South Moravia Trip

Well the weekend was full of gardens, chateaus, quaint Czech towns, a castle, and of course as always Czech Surprises! I had a great time exploring South Moravia, and getting to know some of the adults from my church. I did get to meet a couple of other American students who are studying at the some other school in Prague that I didn't know about. The guy was from West Virginia, while the girl is from the KC area and goes to (you won't believe this) KU. I also met a younger student who's dad was out tour guide for the weekend. He was born in Canada, but has lived in the Czech Republic for 10 years, so he is very fluent in Czech and English (his parents are both Czech).

The van

Inside the van

Day 1: Nuns are Scary!
Well we left on Friday in early evening to drive four hours (or there about) to South Moravia. I have never been so cramped, for such a long time! When we arrived at Velehrad, our guide for the weekend got an ear full from a Nun about us not showing up before curfew. Yes that is right we had a 2100 curfew, they would lock the gates on us if we weren't there before that. Well after he apologized for our tardiness, we all followed her into where we were staying and up some stairs. We were told to pair off to who'd be staying with who, or if someone wanted a single. We then were led by our groups to our rooms. They were really nice for the price we were paying, and we had our own private watercloset and bathroom. Since Laura and I wasn't ready to hit the sack, we thought we would wonder around a bit. When we went into the corridor, we noticed this table with items on it and a small mini fridge. Low and behold you could pay for a beer, tea, or other things right from the hallway. It had to be the most interesting thing I have ever seen, especially in a Monestary. So we bought ourselves some beer and headed back to the room to hangout and talk for a while. We headed to bed fairly early (before midnight) since we had to make breakfast by 0730!

My side of the room

Our watercloset and bathroom

Buying beer from the hallway in the Monestary

Day 2: Hail!

Basillica

Monestary

Where we actually stayed at

Well the day started out really early. I got up early first to get a shower in and put my hair in pigtails for the day, and get everything around for the day. Since I remember it said it wasn't supposed to rain until the next day, I decided I didn't need my umbrella. Laura got up and around and we headed down to join the others in the breakfast hall for a bit of breakfast. After breakfast we headed over to see if we could get into the Basillica to see the interior. It ended up being open and we did get to go inside. It was amazing! Very beautiful! We were told we will go see the catacombs the next morning before the Czech mass (oh boy another Czech Mass). After touring the interior of the Basillica we loaded up into the van and headed to our first stop of the day, Buchlov Castle.

Buchlov Castle

Me and Laura at Buchlov Castle

It was high up on the hill, or mini mountain is what I would call it. It was surrounded by beautiful forests that reminded me of SEMO in the Ozarks. The castle was built in the 13th Century and has been added on since then. The castle was that of the baroque style and had tons of weapons and few instruments of torture on display.

Yes, that tree is growing out of the castle

Old well and water catcher

Looking down the well

Castle Courtyard

View from first look out

Another courtyard

Well that had a legend about a water nymph living in it

Booties to preserve the interior castle floors!

There was also a legend about a well that was there, that it once had a water nymph and a story about a tree that grew upside down (don't ask, I had to read about it, since the tour was in Czech and I didn't quite get it). There were many interesting scientific studies done by people who lived here in the past and had some of their things on display. The main attraction of the tour for me was reaching the top of the castle to a lookout point and seeing the valley in 360 degrees. It was amazing!

Look at that view!

And this one!

On top of the world!

Next we moved onto Buchlovice, a town that layed near the foot of the mini mountain that Buchlov Castle stood. We went and had some lunch at a Czech resturant and I had some garlic soup (famous here in the Czech Republic) and a local dish that cosisted of potatoe bits boiled to almost a noodle consistency and some cheesy sauce and oninons. The meal reminded me of somewhat of a Mac and Cheese dish, because the potatoes almost were noodle like and the sauce was very cheesy. After lunch we went and visited the Buchlovice chateau's gardens.

The Chateau

Peacock...yes I was only a few inches from it!

The gardens is a place where young people who are getting married soon would go and have their pictures taken. Over the course of the time we were there, we counted about 5 couples getting their pictures taken (I'm sure there was more, we only went to half of the garden). I found out that Czechs don't buy wedding gowns, they rent them, which makes sense for something you'd only wear once. I did hear one of the older Brittish ladies say her mother took her gown and made baptismal gowns out of them for her childern, that is something I never heard of, but thought it was sweet.

Huge enormous tree!

Looking up that big tree!

Bridge railing that I really liked

Little stream

Bride and groom getting pics taken

Watch out! It's swamp thing and swamp thinget!

Buchlov Castle that I spied through these trees in the garden

We wandered around the garden and the sky started to get dark. Didn't it say it wasn't going to rain today. Laura and I were walking around with three other people and we took cover under a large tree when it started to rain. We hide under it while the rain came and the thunder rumbled. I got some nice pictures of the rain coming down in sheets. Suddenly, I felt something hit my head! Little pea size hail started falling from the heavens! It lasted for just a bit, but it was the first hail storm I experience here in the Czech Republic, and I was outdoors at the time!

It's starting to rain! We took cover right where I am standing!

Sheets of rain! I should have brought my umbrella with me!

Pea size hail on the bench

Steam rolling around on the ground after the rain

We got a call from some of the others asking where we were. We said hiding from the rain under a tree and they said it had stopped raining. Indeed it did, rain was just falling off the trees so it seemed like it was still raining! We walked around a bit longer and meet up with the others to head out to another stop on our trip.

Fountain in front of Chateau

Chateau again

Ok so you had to know there would be stairs sooner or later!

Amazing view of the Chateau!

Peacock! They are actually the symbol of the Chateau here

We went through the woods until we reached this trail. We got out and hiked up the trail to some old ruins of an early church that was here in South Moravia. It still had it's foundations, but had wooden benches placed inside of it and a cover over an alter area. It is still used to special masses today. After a moment of relaxing after our hike up to the area, we headed back to the van.

Hey mom and dad! Doesn't this look like home?!?

But it isn't...good ole Czech forests!

Old church ruins!

Bells for a song they had displayed.

Trees

We went back to Velehrad to clean up a bit before going and having some dinner at a local resturant. We decided to make it easier we would order the same dish for everyone chicken in a sauce and fries with some side bowls of rice and salad. We also ordered several pitchers of White Wine (yummy). We ate and talked and drank, and ended up showing up late for curfew again, this time it was a male guard and he was not happy ither. Oh well, Laura and I were fairly tired so afte reading a bit we both headed to bed. Luckily we had a 0800 breakfast in the morning.

Day 3: Monkeys!
The next morning I got up, around, packed up my bags and headed down to breakfast. We ate and I ended up buying a rosery (I forgot mine in my car at home!) and we headed over to the catacombs of the church. We had someone read the English version of the tour as we walked around the old ruins of the older church that used to stand where the present one stands. Along the way old pieces of columns and ribs lined the walls. I couldn't resist not touching them, I hoped it wasn't forbiddened! We then entered the catacombs. I seriously hit my head really bad on one tunnel b/c it was so dark and I couldn't see that it went down. I couldn't imagine not having any light down there at all, it would be so dark with just torches! There was one remain of a skeleton that we got to see, I thought it was pretty fascinating that it was still in pretty good condition. After the tour undergroud, we headed up to mass. They had a beautiful choir singing at church and they played the huge organ! There was also a baptism that morning. After church we headed to little stands nearby to get something to drink or snack on for the day and headed back to get our stuff and check out. We loaded up the van and headed to Kromeriz, a small Czech Town that is said to be the prettiest corner of Moravia, and I have to say I agree!

What do you think?

We started off with going to the town square and splitting up for the day, told to eat when we wanted visit the Archbishops' Chateau and Podzamecka Garden that surrounded it and to met up later. Laura and I decided since it was sunny and nice, we would first explor the Podzamecka Garden. It was huge, said to be one of the largest in the Czech Republic. We covered about a third of it!

Arcade

Chateau across the pond

Pond

Little porch gazebo thing

Bridge

Reflection

Me

What doesn't belong here?


That's right...a cat!

We did find the animals (we were told they had a small zoo!). We noticed something very starge though, in a set of cages, there were bamboos, then birds of different sorts, but when we looked closer in two of the cages that had large birds in it, they had cats! Who would think people would put cats and birds together, and who would put cats in a zoo!?! Czech Surprise!

Some sort of animal

Donkey

Baboon

Peacock showing off for the ladies!

They don't seem too impressed...

Chateau

After our find, we decided we were hungry and went back to the town square to find a place to eat. We decided on a small italian reasturant that had a patio out front looking onto the square. We had a yummy meal and dessert, and then headed out to explore a bit of the town square and surrounding streets. In the square they were having a concert in honors of Mother's Day (yeah they celebrate it at the same time as America) and it was quite sweet.

Mother's Day Concert

Town

Fountain

We wandered around and ended up in a gift shop inside the Chateau's courtyard. I bought some postcards and a gift and we decided we should head back to meet up with everyone. When we got back we noticed that everyone had bags from a Winecellar. Oh no we thought, we haven't gotten our South Moravian wine yet! I wanted to get some, since it is made right here and was pretty cheap compared to Prague. Our tour guide told us that we would need to hurry, but we could go and get some real quick. He translated to the lady in the winecellar what we wanted and I got two bottles of red wine, one dry and one sweet. It only cost me 200 Kc, which is a little over $8.00, not bad, I doubt I'd find it in America! So the wine I'll probably save for a special occasion :) We went back and met up with everyone, while we were there, we listened to the concert going on for Mother's Day and we noticed a little kid walking over towards a little pump that had a small basin under it. He pulled down his pants and used it as a toilet!

This is where the kid did it!

It was a bit weird and funny and we all noticed and laughed a bit, he was so young maybe about four. I felt pretty bad because he noticed that we were all laughing, and I hope we didn't make the kid embarrassed, it was just cute. After everyone met up, we headed to one last garden in the town. It was a 17th Century baroque Flower Garden.

Me inbetween the hedges!

It reminded me of something straight out of the last Harry Potter movie! They had hedges that lined the paths that had to be two stories tall and probably 3 m wide or more!

Rotunda in the Garden

Arcade

Inside the arcade

Down the spiral stairs

View of below

For Sean...the Czech traffic school

Black Bird

Inside Rotunda

They even had a mini maze that you could walk through, it might have been meant for younger kids though, becaue I could definitely see my way to the middle.

Mini Hedge Maze

Inside a huge hedge!

Hedges on a hill.

After wandering the garden for a while, we met back up with everyone and headed back to the van. We loaded it back up and headed back to Prague.