We left Prague about 10am on Friday, February 5, and headed south out of Prague. Our first stop however, was not the city of Brno. It was a monastery at Tisnov, about 13 miles from Brno. The monastery was constructed in the 13th Century. Currently the Monastery is home to an order of Nuns that have taken vows of silence, though currently there are only four. Like many of the castles of similar vintage, Tisnov lacks any sought of heating. Only the office for visitors is heated, and so everyone tried to crowd in there. Let me tell you, there was no way in hell that seventy people were going to fit in that office, so we all plowed back out into the snow, and the (beautiful) arched door way to the monastery. Inside the monastery was similarly ornate (I will say this for the 13th century Catholic Church, it certainly knew how to make an ornate building), with a lot of gold, paintings and stain-glass (unfortunately pictures were not allowed, about the only place in Europe were that was true.) Outside of the main church, the building became significantly less ornate however, more suited to a group that had taken a vow of poverty. Much of the tour focused on the architectural features of the building, which was a transitional structure between the Romanesque style practiced before the fall of the Roman Empire, and the Gothic style, which came to dominate churches and cathedrals. As a result, one of the features of the building is a column which the architect mis-measured, and had to fix.
After about an hour long stopover in Tisnov, we moved south to the City of Brno, and are hotel. As I said earlier, Brno feels like a city past its prime. Unlike jumping, partying Prague, there are few clubs or bars in the town, and it seems to generally have nightlife comparable to Williamsburg. Worse, in someways, it has retained far more of its Soviet Era buildings than Prague has, leading to the feeling of walking past the same or similar buildings over and over again. The disappointment among the AIFS group, especially about the lack of nightlife, was intense, many of us headed into our rooms to mediate, or something until time for dinner.
Dinner was an almost hour drive away at the Templar Order Restaurant in Cejkovice(very close to the Austrian Border). I swear you can’t go anywhere in Europe without tripping over something older than the US or the Americas, and the Templar Order Restaurant was no exception. The Order of the Temple Knights, or the Knights Templar was founded in Jerusalem just after the First Crusade to defend the Holy Land, and the Temple in Jerusalem from…enemies foreign and domestic. As the Crusaders were driven out of the Holy Land in the 1100s, and the Templars went with them, gradually relocating to France, where they took over much of the banking industry, and to the Holy Roman Empire, where they were given a castle in Bohemia. On Friday, October 13, 1307(I had to look up the date), Philip the Fair(not nicknamed for his sense of justice) of France, order the destruction of the Templars, accusing them of all kinds of Evilness, including worshiping the devil, being homosexual, and having the King of France being in Debt to them(never a good idea). Dozens of Templars were tortured, and executed, (though a couple escaped, some took the Holy Grail back to Alexandretta where it was discover in 1939, by Henry Jones Jr, some took the Holy Grail to England were it was discovered by Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon in 2001, and others took it to North America, where it was discovered by Ben Gates…never mind), and the lands of the Order were taken by various kings. The Castle that is the current location of the Templar Order Restaurant was among the lands taken by the Czech King. The food at the Restaurant was pretty standard Czech fair, some form of meat and potatoes, but we weren’t there for the food. You see, the Templars, and everyone who has owned the Castle since, has used it as a wine production center. It is one of the largest producers of Wine (or Vino) in the Czech Republic, and is home to the second largest single barrel in the Czech Republic, in which a band could play. Officially, we were there for a wine tasting…unofficially, well at some point, probably after the second glass, a tasting becomes more of a booze fest. Needless to see everyone, and I do mean everyone connected with AIFS had a least a little wine to drink, and some had more than a little. Between all seventy of us, I think something like 36 bottles of wine got killed. The bus ride back was quite…interesting. There was a lot of singing. And then, well it being Friday night, some people went to get more to drink, me, I was pretty blissed out at that point, and pretty much went straight to bed. And it was night…and we slept, more or less.
All the Wine We drank at dinner.
Our first stop that morning, after breakfast(omfg, I found Bacon in Europe), our first stop was the Battlefield at Austerlitz(not Auschwitz that’s the concentration camp, more on that in a, much, later post). Austerlitz is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest victories won by the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. After moving his army from Normandy in France, where it was preparing to invade England before Nelson put the kibosh on that, to occupying Vienna, to just outside of Brno, Napoleon fought the battle in December of 1805. Austerlitz pitted Bonaparte, and 65,000 of his closest friends against a combined Austro-Russian Army of about 85,000 men, and under the command of the Russian and Austrian Emperors. Napoleon, by drawing the Russians and Austrians into attacking what they perceived as his weakest point, and then counterattack against their center, managed to completely defeat the Allies, send them running from the field, and capturing both Emperors with the loss of less than 10,000 of his own men. If only the battlefield matched up with the glory that was the battle.
Like every battlefield ever, and believe me I’ve been to a lot of them, Austerlitz prominently features three things, a cannon, a monument, and museum with a gift shop. The monument is suitably impressive, especially considering the Czechs were on the losing side of this battle. The museum was underwhelming. The one video that actual worked was a nice overview of the campaign up to the point of Austerlitz. The second video was an odd combination of reenactors in French and Austrian Uniforms reenacting the battle, to bizarre Sci-Fi style sound effects…and then there was pretty much nothing, just a hurried rush to the exit. Fortunately, Zee, AIFS brilliant tour guide, happened to know all the details of the battle, so I managed to find out what actually happened (and then describe it to you in the above paragraph.)
From Austerlitz we headed back to Brno to check out Gregor Mendel’s lab. Mendel was the grandfather of Genetics, through his work with cross breeding peas. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Mendel also doesn’t work on Saturdays(but a monk’s museum is open for business on Sundays…go figure), so we headed into downtown Brno for a bit to eat, and walking tour of the city. After some more Pizza, checking out the DVDs in a store, being herded out of the store because it was closing, and watching some other people feeding the pigeons French Fries from a walk-up Macdonald’s (American Fast Food stop taunting me, kthanksbye), we headed back to Central Brno for a tour of the city. We hit two more churches, one built by Germans(lots of Gold) and one by Czech(not so much gold, but really grandiose architecture), and an old Medieval Prison(were a whole bunch of people died). As the tour was wrapping up, Stef spotted what looked like an ice skating rink. She immediately decided that she wanted to go skating. Her enthusiasm quickly caught fired, spreading to Kate, Adrian, Diego, Ryan, Jordan, Jake and Me.
As we got to the tram stop to head to the rink, Stef, Diego, and I decided that we would rather not find out what happens if you break your leg in the Czech Republic, so we decided to head back to the Czech Church and climb up the tower to get what was supposedly an incredible view of Brno. Unfortunately the tower closed at 5, and we were there at 5:30. Somewhat disappointed, Stef, Diego and I decided to head back to our hotel on the outskirts. Unfortunately, being kind of stingy, we decided to walk rather than take the 15 Kc(about a dollar) tram. We had been told that if we followed the Tram tracks we would get back to the hotel. Half an hour later, we got a little concerned, but saw a sign that pointed to our hotel, so we kept going. 45 minutes later we asked the first Czech person we saw “anglicky?” and then for directions. 50 minutes later we found the tram and took it in the wrong direction. 55 minutes later, we hopped on the tram going back in the right direction, and about an 1 hour and 10 minutes later, much closer, and much colder we finally reached the Hotel. Needless to say we decided it would probably be a good idea to eat at the hotel restaurant. And then go to a nice warm bed.
The next morning, are first stop was a return to the Gregor Mendel Museum. Mendel, worked in the latter half of the 19th century, and focused most of his research on Peas. On our way into the museum, we past Mendel’s garden, which, unsurprisingly, was a large snow bank, as it was the middle of February. Inside was an entirely different story. Most of the museum was given over to Mendel, with a bit of a pea theme. There were pea shaped lamps, a shirt with a soup can and the label Mendel’s Pea Soup, the original peas that Mendel worked with (which had long since faded to brown and crusty), and fresh pea plants. Also present were exhibits explaining how Mendel influenced the science of genetics, including Watson and Crick, discoverers of the Double Helix. A bought a neat t-shirt, but not the pea soup one.
From the Mendel Museum we headed North of Brno and headed high into the mountains, into the largest cave system in Europe. The walk from where the bus had to park to the actual entrance to the caves was one of the coldest of have experienced over here(and that’s saying something) almost everybody wiped out at some point, and we passed the body of a dead deer(which seemed like something out of a horror movie.) Once we got to the caves however, it was all worth it. Inside was about five degrees warmer, and the formations of rock and water proved to be quite beautiful. And then we got on a boat, and rafted down an underground river, which seemed like something out of a Disney world ride and was incredibly cool.
From the caves we headed back to Prague, stopping once more at Adamov. Adamov was home to yet another church, this one featuring an alter that was carved from one piece of wood, keep in mind this thing is almost 20 feet high. Adamov also doubled as bathroom stop, but with one bathroom for both girls and guys, it was kind of like something out of a horror movie. After this last church we headed back to Prague.
And thus ended our tour of Moravia. The next day we began our Czech Language class.
Next: Prague Part IV: On the Language Barrier, Partying, and Sledding.
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