The 1422 meteorite
Six centuries as 'devil's stone' — Czechia's heaviest.
Lubor Ferenc — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Donald Judge — CC BY 2.0 · Donald Judge — CC BY 2.0 · Donald Judge — CC BY 2.0
Fourteen near-level shaded bankside kilometres with no real climbing — three and a half unhurried hours with benches, the bus back from Loket resting the legs. Cycling families do it in ninety minutes instead — mud spoils it in winter, so keep it April–October.
Castle and town are three concentrated hours — so a bus half-day technically serves. The ideal formula is a rounded day: trail out, lunch on Loket's square, castle afternoon, bus home — the region's best day beyond the spa, uncontested.
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'The key to Bohemia' in a river's crook: Romanesque Loket (twelfth century) on a granite rock wrapped by the Ohře in a full bend — the name literally means 'elbow': a one-arc coloured town inside the water's loop, among the country's loveliest miniature scenes. The castle is Goethe's droll prison tale inverted: here the child emperor Charles IV was confined (before returning as its great patron) — its route a Romanesque tower with the whole looped town below, arms and porcelain halls, the famous Loket meteorite (fallen 1422, taken for a devil's stone) — and torture cellars with bluntly graphic mannequins (gauge your children). Half an hour by bus from Karlovy Vary, or lovelier: the riverside walking trail, three hours of forest and banks — and its summer opera festival fills the castle yard as a stage under stars.
Six centuries as 'devil's stone' — Czechia's heaviest.
Charles IV confined here young — returning its greatest patron.
A stage under stars in a Romanesque court.
Zámecká 67, 357 33 Loket