The Czech Republic is nothing and everything I expected it to be. A mish-mash of Western and European cultures, the people are friendly and the language surprisingly soft. English is more widely spoken than I expected, and if not people are patient and humorous when you struggle to communicate with them.
I’ve only been to two cities but I feel like I’ve been to opposite ends of the spectrum, or even different countries. Where Brno sauntered through the day amongst the workers and the walkers, České Budějovice quietly bustles with the plethora of camera-crowned tourists wandering around ogling at nothing in particular.
Upon arrival in Brno we grabbed a map and started the apparent 2km walk to our hotel. This turned out to be around 5km. That’s not a huge distance for you Mel, I hear you say. Sure, when I’m not carrying 20 freaking kilograms of junk. To top it off Andrew thought we were lost, we doubled back and then found out we weren’t lost after all and had to troop back the same way. Sigh of sheer frustration. I love bickering, it’s my favourite.
We were pleased to find that our hotel had wireless, which we certainly weren’t expecting. We only had one full day in Brno (due to the stupid Grand Prix making it impossible to get accommodation a day earlier), so we had to utilise it carefully. We wandered around looking at the you-think-I’d-have-habituated-by-now-but-I-still-love-it beautiful European architecture. We walked up to the Spillberk Castle, on top of a hill giving you a I-guess-it’s-pretty-but-I’ve-habituated-to-this-one panoramic view of the city. Inside the castle ‘casemates’ we toured through the old prison compartments used a couple of hundred years ago. The Red Cross would have been happy (well, not absolutely disgusted) with the conditions – the cells were quite spacious and prisoners weren’t starved. We went through some re-creations (recreations on the pamphlet) of tortures that apparently didn’t actually happen.
After that we went to the Capuchin museum – a collection of mummies (mostly monks) that were buried in a crypt and have been remarkably well preserved. However, after having seen a bigger and much better mummy museum in Mexico, I was not exactly in awe of this one. It was okay though, and good for Snuffy because he obviously wasn’t in Mexico to see the other one.
My highlight so far would have to be going to the Mendel Museum. This is on the actual grounds of the monastery that Mendel lived and worked at; I got to see the foundations of the greenhouse where he conducted his pea experiments. To those of you who are scratching your head and wondering what the hell I’m talking about, Gregor Mendel was the father of genetics. He bred peas (amongst other plants) and discovered the simple genetics laws of dominance and recessive…ness, and why traits seem to skip generations. Just bloody brilliant, this man. He also had meticulous astronomy records and even dabbled in beekeeping. I was thrilled to be walking through and reliving so much of my first-year biology course….I actually was.
Anyway….České Budějovice. There’s honestly not much here, it has a nice town square with pretty buildings and the like…but nothing major to report. There is a tower, the Black tower which we went up to look at the city…but other than that, it’s been a relaxing couple of days, with more free wireless so we’ve wasted some time too. Oh yeah, and it’s also the home to the original Budweiser, which is apparently ten times better than the American brand named AFTER the Czech beer.
Anyway, we’re off to Český Krumlov tomorrow. Hope you’re going well.
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Brno photos
České Budějovice photos
