Karlstejn Castle was founded in 1348 by King Charles IV, who was then the Bohemian King and Holy Roman Emperor. Construction finished in 1365, after that the castle was used to protect the Imperial Crown Jewels and other sacred holy relics.

Karlstejn castle dominates the skyline with a 60 metre high Great Tower, and is equipped with massive fortifications. This is a magnificent castle to visit, and it is less than an hour from the Czech capital, Prague!

Karlstejn Castle Half Day Tour

In Day 16 of our epic family travel adventure we took a half day tour to this imposing castle. For me it was the highlight of our European vacation as I love exploring authentic medieval castles. Check out our VLOG by clicking the below image.

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How To Get To Karlstejn Castle

The castle is easily accessible for anybody who has access to a car. But as tourists we had 2 options – catch the train or take a tour.

The train is very easy, just catch a regional train from Prague station to Karlstejn Station. They leave twice per hour and the journey takes just 40 minutes. Also the tickets are cheap, about 6 Euros when I researched. All the details can be easily found on the Czech Transport website here.

We chose to book  half-day tour through the Get Your Guide website. Hence this was a very easy tour, we just had to show up at the nominated address in central Prague at 9:00 am. They drove us directly to Karlstejn Castle in a small luxury mini-van.

Once we got there, they had us already booked into a 50 minute English tour. That left us with about 1 hour to stroll around those parts of the castle accessible for free. In addition the cost of our tour was quite reasonable at 70 Euros for 2 people.

We booked our tour at 7am on the day of the tour, as a last minute decision. No complaints with the tour, it all went seamlessly.

Note: More information on this tour can be found by clicking the below link:
From Prague: Half-Day Karlstejn Castle Tour

The Karlstejn Castle Tour

Karlstejn castle was just amazing and everything I had hoped for. Surprisingly there are none of these gothic style medieval castles to see in Prague. Because of that I particularly wanted to take the trip to Karlstejn Castle.

We learnt all about the King and his Castle, thanks to our very informative tour guide. The furniture inside was fairly sparse but very authentic. We even got to see the original throne room complete with throne, as well as the King’s original bedroom suite.

The internal tour group was quite large, probably about 30 or so people. The rooms were all quite huge meaning that the tour was able to cope with this amount of people quite comfortably.

We probably went through about 10 rooms all up, so we had quite a good look around the castle. However we did not get to enter the Grand Tower or the Cathedral, these are off-limits for normal tour groups.

Was This Tour Worth The Effort?

It is no secret that Germany is the place to see lots of awesome medieval castles, however if you are visiting Prague I definitely recommend a visit to Karlstejn Castle. It is certainly very authentic and in a beautiful setting.

Finally the tour we booked was a great no-fuss way to see the castle, and takes a mere 5 minutes to book it online or on the Get Your Guide app on your phone. Therefore if you have a spare half day in Prague, it’s definitely worth the trip to Karlstejn Castle.

Try Something Different

By all means if you’d like to check out some different tour options to Karlstejn Castle, have a look at all the different tours available on GetYourGuide.com. We love using this tour platform, and especially their free iPhone app.

Catch our other European VLOG adventures

You can catch other VLOG episodes of this family adventure by clicking these links:

• VLOG-001 – Noi Bai Airport Hanoi
• VLOG-002 – Bangkok to Doha
• VLOG-003 – London Big Bus Tour
• VLOG-004 – London Sightseeing by Foot
• VLOG-005 – London to Geneva Journey
• VLOG-006 – Geneva France
• VLOG-007 – Geneva to Budapest via Brussels
• VLOG-008 – Budapest Big Bus Tour
• VLOG-009 – Budapest Royal Palace
• VLOG-010 – Budapest to Vienna Train Trip
• VLOG-011 – Schonbrunn Palace and Zoo Vienna
• VLOG-012 – Vienna Self Guided Walking Tour
• VLOG-013 – Vienna Big Bus Tour
• VLOG-014 – Vienna to Prague
• VLOG-015 – Prague Self Guided Foot Tour
• VLOG-016 – Karlstejn Castle Prague
• VLOG-017 – Prague Zoo Daytrip
• VLOG-018 – Prague to Geneva
• VLOG-019 – Europe to Vietnam, 5 countries in 2 days

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