Okoř 24. 2. 2008

The village Okoř with ruins of 13th century castle is located in a small valley of the Zákolany brook near the small town Buštěhrad. You can reach it in 40 minutes from Prague by public transport number 350. Nowadays, Okoř is popular mainly for an open air music festival. During the festival, the valley is loud and full of people, in other days it is a nice place to visit for a quiet walk in the nice country.

I went to Okoř from Kladno (the town where I live) by my car Honda. When you are arriving from my direction a parking lot is located on the right side. It's reasonably big for any day, except the days of the open air festival. In that case I suggest you to use public transport to avoid troubles with parking your car. The price is CZK 30 for the whole day of parking.

From the parking lot I was walking back on the road I had arrived. In about 500m I reached the crossing with a local road. I decided for the local road and was walking on it in the north direction. Soon I passed the Okoř castle and entered the wood. I kept the same direction on the edge of the wood until the footpath started to fall down to the valley of the Buštěhrad brook. There is a nice view point at the Budeč rotunda.

I visited Okoř in a strange winter day. The day was even warmer than a nice spring day. It was very pleasant and extraordinary experience to walk just in the T-shirt. From this day I started to hope for an early spring to come, but it took a long time till the first flowers started to blossom. On my way on the edge of the wood I saw two guys sitting on the ground and playing chess. What a picturesque moment for a winter day! Herein I first noted a dog. It was sniffing around those chess players and I supposed it belonged to them. It started to walk with me and I thought that it returns to them soon, but when we reached the view point at the Budeč rotunda I started to doubt. Maybe I was wrong and it doesn't belong to them?

From the view point I started to walk down on the footpath going down to the valley of the Buštěhrad brook. When I reached a rail road the Buštěhrad brook flowed into the Zákolany brook. My plan was to try to take some photos of the sunset above the Okoř castle. I started to walk back to the Okoř ruins to be there in time. The dog was still with me. It was very funny to observe it how it is sniffing around me, not very close, but close enough so all people we met were thinking it belonged to me. Some of them really thought it's mine, they asked me to take it on the dog-lead. I was smiling and told them it's not mine, walking around them with the dog following me. I think all the people believed me, it was a lovely sunny day, nobody wanted to spoil that feeling with a quarell on the dog-laids. The dog was very careful of himself, it never got too close to other dogs which were on the dog-leads anyway.

When we reached the newly repaired viaduct on the rail road from Hostivice to Podlešín, I passed the Zákolany brook and started to walk up-hill on the local path to Noutonice. There are fields on the top. I left the path and searched for a nice view point at the ruins of the Okoř castle. The dog, my anonymous friend, got lost here. Maybe he decided it was time for dinner and returned home, I do not know. I don't even have his photo, he didn't like cameras.

Sunset above Okoř castle

I was walking quite long on the boundary-line between the fields and the wood until I finally reached a place on the east of the Okoř castle. I entered the wood and had to struggle my way through the bushes on the west. There I found some remains of a fortification and after that I reached an uncared orchard above the Okoř village. There was a beautiful view point at the Okoř castle there.

It was too early for the sunset so I had enough time to walk trough the orchard and to find a few places where it was possible to take pictures of the Okoř castle without interfering tree branches. After the orchard survey I sat down on the ground and had a rest for a while. It was very calm and relaxing moment.

When the sun almost reached the horizon I took several photos with it hiding after the castle ruins. I was very lucky I could to take the photo with several stars falling down behind the Okoř castle. ;)

Sunset above Okoř village

After the sunset I wanted to go down to the village but it wasn't possible just to go down. There was a fence between first houses and the orchard. I had to return on the same way I had come. From this place, probably often visited by locals, it was much easier to follow their footpath and get less scratches from the bushes than on my walk from the fields to here.

When I reached the fields, I noted an interesting view on the village. With the sunset, the locals fired-up their heating and the smoke started to fill the valley of the Zákolany brook.

The winter was back.