Wednesday 22 July 2009

Vacation - Castle Lipnice and The Old Cemetery

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Lipnice is a a village in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 700 inhabitants.
It is where at The Czech Crown Inn, Czech author Jaroslav Hašek wrote a substantial part (books Two, Three, and Four) of The Good Soldier Švejk.
(A number of literary critics consider The Good Soldier Švejk to be one of the first anti-war novels, predating Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. Furthermore, Joseph Heller said that if he had not read The Good Soldier Švejk, he would never have written his novel Catch-22.)
Jaroslav Hašek is buried at the Lipnice Old Cemetery.
And there is a notable 14th century castle at Lipnice nad Sázavou:

The castle is partly roofed, partly there are just remains of the castle towers, now it is an excellent view.




the courtyard (with the stairs to the chapel)
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Me and Smallone
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basement (long-ago it was a hall where the feast were held)

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An old Gothic chapel with amazing Christian pictures on its walls. They almost cannot be seen, but the restorers did a good job.



My father and Smallone

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The Old Cemetery


I had never visited so small cemetery before. The graves were very old, and it was obvious that there is nobody (alive) to take care of them - only grass among them was cut. The half of the gravestones was so old that the names on them cannot be read. But I loved this cemetery a lot. The atmosphere was so touching and free in some way. I cannot describe it. But once I would be more than happy to rest on such a place once. Perhaps I won´t be, but it would be nice...







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6 comments:

Photo Cache said...

Just dropping by to say hi! I miss your skywatch posts. Hope every thing is okay with you.

Nice place you visited here.

Zenny K. Sadlon said...

". . . it is with a great relief and pleasure that we are hereby dutifully reporting that Book Two and Book(s) Three&Four of our new translation of Jaroslav Hašek's The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War are available for sale as paperbacks at http://zenny.com.

We hope this announcement finds you in good health and disposition and hungry for more adventures of the good soldier ... after all these years. Get more information about the Svejk phenomenon at http://SvejkCentral.com.

Inday said...

Hi Namnet, I always cherish old medieval architectures for their grandeur and wonders. I love your post with so much history that I haven't covered yet.

I have Czech friends here down under. Only they live far away.

Namnet said...

The old medieval architecture always grabs my attention and my imagination goes wild:-) And visiting this castle was just a splendid experience.

Glennis said...

Love this castle and the courtyard, I would love to wander around there and also the old cemetery looks very interesting and ancient.

Namnet said...

They are both, the castle and the cemetery, very ancient.
It is not so long ago when I´d read some American man´s blog entry. He was very surprised how many ancient buildings and sights we (in the Czech Republic) have here. I have never thought about them like that as they have always been here.
I should appreciate more the fact that every morning when I walk to work I pass many buildings which are older than 80 years. Since then I had founded them quite young and uninteresting. Not any more.