Always thought this was a pretty dodgy reason to start killing 20 million people...
It was a good 40 minute walk from the town of Benesov through beautiful autumn countryside. The grounds of the castle are several thousand acres and include forest and agricultural land. They also seem to support many pheasant (whether they are farmed or wild I'm not sure, but I couldn't get close enough for a photo).
Leaves and acorns on the path
Some of the beautiful autumn forest
I was lucky to be the only person there for the English language tour and had Tony the Tour Guide all to my self. Like all tour guides who truely love their job he told lots of interesting stories and was a great advertisement for his area. He was somewhere over 60 and had been living and working in Canada for 32 years running a trucking company. Such a trucker - big belly, bald, baseball cap. But still spoke English in a very central European way. He had always dreamed of coming back to Konopiste where he grew up and after his daughter grew up and he left his wife he fulfilled his dream and sold his company and returned to Czech to retire. He found this guiding job and shares his love of the castle with tourists. What this guy doesn't know about the castel and it's inventory isn't worth knowing. He knew the Archduke's orphaned children personally and told such personal stories about what they went through after the assassination and the confiscation of the estate by the State, you really got a feel for the people themselves and what an impact such actions had on the individuals - both the family themselves and the community they supported.ADFF was an avid hunter and collector of taxidermied trophies and the place is FULL of dead animals. 1000's of them. He shot something like 300,000 animals in his life. Maybe it was fate that he was shot like an animal himself. The more fascinating thing is that while he and his wife died in 1914, the State confiscated the estate in 1921 and the three kids were told 'pack 30kg each and leave the castle forever'. The place was then closed up and left. The Germans took it over during the 2nd WW and then the Russians afterwards. Both used it for various purposes and most of downstairs and the public areas were ransacked. These have been restored. But the really interesting bit was the private apartments of the family were left UNTOUCHED for all this time. After the fall of communism the new government went through the building and discovered this wing was still under the original white sheets from 1921. They even had photos taken in 1909 for insurance purposes that proved it was exactly the same. Tony showed me these as proof as we walked through this amazing microcosm of Royal life. Even the Duchess' personal diary was still sitting on her writing desk... Unfortunately you couldn't take photos but Tony convinced me (actually bullied me) into buying the DVD so I have a commercial record.
Exterior tower Konopiste Castle
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