We left Cesky Krumlov today bound for Olomouc. Don’t know if it is what they call ‘itchy feet’ but as much as this is a very nice place to be, it felt like it was time to move on. Perhaps that is because we haven’t stayed in one place for too many days at a time before. But we made a concerted effort to slow down in the Czech knowing that it is one of the few places that we can.
As we were loading up the car with our gear we saw a guy tucked away in the corner of the carpark, out of sight of any of the windows, busy squirreling away on his laptop, We suspect that he had found a spot where he could tap in to the Hostels free WiFi. What ever the reason he looked positively sheepish and made a run for it. We have to say we enjoyed the free access as well, it doesn’t come as often as we had hoped.
We observed coming into Cesky Krumlov that the housing and architecture had a definite residual feel of communism about it, but this disappeared once in CK. As we left it quickly reverted back, to what we had seen coming in. It seems that there are tourist pockets that have been given a polish up. Taking the back roads we went through many little towns and villages that looked like they had been forgotten for some time. They looked like scenes from an anti-communist movie with grey concrete plaster houses built right onto the street, with no personality and in various states of disrepair. Very functional and probably very nice and homely inside, but we didn’t get to see that. In these towns the houses came in three colours: al la natural concrete grey, a faded and peeling apricot/red, or a mustard yellow. In some towns it appeared as if they had made a concerted effort to clean these same style houses up with various paint jobs. However the most noticeable thing about these small towns was the absence of people. There just wasn’t anyone around. There was the occasional Trabant parked on the roadside, and usually at least one large tractor and farm implement being driven through in the opposing direction, but other than that, you wondered what the rest of the townsfolk were up to. Were they inside enjoying a large meal, watching TV, or was there an event on somewhere that everyone was attending?
Between towns there was a lot of harvesting going on. It seems to be the season for haymaking and the wheat harvest. Big combines in the fields and in transit between sites.
We stopped on the way at a place called Telc for lunch and a browse. Now this is one cool little medieval town. In the town square (well it’s more of a long rectangle) the two opposing sides are lined with Renaissance facades with various degrees of elegance and decoration. There doesn’t seem to be much more to the town other than the town square, but that alone makes it well worth a visit.
At the far end of the square there was a market going on, but as is the custom here, half of the stalls sell handcrafts (anything from pottery, to clothes made out of cork, to fabric goods and back again), and the other half of the market is a well patronized set of beer tents. After all this region has fantastic beer, and what better way to spend a hot afternoon, or so we’ve been told. Set up under the city gate by the market was a guy selling and demonstrating didgeridoos. Made us wonder if he was an Aussie making the most of his heritage, a kiwi taking advantage of his neighbour, or a local who appreciated the instrument. It was odd to see on this side of the world, but somehow not completely out of place in a small bohemian town.
After leaving Telc the journey was a mixture of painfully slow road works stuck behind an endless procession of large trucks, long straight and very mundane sections of single lane roads between wheat fields (that necessitated slowing down to a crawl every time a car/truck/tractor came the other way, or the more interesting nice and shady winding sections between forests of trees bowed over the road. Unfortunately the later usually involved following one of the resident Trabants at a perambulating pace.
As we dribbled our way through the countryside we amused ourselves by testing our pronunciation of the names of the various towns that we went through. The thought went through our mind, how do you abbreviate a language, that in its written form, is very economical in its use of vowels in the first place? What does their txt language look like, would it be even more decipherable than English txt?
We arrived in Olomouc a little later than expected, and here we were surprised once again. We drove to our accommodation, to find a large courtyard behind a set of very old and large steel gates. On one side of the courtyard lay a church with very ornate wooden doors. At the far end was what appeared to be a wine shop (that would be very difficult for the public to access), and on the other side was a large neglected building with locked doors. The church was a very plain looking affair. Very square, straight and yes you guessed it made of grey concrete that is badly in need of repair. Outside the gate was a small sign that said ‘Hostel’ but this certainly didn’t look like the right place. Perhaps they had moved. We drove along the road a bit further into the town square to ask directions, and we were directed back (as far as we could tell) in the direction from which we had come. We went into what appeared to be the wine shop to find that it was the hostel reception, amongst other things. The hostel was in fact the dilapidated looking building with the locked doors. The receptionist was just escorting some people inside, they returned very shortly and left. We should have been warned by this, if not anything else.
What we were soon to discover was: (a) the name of the hostel had changed from what was listed on their website (b) the 24 hour reception is actually 9 – 11am and 4:30 – 8:30pm. If you arrive after this time you will not be able to get in (c) the full buffet breakfast is extra not included as promised (d) the free parking doesn’t exist (e) the double room isn’t a double room, as they don’t have double rooms (f) the quoted price didn’t include ‘Tourist Tax’ although they stated ‘no hidden costs’ (g) the Cable TV is just the cable (which hangs from the ceiling in the room) but there is no TV (h) the promised fridge is in the communal kitchen, but isn’t even remotely cold. (i) there is evidently a restaurant on site, but we are yet to find it. In fact the only thing that they promised that did exist was the 24 hour hot showers. And just while I am in a grizzle mood, this place really is a dive. it isn’t clean, there are rooms with lights but no light switches, there are extension power cables strung through several rooms to power the essentials like the stove. The room itself is very large and big enough to have a shower and toilet as well as the four single beds. Instead we have communal facilities for the floor and they don’t even provide toilet paper or the basics like curtains in the bedrooms. The shower looks like it has been built into a cupboard and opens directly into the communal hallway (the bathmat is outside the door). But there is free internet provided, provided you bring your own laptop. I’m not sure how those without manage.
We would be fine with all of this if it was cheap and reflected the condition of the place but it isn’t. We wouldn’t if the place was represented honestly in their advertising and online promotions, but it isn’t. Where is the Consumer Act when you need it?
However there are little cutesy pictures of kittens stuck to the walls everywhere. Perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they are in the process of doing a refurb. They certainly have the space and the room to have a great hostel here. Oh well, at least we have a bed to sleep in. Humph … sleep would be a good thing. These beds are so hard it would be more comfortable to sleep on the floor. After the first night we stacked the mattresses off the other two beds onto ours so hopefully our spines won’t hit the floor tonight. I could go on forever, but I feel that I have done enough winging to last a few days :-)
On the plus side as we looked out of our curtainless window, we watched an amazing sunset with brilliant colours, creating a vignette through the sky.
We woke in the morning to rain, and I mean big fat drops that land like fists on the cobblestones. We had a late start on browsing around the town, and what we saw between drops was very cool. This is a relatively undiscovered town on the tourist map, so it is nice to see it before the hordes arrive.
In the middle of the town square is the town hall. On one side of the town hall is an astronomical clock. This shows date, time, month, phase of the moon, the stars, plus a whole lot more besides. It has been redecorated several times over the years the most recent being in the communist days, and so the mosaic gilt and gold illustrations show a series of devout workers, instead of the pious saints of the previous centuries.
Also in the town square is a large bell. According to what we read (or rather interpreted) this little puppy weighs in at just over 2.7 tonnes. There is quite a bit of publication around and it seems that this bell, and its three mates were cast this year (2009) for the St Michaels church. They are very ornate and look very cool. According to what we could read these bells were cast to replace the bells that had been confiscated previously. We walked up to the belfry where the other three bells are located, and we aren’t sure if the fourth bell has been brought back down from there or perhaps it hasn’t quite made it up. February this year seemed to be a big date and we wondered if it was the 20th anniversary of the ‘Velvet Revolution’ that they were celebrating.
There seems to be an awful lot of churches here of every shape and description, from very small and circular to very large and ornate. We went into St Michael church and as is our custom we sat in a pew near the front to take in the ambiance of where we were. We noticed that carved into the pews like graffiti were various names and dates. ‘Elavk 1907’, ‘H. Rohm 1912’, etc. It makes you wonder who these people were, what they were doing here, what happened to them during their lives, what did they get to see? Wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to have a conversation with them now. Also in this church is a painting of the pregnant Mary. Something that you don’t get to see very often. We went from here to the very impressive St Wenceslas Cathedral. This was quite different, there is no graffiti here. As it was the end of the day they were about to close, so we will come back tomorrow, maybe even for a service. Perhaps we could pray for a 'powerful vengence' on the so called hostel that we are staying at ... but after we have gone :-)
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