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The rock
Thick walls earned it the name Impregnable Castle of Bohemia
The castle stands on a massive rock surrounded on three sides by the Ohře river. It was once known as the Impregnable Castle of Bohemia because of its thick walls, and is one of the oldest stone castles in the country.
Elbow
The name means elbow, for the hairpin bend of the river
Loket was originally called Elbogen, German for elbow, for the hairpin bend of the Ohře. The stone castle dates to the third quarter of the 12th century and protected the merchant's path from Prague through Cheb.
The cellar
The future Charles IV was held here as a boy of three
In 1319 King John took the castle by a trick, persuading the guard to open the gate by pretending a friendly visit to his wife, Queen Eliška. Their three-year-old son Václav, later Charles IV, was held for two months in the underground prison.
The rotunda
A rare Romanesque rotunda stood hidden until 1966
Of the original Romanesque buildings, the extremely rare rotunda survived. It was hidden in the body of a spiral staircase in the northern part of the castle and stood alone until it was discovered in 1966.
Fire and prison
A fire in 1725 left only the ground floor, and a prison followed
In 1725 the castle was burned down, and only the ground floor and the underground remained. A proposal of 1788 turned it into a town prison, finished in 1822. The prison was closed in 1948, and in 1992 the castle returned to the town.
Day 4, morning
Next is Loket Old Town.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Loket Castle, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.