Marcela Zemanová
The Spanish Adventure of Karel Maria Chotek
In the spirit of family tradition and family strategies, Karel Maria Chotek (1853-1926), the grandson of Karel Chotek, who had been the Supreme Burgrave of the Kingdom of Bohemia, was systematically prepared for a diplomatic career and civil service from his childhood. Travelling thus formed an integral and natural part of his lifestyle from his student days. In the autumn of 1872, the then nineteen-year-old Chotek travelled to Spain, where his uncle Bohuslav Chotek had been in the diplomatic service not long before. Apart from Madrid, Karel Maria visited mainly the south of the country - major Andalusian cities. He also saw Gibraltar and made a short trip to the northern tip of Morocco. He enjoyed the journey literally with all his senses, as evidenced by the surviving colourful letters to his family. The paper focuses on the everyday travelling life of a young aristocrat in the early 1870s, which was already quite different from the experience of previous generations thanks to new travel opportunities or the choice of different travel destinations.
Keywords: nobility - the Chotek Family of Wognin - everyday travelling life - Spain - beginning of tourism
design by Bedřich Vémola
