrument and asking for money in exchange, asking for you to tip them as you walk past. And a lot of these buskers on the London Underground, in fact, all of them on the London Underground, have to formally audition for their places. So you'll see as you walk through the underground, there are little sort of spots marked on the floor where buskers can stand. And they have to audition, they have to get their slot and book their slot.

30:04Norwegian Tour Guide:And they're quite strict about, you know, if you've booked a slot, you must turn up and use it. and a lot of them these days have sort of little contactless stations as well so you don't even have to give them change anymore. You can tap with your card there too.

30:15Rick Steves:I've noticed that for all over nowadays. You rarely use in a lot of countries and England's that way. I hardly used, I don't think I went to an ATM. I just used my credit card everywhere and you can even pay the buskers that way. I'll tell you from my experience, they know what's going on in the tube. I mean if somebody without a permission tried to busk, they'd be busted at the next stop because if I try to pull out my big camera and take a little bit of video for the TV show, if we're not booked there and with permission, they're on us, like white on rice. They know what's going on. Katie, thanks so much for helping me with updating my guidebooks, for making our TV show, and now to be able to share with our listeners on this radio show your expertise and love for the Tube in London.

31:02Rick Steves:It's the way you travel smartly. You save money, you save time, you avoid those traffic jams, you feel like a local, and after a day on the tube, it's your friend. Thanks again, Katie, and happy travels. Thank you.

31:15Norwegian Tour Guide:This is Marlborough. Change here for national rail services. This is a Bakerloo line train to Elephant and Castle.

31:38London Blue Badge Guide:Please stand clear of the door.

31:42Rick Steves:We provide a link to the famous map of the tube lines and stations from Transport for London. It's in the notes for this week's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. Next up is the Czech Republic and its many amazing castles you can visit. Glad you could ride along today. It's Travel with Rick Steves. Deep in the heart of Europe, the region now known as the Czech Republic, the western half of Czechoslovakia, if you're really old, has long been a prized location for various kingdoms and empires. And the outcome is an astonishing array of castles and grand residences in varying sizes and splendor and states of ruin.

32:19Rick Steves:Today, visitors experience this rich and royal heritage from the majestic Prague Castle to the wooded hilltop chateaus that are scattered all across the countryside. These historical sites offer a glimpse into the country's regal past and a fascinating backdoor travel experience away from the crowds. To brief us on the best castles in the Czech Republic, I'm joined today by two Czech tour guides, Katarina Svobodova and Jana Rankova. Jana and Katka, thank you for being here.

32:48London Blue Badge Guide:Thank you for having us, Rick. Thank you.

32:50Rick Steves:So there's castles all over Europe, but some countries have more castles than others. Not only does the Czech Republic have probably the biggest castle in Europe, the Prague Castle,

33:00London Blue Badge Guide:but it has, I think,

33:01Rick Steves:more castles per person and per square kilometer than any other country. Why so many castles?

33:07London Blue Badge Guide:Well, it's hard to count, actually, how many castles and castle ruins and shuttles we have in the Czech Republic. Sometimes they say about 1 ,000. Sometimes they talk about 2 ,000 castles, really, in the countryside.

33:21Rick Steves:So why would there be castles in one country more than another? What causes that?

33:27London Blue Badge Guide:Well, we had a lot of noble families in the country, you know, before 1918, before we became independent Czechoslovakia.

33:36Rick Steves:So that's a very important year, 1918. That was the end of World War I. And that was the year when World War I started, most of Europe was owned by a handful of royal families. Noble families. Noble families. And then when World War I was over, four years later, the Hohenzollerns were gone, the Habsburgs were out of power, the Romanovs were gone, the Ottomans were gone. So we're talking about when we sightsee, we're looking at the remnants of a time when Europe was owned by wealthy, noble families. And you would have a little domain, and you would have a castle to protect your domain?

34:11Swedish Tour Guide:Yes, you would have the castle, then you would have some woods around, you know, the forest, villages. You would give work to the people. Then, of course, you would get some money out of that. And then this is how it was run.

34:23Rick Steves:Because let's say you're a big aristocratic Czech guy, and you own a lot of land, but how do you administer the land in the old days? Exactly. You have to give it to people, and you let them have control of the land, and they give you in return loyalty and protection if you ever attacked. And you give them a castle to run to when they need a place of protection.

34:42Swedish Tour Guide:That's right, yeah. That's how it works.

34:44Rick Steves:It's kind of the essence of feudalism.

34:45Swedish Tour Guide:Oh, yes, it is. We got rid of it then. You got rid of it. Thank goodness, yeah.

34:51Rick Steves:But that's what we have today. And then as these castles originated when there were not big nation states, when there was no Germany, when there was no Italy, when there was no Czech Republic, but these were independent little countries, right?

35:05Swedish Tour Guide:Yeah, yeah.

35:06Rick Steves:So tell me an example in the Czech countryside, Katka, of a castle that we might really enjoy seeing.

35:12Swedish Tour Guide:Well, there are many, as we said, but I would maybe take you, if closest to Prague, then I would take you to Konopiste.

35:19Rick Steves:That's pretty... Konopiste. That's the one I remembered because it is, in my guidebook I wrote, it is mossy with antlers. You know, mossy, that means like furry everywhere. And on the ceilings, on the walls, everywhere is just antlers.

35:36Swedish Tour Guide:That's right. No, because that was also basically used as the hunting lodge, or how do you call it, of Ferdinand d 'Esta.

35:44Rick Steves:So you have a king and a big, big, powerful nobleman, and then he's got sons.

35:50Swedish Tour Guide:Yes, and then, of course, you know, to kind of have a good time or so, they were going to these castles and chateaux and hunt and whatever else.

35:58Rick Steves:These guys, these noblemen whose fathers owned these castles, they had lots of money.

36:04Swedish Tour Guide:They had not much to do in the way.

36:06Rick Steves:They brag that they've killed thousands of animals.

36:08Swedish Tour Guide:I know, yeah. It's not for everybody, I would say. No. It's pretty disgusting. It's a little too much. Exactly. Even me.

36:14Rick Steves:I like bow fighting. I like antlers. But that was just creepy.

36:18Swedish Tour Guide:Yeah.

36:18Rick Steves:Creepy. But it's a great castle. Tell us more about Konopista.

36:22Swedish Tour Guide:Well, it's also very easy to reach it from Prague. You know, it's not even maybe half hour or something like. You can easily go, of course, in a car, but even the local... I always like to go by local transportation, so it's either a bus. It can drop you off there on the main street. Then you just walk a little bit around. There is a beautiful park, as usually they were always, you know, surrounded by nice parks with sunflower beds and so on and so on.

36:44Rick Steves:That's a good point. the castles today would not be surrounded by a mean-spirited wall and a moat, but by a garden. It'd be landscaped.

36:51London Blue Badge Guide:Oh, sure, sure, because like originally the noble families, you know, they didn't go for hikes up to the mountains to enjoy the views, but they brought the nature to their gardens.

37:01Rick Steves:They brought the nature to their gardens. See, that's an important thing to remember when you're sightseeing.

37:05London Blue Badge Guide:Yeah, to enjoy, really, and have the beauty around them.

37:09Rick Steves:Whether you call it Czechia or the Czech Republic, one thing you can count on, it's a country filled with more historic castles than you can ever hope to visit. So right now on Travel with Rick Steves, Prague-based tour guides Katerina Svobodova and Jana Hrankova are helping us focus on the most interesting Czech castles to explore. Katka's website is pragwalker.com and Jana's is pragdiscoveries.com. I understand that for the Czech people, it's a wonderful weekend activity to go to a castle.

37:39Swedish Tour Guide:Yes, yes.

37:40Rick Steves:What are some good memories of a couple of castles, Katka, that you've enjoyed.

37:43Swedish Tour Guide:Yeah, that's what we've been doing since we were little, you know, because we could not travel a lot. So then we went to these castles and then, of course, depends where you live. So usually like how easy you could get to any of these. But I would say if I would go further out of Prague, maybe down to south because that's that beautiful town of Český Krumlov where there is a castle in the middle of the city. Also like a lot of history around and kind of a similarity to Prague, you know, because it sits on the hill. It's a complex, like four different courtyards, That's, you know, all different buildings.

38:13Rick Steves:It's a complex with an incredible well, right? Do I remember correctly? There's a well there and an old, old theater, a Baroque theater.

38:20Swedish Tour Guide:The Baroque theater is pretty unique because they have all this equipment from the 1700s still kept. Maybe the only one, like, in such a way how it is preserved, you know, in there. So that's what I would go, like, for a day trip. It's easy still to go as a day trip from Prague.

38:36Rick Steves:No, that's in... Český Krumlov. Český Krumlov, that's right. And if I remember correctly, it has a beautiful garden also.

38:43Swedish Tour Guide:It has got, yeah, in the back. And there is also a revolving stage where I was a couple of times, like for opera concerts or some of these events. It was pretty amazing, yeah.

38:53Rick Steves:And Jana, how about you? What is a castle that you remember going to with friends or family?

38:57London Blue Badge Guide:Well, one of my favorite castles are dating back to kind of like a 19th century because we have a lot of medieval castles with Gothic architecture. But then later on, especially during the late Baroque period and also during the 19th century, during the period when we were like going back to our roots as a Czech nation, actually, it was very popular for the Patriots to go to the countrysides, really, and visit the castles.

39:31Rick Steves:So this is so interesting.

39:32London Blue Badge Guide:I think the Czech national songs over there, because we lived under the Habsburgs for so many centuries, really. So the end of the 19th century, that was the time, actually, when we sometimes think like we kind of like had enough of them and were really aiming for our freedom, independence and democracy. And these visits to the castles were really very popular at that time.

39:58Rick Steves:It was swept across Europe in the late 1800s. people from small nations that were ruled by big kings that didn't even speak your language.

40:08Swedish Tour Guide:Yes, yes.

40:09Rick Steves:And people wanted, there was this notion in the 1800s in the Romantic Age that we can be independent. We can speak our own language. We can raise our kids with our kind of values and our religion and our culture. And that was quite a struggle. And everywhere, nations were trying to emphasize we are legitimate. And we are legitimate because this is a Czech castle and it goes back 800 years.

40:33London Blue Badge Guide:Exactly.

40:33Rick Steves:And it's Czech people. It's not Habsburg. It's not Austrian. It's not German.

40:36London Blue Badge Guide:Yeah.

40:37Rick Steves:Wow.

40:37London Blue Badge Guide:Yeah.

40:37Rick Steves:So what's a castle that you went to that was like that?

40:40London Blue Badge Guide:There is, for example, the Nizbor Castle, I would mention, which is amazing.

40:46Rick Steves:So it's Nizbor. Nizbor. N-I-Z-B-O-R. Yes. Nizbor. Exactly. Exactly.

40:51London Blue Badge Guide:And one of my favorite, going back to the medieval times, it's called Kost. Kost. K-O-S-T. Kost. castle, which is a very unique example of a medieval castle. So this is medieval. The other one

41:07Rick Steves:you're talking about is a romantic, built in like Neuschwanstein.

41:12Swedish Tour Guide:For romantic it could be maybe this Hluboka. I don't know if you... Hluboka. It's actually close by to Český Krumlov. Sometimes people do it even as a stop. As a stop in one day. Because it is a possibility to... And that's romantic? Yeah, it's more like... Actually, it looks like Windsor. Okay, yeah. So for many people, very surprising. You know, it just all of a sudden it pops out, you know, in the garden there.

41:35Rick Steves:And always with the garden.

41:36Swedish Tour Guide:Oh, of course. So I'm always planning that.

41:38Rick Steves:And if you wanted a castle that is just a medieval fantasy, that is just, it looks like a, you know, a fairy tale of a medieval knights in shining armor kind of castle. Does that exist anywhere? Oh, it does. What would your...

41:50Swedish Tour Guide:I would go to Pernstein.

41:53Rick Steves:Pernstein.

41:54Swedish Tour Guide:Pernstein, yes.

41:55Rick Steves:Yeah, okay. And why? What is special about that?

41:57Swedish Tour Guide:No, because it's exactly like the first impression. It is like, wow, you know, really, like this medieval...

42:03Rick Steves:On a hill with a drawbridge and the turrets and the ramparts. Czech tour guides Jana Hrankova and Katerina Svobodova are helping us set our sights on the many castles you can visit in the Czech Republic. We have links to our guests and to the 2011 interview from William Lobkowicz from Boston, who found himself invited back to Prague to reclaim his family castle as something of an accidental nobleman. Check for it in the notes for today's show at ricksteves.com slash radio. When you go to these castles, tell me another example of lavish lifestyles that you can learn about from the old days, Jana.

42:40London Blue Badge Guide:Well, it was hunting we were mentioning already. Then always having the greenhouses over there with many unique trees and unique plants, really, that they enjoyed, really.

42:54Rick Steves:So they could bring in curiosities and exotic things. And they could grow things that nobody else could grow because they had a greenhouse.

43:00London Blue Badge Guide:And the people didn't travel during those days, really. And of course, the noble people, they wanted to be special. But then art was very important as well in these noble castles, actually. Oh, yeah. Because these noble guys who had the money, they were in a way kind of like sponsoring the original artists, really. That's right. Paying for their lifestyle and paying for their amazing paintings that we admire today in all the museums that we visit.

43:26Rick Steves:And who pays for the art shapes the art. If the art is all paid for by the Pope, you're going to see a lot of saints. If the art is all paid for by the fishermen, you're going to see a lot of fish.

43:37London Blue Badge Guide:So by visiting these unique noble castles, we see kind of like a different art as well.

43:42Rick Steves:Yeah, it's a great example of art. And we should remember that if you have a daughter who you would like to marry, you don't want her just to marry the guy she loves from across the street. You want her to marry another important family, right? And you would hire a very good painter to paint her picture.

43:59Swedish Tour Guide:Nicely, yeah, that's true.

44:00Rick Steves:Very nice, because they did not have apps, dating apps, where you could swipe, but they did have portraits. And filter.

44:06London Blue Badge Guide:I would say that sometimes they did a little bit kind of like changes on those faces, really just to make them a little bit more beautiful.

44:13Rick Steves:So don't fall in love with the painting. See the boy or the girl first. But that was a very important source of a lot of portraiture, noble portraiture, was you would send that to another family and say, I've got a very eligible daughter, and take a look at this portrait. So there's so many dimensions of culture that we can enjoy when we go to these castles. That's the cool thing. And when you look at a castle, you will see, and I remember seeing this in different castles around Czech Republic, coats of arms, because every noble family has a coat of arms. But if your family is marrying into a lot of other noble families, you're much more powerful, but your coat of arms becomes less simple, doesn't it?

44:52Rick Steves:What would you see in the extreme of this?

44:55London Blue Badge Guide:Well, they would be really complicated, really, because, again, going back to what we talked about, like showing off to the others. So they wanted to show their roots, really. The marriages, as we just mentioned, they were always arranged in advance, and they couldn't pick the person they want to marry. So they were always looking for somebody from another important noble family to gather the money.

45:22Rick Steves:The more impressive your coat of arms, the more likely somebody would find your daughter worth marrying.

45:27London Blue Badge Guide:Definitely, definitely.

45:28Rick Steves:So we're just about out of time, but we've been talking in general about castles. You've got castles all over the Czech Republic, and any of these will have a long heritage. and a wonderful insight into the complicated and fascinating story of the Czech people. And when you're in the capital city of Prague, you've got what we call the biggest castle in Europe, the Prague Castle. Very quickly, Jana, can you explain the highlights of the Prague Castle?

45:52London Blue Badge Guide:Well, the Prague Castle was for centuries a seat of the Bohemian king, really. He lived inside of the castle, even though later on we were ruled by the Habsburgs who lived in Vienna. But the beauty of the castle from the centuries before is still there. It's mainly the architecture that we have over there. And what I really always enjoy by visiting the castle, it's going there like in the late afternoon, evening, really, when you can feel the history. Because if you go there in the morning, of course, it's the most popular site, as you mentioned, Rick. It's one of the biggest castles in the world, actually.

46:33London Blue Badge Guide:So there are always many visitors. but the afternoons and late evenings because it stays open till late.

46:39Rick Steves:So important. Yeah. If you just stumble in there in the convenient time late in the morning, it's going to be miserably crowded. But remember, a lot of places that are suffering because of crowds, they're staying open a few more hours in the evening.

46:51London Blue Badge Guide:Yeah, there is a way to see it.

46:52Rick Steves:Come at six o 'clock in the evening. It's crazy. It's more comfortable. It's empty. And then you can appreciate it much better.

46:58Swedish Tour Guide:Yeah. I'm just now thinking about also, like when you go there to the castle, what is maybe interesting for, you know, people who are also listening to us to know what happened to these castles after the Second World War.

47:09Rick Steves:Oh, yeah.

47:10Swedish Tour Guide:When everything was taken over from these families. And I'm just thinking like how it was getting going to and getting back to the people like we have in the Prague Castle, we have only one privately owned palace within the whole thing, within the whole complex. And that's the one owned by the Lobkowitz family. And surprisingly connected with America because the current owner was born in Boston, William Lobkowitz.

47:32Rick Steves:I know William Lobkowitz. In fact, he's been on our show.

47:35Swedish Tour Guide:Oh, was he? Yeah, he did. We'll put a link to his interview.

47:38Rick Steves:Oh, I did not know. In the notes for this week's show. Okay. But you make a very good point. If you think of, you've got a noble family whose family has owned these important pieces of real estate for centuries, and then all of a sudden you've got World War II, we've got World War I, then you've got World War II, you have all that destruction and the Nazis and everything, and then you've got liberation into the realm of the Soviet Union, and then nobody owns anything, the government takes it all, and all of a sudden and it's like Dr. Zhivagyi, wake up and your castle is filled with a bunch of commoners.

48:07Rick Steves:And then all of a sudden, 40, 50 years later, communism's gone, and the Czech Republic is actually trying to find the legal owners of this before communism came.

48:17Swedish Tour Guide:Exactly, yeah.

48:18Rick Steves:And William Lobkowitz, they called him up in Boston, and they said, Herr Lobkowitz... There is a palace.

48:24Swedish Tour Guide:There's a palace.

48:24Rick Steves:In fact, there's many palaces, because your family was the biggest landowner in the Czech Republic. And now he had to say goodbye to his friends in Boston, moved to Prague and he's raising his family and doing a beautiful job of being a patron of the heritage he has of the Czech people.

48:42Swedish Tour Guide:It just reminded me because when I was little, you know, I went to one of these castles also to Český Štemberg that's very close by to Prague too. And Mr. Štemberg, he was actually the local guide in the castle but not telling anybody. And if you did not know how he looked, you simply did not know. I love it. And I remember when we were on a tour and when he described the family you know, the family tree, and he knew, of course, all the details, who was connected with whom and how, and then the people were like, oh, how come that you know all these details? And he kind of just by the side said like, well, I'm one of them, but...

49:13Rick Steves:In fact, that's me as a little boy right there in the painting or something like that. Yeah, there are cases like that because these are owned by real families. They have real challenges economically. Sometimes they have to, in order to pay their taxes and keep the roof from leaking, they have to charge tourists to come in and wander through their house. I've been to castles around Europe, palaces, noble mansions, where the man or the woman of the house sits there in the morning and collects$10 per person and gives you the little introduction of the place and you're on your own in her house. You wander through and you see what they're reading in their living room and you see the children and the families on the piano, the photographs.

49:53Swedish Tour Guide:You know what is also great? They still let us, like public, go to see these places, even though it's theirs. You know, if they, of course, got it back and so, they still want to share it. So sometimes it is so interesting that you walk through all this and then all of a sudden, oh, there is sitting in the library one of the member of the family and you are having a tour through this property.

50:15Rick Steves:Jana and Katka, thank you so much for a better understanding and appreciation of a beautiful dimension of your beautiful country, the Czech Republic.

50:22Swedish Tour Guide:Thank you very much for having us. Děkuji.

50:27Rick Steves:Travel with Rick Steves is produced by Tim Tatton, Kaz Muralhall, and Donna Bardsley at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington.

50:35Swedish Tour Guide:Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gerzoff. Website uploads are by Andrew Wakeling and Sherry Court. Our theme music is by Jerry Frank. When you're on a road trip, you can listen to Travel with Rick Steves on one of more than 500 other radio stations. You'll find a list of where and when at ricksteves.com slash radio.

50:54Rick Steves:and we'll look for you again next week with more Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, Rick Steves here. In 1978, I was a 23-year-old piano teacher dreaming of trekking the fabled Hippie Trail from Istanbul to Kathmandu. With my buddy Gene, we booked the tickets, packed our rucksacks, and set out on the adventure of a lifetime. My new book, On the Hippie Trail, features my journal and vivid photos from that coming-of-age trip. Squeeze into rickshaws, sail the sacred Ganges, and look into the eyes of the virgin goddess as you stow away with me on the legendary hippie trail. My book, On the Hippie Trail, is available wherever books are sold.