We're in Copenhagen now, having spent a while in Hamburg. They're nice cities to visit, even if Denmark is horrifically expensive, but I'm struggling to think of anything interesting to say about them, so I'll write about our visit to Czechia.
We stayed in five towns – Ostrava, Brno, Ceske Budejovice, Pilsen and Karlovy Vary. We omitted Prague and Olomouc because we'd been to them before.
Ostrava was quite a surprise, but it wasn't the conventional things most tourists like. The castle is the worst one I have ever visited (and I have visited well over a hundred, many of which were pretty poke themselves), the local churches were completely ordinary and the city museum quite poor.
But the history of the place as a coal mining centre was fascinating. We went and saw the model houses for the Rothschild workers from the 1850s and then the model Soviet Poruba suburb from 100 years later. From the period in between those there were lots of lovely buildings from the wealth the coal brought – including a magnificent town hall that has largely complete interior decorations from the Deco era.
The city has struggled mightily since the mines closed, and isn't on most tourist lists, but while not everyone's cup of tea, we enjoyed the place a lot.
Brno (pronounced somewhat like burno) is a much bigger place with an older history, had a decent old town but again that wasn't particularly gripping. We mostly explored the edges of the town, including a nice castle at Veveri after a walk along the town reservoir. Also the Functionalist and Modernist buildings it has scattered about. There was a fascinating exhibition by Alfons Mucha, who was a native of the town, that we were lucky was still going.
From there we went to Ceske Budovice. Its German name is Budweis, and its only real fame arises from the local brewery producing Budweiser (not the US variety, which started as a direct copy, but got much worse). Alison and I are suckers for manufacturing processes, so we toured the plant.
Really we only stayed there because it was cheap and allowed useful day trips. We went to Ceske Krumlov, which is one of the best towns I have seen for retaining its medieval character. It is genuinely lovely, but that does come with dozens of coach loads of tourists, which spoil it somewhat.
Once you got out of the old town and away from the hordes it was much nicer. There was a lovely Renaissance garden to walk in and it has a good museum of local history which, typically, had almost no visitors.
The locals take advantage of the extreme meanderings of the river to raft and kayak down, but we didn't have time for that sadly.
We also went to Trebon as a short bus ride from Ceske Budovice, which has a interesting and somewhat different countryside. It was a focused on fish farming in the past – although now largely a centre for people who visit the spa and/or like the local cycle trails. We walked a couple of the routes.
Plzeň, or Pilsen in the German, is the place where pale lager was first brewed. We visited the Pilsner Urquell brewery naturally, although the exact details of the brewing still largely escape me. (One consequence of having spent so long in the Czech area is that we got very used to their nice pilsner beers, and are now struggling with the sweet nature of the beer elsewhere.)
It was a sweet place, and the I enjoyed the houses from around 1900, since it seemed that having an ornamental turret was a sign of taste, but you'd not want to spend too many days there.
Last up was Karlovy Vary. It was famous as Carlsbad, and was a spa town going back centuries and very wealthy. The result is that the entire old town is ridiculously pretty, and very up-market as the hotels and shops compete for the wealthy clientele who seem to like it. Sadly, that also meant it was crazy full, and very expensive.
Originally the visitors were largely Germans and Austrians – it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the town was completely German speaking, until 1945 when Stalin shipped nearly all the ethnic Germans out (Pilsen and Budejovice were mostly German until that point too). Since the fall of the Iron Curtain the Germans are returning, but there are enormous number of Russians. I suspect it is cheaper than Germany but has all the same goods and that the Czechs find Russian easy to learn (apparently quite a lot of the place is now actually owned by Russians). Weirdly, and I don't know why, there were also a large number of Arabs and Israelis.
The mineral waters that made it famous come out at up to 70°C, and taste utterly vile. In the past they used to consume large quantities of the stuff (literally litres a day) but now people mostly sip it and pretend it is doing some good. Given the incredible pink scale it leaves on the fountain, I have my doubts about it, but I can see how it used to kill internal parasites before modern drugs.
It was a remarkable place to visit, despite the crowds. There were nice trails in the hills too, carefully labelled so tourists didn't get lost.
We also made a short trip to Locket, which is an old castle town in a bend in the river (the name literally means "elbow") and blessedly free of crowds for such a nice place. From there we walked most of the way back to Karlovy Vary, along a cycle track.
All up we spent over two weeks in the Czech Republic, and that without seeing Prague. It was well worth the time.
Our only real downer was that we didn't think very much of most of the food. We had a couple of nice lunches, but some of the offerings were decidedly average. If we had wanted to spend more there were nice places, but they tended to offer international food, which we could have anywhere.
We stayed in five towns – Ostrava, Brno, Ceske Budejovice, Pilsen and Karlovy Vary. We omitted Prague and Olomouc because we'd been to them before.
Ostrava was quite a surprise, but it wasn't the conventional things most tourists like. The castle is the worst one I have ever visited (and I have visited well over a hundred, many of which were pretty poke themselves), the local churches were completely ordinary and the city museum quite poor.
But the history of the place as a coal mining centre was fascinating. We went and saw the model houses for the Rothschild workers from the 1850s and then the model Soviet Poruba suburb from 100 years later. From the period in between those there were lots of lovely buildings from the wealth the coal brought – including a magnificent town hall that has largely complete interior decorations from the Deco era.
Inside Ostrava's New Town Hall. The whole interior is in original style like this.
The city has struggled mightily since the mines closed, and isn't on most tourist lists, but while not everyone's cup of tea, we enjoyed the place a lot.
Brno (pronounced somewhat like burno) is a much bigger place with an older history, had a decent old town but again that wasn't particularly gripping. We mostly explored the edges of the town, including a nice castle at Veveri after a walk along the town reservoir. Also the Functionalist and Modernist buildings it has scattered about. There was a fascinating exhibition by Alfons Mucha, who was a native of the town, that we were lucky was still going.
From there we went to Ceske Budovice. Its German name is Budweis, and its only real fame arises from the local brewery producing Budweiser (not the US variety, which started as a direct copy, but got much worse). Alison and I are suckers for manufacturing processes, so we toured the plant.
Really we only stayed there because it was cheap and allowed useful day trips. We went to Ceske Krumlov, which is one of the best towns I have seen for retaining its medieval character. It is genuinely lovely, but that does come with dozens of coach loads of tourists, which spoil it somewhat.
Panorama of Ceske Krumlov castle and part of the new town
Once you got out of the old town and away from the hordes it was much nicer. There was a lovely Renaissance garden to walk in and it has a good museum of local history which, typically, had almost no visitors.
The locals take advantage of the extreme meanderings of the river to raft and kayak down, but we didn't have time for that sadly.
We also went to Trebon as a short bus ride from Ceske Budovice, which has a interesting and somewhat different countryside. It was a focused on fish farming in the past – although now largely a centre for people who visit the spa and/or like the local cycle trails. We walked a couple of the routes.
Plzeň, or Pilsen in the German, is the place where pale lager was first brewed. We visited the Pilsner Urquell brewery naturally, although the exact details of the brewing still largely escape me. (One consequence of having spent so long in the Czech area is that we got very used to their nice pilsner beers, and are now struggling with the sweet nature of the beer elsewhere.)
Houses in Pilsen. Need those turrets!
It was a sweet place, and the I enjoyed the houses from around 1900, since it seemed that having an ornamental turret was a sign of taste, but you'd not want to spend too many days there.
Last up was Karlovy Vary. It was famous as Carlsbad, and was a spa town going back centuries and very wealthy. The result is that the entire old town is ridiculously pretty, and very up-market as the hotels and shops compete for the wealthy clientele who seem to like it. Sadly, that also meant it was crazy full, and very expensive.
Originally the visitors were largely Germans and Austrians – it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the town was completely German speaking, until 1945 when Stalin shipped nearly all the ethnic Germans out (Pilsen and Budejovice were mostly German until that point too). Since the fall of the Iron Curtain the Germans are returning, but there are enormous number of Russians. I suspect it is cheaper than Germany but has all the same goods and that the Czechs find Russian easy to learn (apparently quite a lot of the place is now actually owned by Russians). Weirdly, and I don't know why, there were also a large number of Arabs and Israelis.
The mineral waters that made it famous come out at up to 70°C, and taste utterly vile. In the past they used to consume large quantities of the stuff (literally litres a day) but now people mostly sip it and pretend it is doing some good. Given the incredible pink scale it leaves on the fountain, I have my doubts about it, but I can see how it used to kill internal parasites before modern drugs.
Fountain in town
It was a remarkable place to visit, despite the crowds. There were nice trails in the hills too, carefully labelled so tourists didn't get lost.
We also made a short trip to Locket, which is an old castle town in a bend in the river (the name literally means "elbow") and blessedly free of crowds for such a nice place. From there we walked most of the way back to Karlovy Vary, along a cycle track.
All up we spent over two weeks in the Czech Republic, and that without seeing Prague. It was well worth the time.
Our only real downer was that we didn't think very much of most of the food. We had a couple of nice lunches, but some of the offerings were decidedly average. If we had wanted to spend more there were nice places, but they tended to offer international food, which we could have anywhere.
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