Confessions of a Castleholic

Imagine there is a beautiful palace located along one of Europe's busiest tourist streets and just across from one of its most famous bridges but when you visit you are virtually all on your own. What sounds like a castle hunter's wildest dreams, actually comes true when you visit the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace - or Colloredo-Mansfeldský Palác in Czech - in Prague. Situated right next to the Charles' Bridge along Karlova Street, it is overlooked by most tourists and if you are as lucky as me, you will end up there all on your own. The Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace in Prague was built during the 18th century for Prince Heinrich Paul of Mansfeld-Fondi. Considered one of the prime examples of Prague palace architecture, it combines elements from the High Baroque period with Rococo style. The most beautiful and perhaps the best preserved room of the palace is its Ball Room, which you can see in the picture above. Completed between 1736 and 1737, the ceiling fresco with the assembl...

Sorry, I've been a bit MIA lately but I've literally been missing in castle-seeing action in England the past week or two. For everyone still in need for inspiration, I thought - inspired by some of my recent CastleMemories - we could discover a little more of Sweden and its royal and noble sights. As we haven't done a Castleholics Anonymous in quite a while, I talked to Sofia ( who has her own blog though we'll get a little more into that a bit further down ) and out come loads of castle-seeing tips for Sweden - and the Czech Republic. I visited Sweden a bunch of times during my childhood for holidays. However, apart from the royal palace in Stockholm as well as nearby Drottningholm Slott, castles and palaces in Sweden are a bit of a blank page for me. Which other ones would you recommend for every Castleholic to see? Rosersberg Palace My own two favourite royal residences of course, Rosendal and Rosersberg. Rosendal Palace, which despite its name i...

Time for another edition of Documentaries & Co . This time, it is a documentary available in both German and French and actually part of a documentary series. Hosted by Russian-born German bestselling author Wladimir Kaminer, it is entitled Diesseits von Eden in German or Au plus près de l'Eden in French - it would be "On this side of Eden" in English - and produced by French-German TV station ARTE. The documentary series features eastern European gardens mostly from the 18th and 19th century. There are actually new episodes this year but this one is from two years ago - about the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape, created and once owned by the Princely Family of Liechtenstein. Enjoy! German French