Driven Days with the Royal Habsburgs

To the Czech Republic, Slovakia & Hungary for classic driven pheasants

Our passage from the Czech Republic's Castle Zidlochovice through the surrounding villages and countryside was likely very similar to what it had been in the 1800s, when the aristocrats of the Habsburg dynasty had gone forth for a day of driven shooting in Bohemia. One difference was that they had been transported in horse-drawn carriages on muddy dirt roads, whereas we were driven on paved roads in a motor coach. What we found was that the tradition of shooting driven pheasants, first developed and enjoyed here by the aristocracy of the Habsburg era, is very much alive at Zidlochovice's shooting estate more than 200 years later.

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to Shooting Sportsman»