Točník, a crumbling fortress perched like a half-forgotten specter above a village with the same name in the Beroun District, Central Bohemia—a place that reeks of history, decay, and the stubborn remnants of medieval madness. It sits on Zámecký Hill, a stone’s throw (or maybe a cannon shot) from the town of Žebrák. This relic isn’t just any old ruin—it’s stamped as a cultural and national monument, protected by the bureaucratic forces that be, as if that could somehow stop the relentless march of time and entropy. This beast of a castle was born in the late 14th century, thanks to King Wenceslas IV, a monarch who had a knack for excess. Točník was his brainchild, a stone refuge where he could hide from the chaos of his reign. During the Hussite Wars, this fortress withstood a siege in 1425, a brief but intense standoff that left the place in the hands of a series of noble families—the Kolovrats, the Gutštejns, the Vartenberks—each adding their own flavor of Gothic gloom and Renaissance flair. But like all things touched by power and neglect, Točník began its slow slide into ruin. The Thirty Years’ War hammered the final nails in the coffin, leaving it a decaying shell by the 17th century, abandoned and left to the elements. Yet, even in its decline, Točník flirted with the idea of becoming a chateau, blurring the line between a castle and a palace. The two partially intact palaces still stand, ghosts of their former glory, with one boasting what was once the second-largest castle hall in Bohemia. The place is open to the public, but it’s not just history buffs who make the pilgrimage. The castle’s moat has been repurposed into a bear sanctuary, housing Martin and Agáta, two brown bears born in 2013 and former stars of a TV series—because why the hell not? The Hallucinatory History Back in 1999, a bunch of archaeologists poked around and found traces of an ancient settlement on Zámecký Hill dating back to the Hallstatt period. This place might have been a fort long before Wenceslas got his hands on it. Speaking of Wenceslas, the man was a lunatic. He started building Točník in the late 1300s, supposedly because his older Žebrák Castle went up in flames. But some say he was just looking for a new hideaway to drown his sorrows in booze and blood. Fast forward to 1400, and Wenceslas was still tinkering with the place, even issuing royal charters from the half-built fortress. He wanted Točník to be a safe haven, but by the time of his death, it had already begun its downward spiral. His brother Sigismund briefly took over, then pawned it off to some minor nobles who, predictably, couldn’t keep it together. During the Hussite Wars, Točník held firm under siege, but after that, the Kolovrat family took over and slowly but surely let it slip into disrepair. The inventory from those days reads like a shopping list for the apocalypse: a few cannons, barrels of gunpowder, dried fish, and some old beer—bare essentials for surviving a medieval meltdown. The Final Descent By the 17th century, Točník was nothing more than a military outpost, its glory days long gone. The Thirty Years’ War left it battered and broken, a shadow of its former self. The burghers of Žebrák even used it as a dump for their manure—literally. The last military garrison pulled out in 1648, and the castle was left to rot. Fast forward to modern times, and Točník passed through the hands of various owners, each one contributing to its slow decline. In the 19th century, it landed in the lap of Bethel Henry Strousberg, a man with more money than sense, who promptly sold it off. In 1923, the Czechoslovak Tourist Club took over and did some half-assed renovations—think concrete floors in ancient palaces. By 1945, it was state property, and now the National Monument Institute oversees what’s left. A Last Gasp of Glory In 2007, someone got the bright idea to reconstruct the roof of the Royal Palace using a medieval wooden crane—because why not make things difficult? This contraption, based on a sketch from Wenceslas IV’s Bible, could lift a ton and was powered by humans, hauling beams 20 meters into the air. It was a nod to the past, a desperate attempt to preserve what little remains of Točník’s fractured history. And that’s where it stands today—an ancient ruin, clawing at the edges of history, desperately trying to hold on to its last vestiges of relevance.