First published: 05/04/18.

Zoë Sheng 1.5

Kladruby Nad Labem

Kladruby nad Labem (Inscribed)

Kladruby nad Labem by Zoë Sheng

A stud farm, not handsome guys, but instead horses for breeding. I was really looking forward to something else. I think Czechia has the best variety when it comes to sightseeing in such a small area, from churches and nature, old cities, mines, beer, castles. There are tours in Czech on the hour between 10:00 and 16:00. I'm unclear what the other parts on the menu were but I think you can see certain parts of the place unguided with individual entrance tickets. For non-Czech speakers you are given some text in several European languages. They said the English one is the only one updated to the new tour though. I had to get used to "English text" when doing tours in Czechia anyway so this was no surprise. The stud farm is only reached by car and I doubt they get many foreign tourists before this has a WHS title.

The tour goes through a slow pace but I was totally lost trying to use the text. If this was updated to the new tour it didn't match. There was also no indicator where we currently are and the tour guide couldn't speak a single word of English. I tried to find out if we can see the foals and I think the answer was that they are in a separate field with their mothers. So I basically tried to read the entire four page text quickly and tried to match whatever I can with the rooms. The easiest to spot is the large chandelier that was apparently put up in the stables for a royal visit from the UK (who may actually never ended up coming here). This is also the oddest thing you can see. Chandelier in the stables! Everything else are purely professional stables and shows their routine to raising the horses. The studs look great even for a non-professional like me it is easy to see that. You can pet them in a 10 minute "break" session. Overall the tour is 45 minutes which is enough to see everything of importance. That petting break could have been skipped because nobody asked any question and of course if they could answer my questions I would have used the entire ten minutes for catching up whatever she said in the last 10 halls.

It is unfortunate that everything is in Czech. The stud farm has a great history going back hundreds of years but this is all hard to decipher in the plaques. Maybe one is more lucky with a guide that can at least answer some questions. I did learn about how the animals are marked by their lineage which naturally is very important in horse breeding. The stud farm is very popular with Czechs as even the early morning tour was full, with more people queuing for tickets as I left.

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