| UNESCO
As My Guide |
| More Travels
In The Czech Republic |
| The longer
I’m in Europe, the pickier I’ve become as a traveler. In a sense, I’m
still like a little child on the way to the candy store because I feel
as though as I’ll be satisfied by ANYTHING I see, treasuring every moment
of my life abroad.
Then there’s
another part of me that critiques the town while comparing and contrasting
with other places I’ve seen. As you can imagine, my appreciation and amazement
by new surroundings have declined over time, much as one would feel eating
their favorite meal 5 times in a week. Because of this, I’m finding
it harder and harder to rely on people’s recommendations.
A new traveler
will tell you anything is great, as long as they weren’t the victims of
a rip-off. |
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with too much knowledge don’t help either because the average back-packer
or English teacher isn’t going to have a doctorate in Eastern European
studies. One thing that I’ve found to be 100% effective thus far is UNESCO
sites.
With most of
the politics removed from it since the break-up of the Soviet Union, UNESCO
sites are often familiar places within a country, yet also rare and little-known
places, all of which are breathtaking. One of my English textbooks has
a section on UNESCO and a great supplement to that is for the students
to list sites for the country. I have the students guess what the sites
are and even better, as a time killer (and learning experience for me)
is a description of each one.
This fills
in the blanks of how I ended up in Telc (the ‘c’ makes a ‘ch’ sound), a
beautiful town in South Moravia. With Eastern Europe being as cold
as it is in February, I haven’t been too keen on traveling but since one
of my students offered to drive me, I wouldn’t have to wait around for
buses or trains in the cold and usually uncomfortable stations.
I also wouldn’t
have to pay for it and the journey would be much quicker. |
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| From Prague,
Telc is a 2-hour car journey, much of it down Interstate E65 but is also
accessible by bus, from Prague, Brno, and Ceske Budejovice, although it
obviously will take longer than two hours. Traveling by train would
be too complicated unless you live in or around South Moravia.
After a few
missed turns towards the end of the journey we were there around 11am.
There
was a parking lot about 1 km north of the center and we walked along the
castle wall waiting for an entrance. The wall took us to a small gate
that opened up into a few shops and then we walked over a little bridge
above what I later realized was a frozen pond.
We entered
the center from the north and I immediately realized how right my guidebook
and everyone else was who made comments concerning the town. Whereas most
town squares in the Czech Republic may resemble medieval times, especially
Prague’s center and Cesky Krumlov, Telc was the real deal. |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| It’s been
untouched by modern construction and the gaping hand of capitalism doesn’t
have a commanding grip, like, say Wenceslas Square in Prague. In front
of us, across the way was the yellow Baroque Holy Name of Jesus Church.
To our right
were Jan Zrvavy Gallery and the Gothic Chapel of St. George. We tried
to explore the castle area that was off to the right but the aforementioned
churches and everything else were closed, which isn’t surprisingly for
a Sunday in February. Wait a second, aren’t Sunday’s the day of worship?
We strolled down the town square, namesti Zachariase z Hradec (a governor
of Moravia), whose Baroque and Renaissance buildings line the street.
I’ve never
seen so many beautiful buildings next to each other before and as pleasant
as they looked, it almost resembled a movie set. Building after building
was a different color and a different design and some even had paintings
on them, most memorably in black and white.
Towards the
southern end of the square is the Marian Column, which had nests of snow
here and there that only added to its majestic quality. |
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| There were
cafes and souvenir shops in the square, but they are hidden under shadowy
arches so they aren’t visible from the other side of the square. And
everything being covered in snow only enhanced the view.
The square
was mesmerizing, to say the least. If it had been summer, I would have
sat in the square for hours, but as it was -5 degrees Celsius, remaining
idle didn't sound enticing. We strolled through the square for awhile and
then explored the rest of the town.
On the way
from the South the Great Gate was the Romanesque Church of the Holy Spirit
and its tower overlooks the town but, like everything else, is closed for
the winter, as my student discovered from the owner of the pub next
door.
Another great
aspect of the town was the three ponds, two of which surround the castle
and namesti Zachariase z Hradec. |
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Offshore
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| While any
town is better to see during the summer or spring, it was fun sliding across
the frozen ponds where there’s sure to be ducks swimming in the summer.
The last notable
place to go was the Cemetery Chapel, which is southeast of the main square.
Strangely, most of the black marble graves looked new but the cover of
snow brightened every thing up. In fact, I didn’t see a single cloud the
entire day, definitely uncharacteristic for a Czech winter day, especially
since the forecast said it would be mostly cloudy. I had forgotten to double
up on socks and I was losing feeling in my toes so after cutting across
Staromestsky pond, we returned to the main square to warm-up with tea and
grog. There was a German shepherd guarding the door to the only open
cafe on the square but its owner came to the rescue and moved her bodyguard
so we could pass. We would have had the place to ourselves except the dog
and her owner were sitting at the table in front of us, which was facing
the square and she was throwing a ragged tennis ball to the dog.
The grog warmed
me up like nothing else can. In case you’ve never heard of it, grog is
a drink consisting of two parts boiling water, one part rum, and even a
squeeze of lemon juice and a spoon full of sugar. It sounds simple and
bland but it warms your stomach better than anything I've tried before.
Unfortunately it was cold in the cafe and we clasped our drinks to help
our hands warm up. The waiter, probably the owner, was English speaking
and very pleasant and precise when taking our order.
The place
looked empty and I don't just mean because there was no people but the
light jazz coming from the bar was something to tap my feet to. Or
was I doing that to test for the feeling in my toes? While we were there,
we decided on the next destination. To the north about 50 kilometers was
the Church of St. John of Nepomuk, another UNESCO site. The church is in
the shape of a 5-pointed star because when St. John was thrown off of St.
Charles Bridge in Prague, stars are said to have appeared over the place
in the river where he drowned. Unfortunately my student had to return to
Prague at a given time so we had to opt for something closer and the man
in the cafe suggested Slavonice, which was less than 30 kilometres to the
South.
We walked around
the town for another half an hour and on the way back to the car we noticed
a big crowd gathering in the square and I remembered that this weekend
was Masopust. It translates to "a fast from meat" and it is a mix of Carnival
and Mardi Gras where everyone indulges in everything before the beginning
of Lent. It's funny that it is celebrated in the Czech Republic though
because it is one of the most atheistic countries in the world. It sounds
like a reason to dress up funny and eat a lot of food to me. That didn't
take anything away from the genial mood of the town and more and more people
filed in during the 10 minutes we watched. People were dressed like
mushrooms, fairies, horses and Teletubbies and they still seemed to be
in the preliminary stages when we arrived. I thought about staying longer
but we'd already been in the small town for four hours and it wasn't getting
any warmer. So from the center we walked back to the car and went to Slavonice.
It wasn't a
big town but it had two nice squares, Peace Square (Namesti Miru) and Upper
Square (Horni namesti) and like Telc, everything was brilliantly covered
in snow. Some of houses have sgraffito decorations and to my surprise,
I learned that the center is an UNESCO site as well. It is much smaller
than Telc so an hour was suffice to walk around the two squares and the
old town wall. What I didn't realize until later is that Slavonice is only
1 km from the Austrian border and during Communism it was the closest to
the border that people were allowed live. All subsequent towns were abandoned
and sometimes destroyed. One of the sgraffitos on Horni namesti had figures
from Greek mythology and some of the Hapsburgs. Interesting combination.
There was a
nice Gothic church but of course it was closed. After joking about losing
our way in the small village after making a few wrong turns, we returned
to the car and left for Prague. My student was running late so she drove
between 130 and 170 km per hour on the way back. I'm not sure exactly how
fast that is but the RPM meter was hovering at around 5000 so it couldn't
have been that slow. From Slavonice, we returned to Prague in 90 minutes,
which leads to the second conclusion of the day. The first is that you
can trust an UNESCO site to be well worth a trip and secondly, future trips
on trains and buses will be spoiled by the speed and cleanliness of a car.
The following
is the first article Matthew wrote for the magazine:
To contact Matthew
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