Žichovice

Žichovice is the town that I had assigned to March in my photo project for this year so here I am at the end of the month to share some of the photos I took. I opted for the same number of photos as in my previous posts related to this project which is 35.

Why Žichovice? It’s a small town (about 680 inhabitants) with a long history (dating back to 1045) and a few interesting buildings whose photos captured my attention when I was browsing the Internet and looking for potential places for the project.

But photography may be deceptive and may show you things which are no longer true or look very different when you stand right in front of them. Frankly, after our first visit both my hubby and I felt somewhat disappointed that it was the town we were supposed to come back to several times but eventually it was just another photography challenge asking us to keep our minds and eyes open.

There is a Renaissance castle in the town, you can see it in several of my photos below as it looks nice from many views. The castle is quite untypically used to provide council dwellings, in the castle’s park you can find a nicely equipped playground. There is a baroque granary from the 16th century and a newer empire granary from 19th century both of which are interesting but their condition is not good and the older granary is downright dilapidated.

The yellow buildings by the castle used to be a brewery which was rebuilt in 1943 into a dairy. After 1989 the dairy was privatised and sometime later it went bankrupt. It looks derelict now and it’s a sad sight. We met a man by the dairy who asked us whether we were journalists taking photos there and he told us some of the history of the place.

There is a nice railway station, a nicely repaired chapel of St. Vojtěch, the river Otava that played an important role in the town’s history, and a view of the ruined castle Rabí situated nearby.

Let me remind you that the following selection of my photos is not meant to be any representation of the town, it just reflects the variety that captured my attention.

Click on the photos to enlarge them if you want to see more.