ARTISTS AND ROCKS

Litomyšl was the birthplace of the composer Smetana whose house is still there.  He is commemorated in the annual International Music Festival and by a statue in the Market Square – Smetana Square – which also has the obligatory restored Burghers’ houses.

There is also a castle and several churches as well as some other interesting and curious buildings.  The High School has unusual decorations around the roof …

… and a house in Vachal Lane (named after the local artist Josef Vachal) is decorated with copies of some of his wood-cuts from a murder story written in 1924.

In Smetana Square there is a temporary building made of highly polished stainless steel.

It is called the “Invisible Tower” presumably because the reflections in its surface make it seem to merge into its surroundings.  It is designed as a three storey building which could be used as anything from a garden shed to a holiday home.

Sculptures by another local artist – Olbram Zoubek pop up all over the place as well as in a permanent exhibition in the castle.  Adam and Eve, for example, are to be found on the front of a house in Smetana Square.

From Litomyšl we headed north to an extraordinary area of sandstone rock formations at Teplice and Adrspach. 

In these areas, once under the sea, the rock has been eroded into dramatic towers and pinnacles very popular with climbers from many countries.  If you look carefully you’ll see two climbers on and near the top of this rock …

… while this one was attempting an overhang that he was finding rather difficult.  He eventually fell off and we last saw him swinging on the end of his rope!

Some of the formations have been given names inspired by their shape.  Here are the elephant and the owl.

We were able to climb stairs and ladders to the top of one pinnacle where there used to be a wooden fort.

Both Teplice and Adrspach have been very popular with ‘earth-bound’ visitors as well as climbers since the 18^th century, among them the poet Goethe who visited them in 1790.  To accommodate them trails have been constructed through the sometimes very narrow gorges between the formations

And at Adrspach a very pretty lake now occupies a former sandpit.

And that was really the end of our visit to Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.  We had a superb time with, mostly, lovely weather and a great welcome from the local people.  We didn’t have time to visit as many places, especially in the Czech Republic, as we had hoped but we can always go back another day.  We will be in UK until after Christmas when we head off again to “fresh fields and pastures new”.  Do join us.

FROM A GRASSHOPPER TO A TURTLE

We were about to leave Telč when we discovered a hitch-hiker on board – a huge green grasshopper was inside one of the van’s open skylights.  The only ride he got was on John’s shoulder as he took him out of the van!

The town of Trebič is another one with a long, relatively narrow main “square”.  Several of the houses are decorated in a very distinctive black and white style – this one is now the Tourist Office.

The small Jewish quarter has been well preserved, even though most of the inhabitants were killed by the Nazis.  The old Synagogue – a plain white building outside – is beautifully decorated inside.

The church, known as the Basilica, once formed part of the fortifications.

Unlike many of the churches we have seen, it is plain and simple inside. 

In the crypt is a display of charming pottery figures like this Nativity scene.

St John of Nepomuk was a priest who, in 1393, refused to divulge to King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, (not the one made famous by the Christmas Carol!) what the Queen had said during confession.  The King had St John’s tongue cut out and eventually killed him by throwing him off the Charles Bridge in Prague.  It is said that a crown of five stars was seen floating on the water where he drowned.  This story was the inspiration for the design by Jan Blažej Santini of the church at Zelena Hora which is dedicated to St John. 

The church and churchyard are designed with mathematical precision on a ground plan based on concentric circles spreading out in twelve equal steps (In the Bible twelve is a symbol of the completion of all things – the Kingdom of Heaven). The church is shaped like a five pointed star with five entrances, while the churchyard is a ten pointed star.

Its windows are positioned so that nowhere is in shadow and in the centre of the domed ceiling there is a large picture of St John’s tongue!  The dome is surrounded by a balcony where the organ is situated – you can just make it out in the bottom right of this picture

We cycled into Olomouc from just outside the city walls

The Cathedral is dedicated to St Wenceslas, who IS the one in the Christmas Carol.

Inside is a small chapel, known as the Abbot’s Chapel where, in 1932, the original frescos were discovered under several layers of paint.  They were painted around 1260 and depict the life of St John the Apostle

We went to the main square where there is an astronomical clock on the Town Hall.  It was restored during the Communist era and all the saints replaced by workers, two of whom strike the quarter hours on an anvil.

There are three fountains in the square, the most interesting and unusual being Arion's Fountain depicting nightmarish scenes from under the sea.

It is said that rubbing the turtle's head will bring you good luck.  We didn't test this out.

INTO THE CZECH REPUBLIC

We crossed into the wine producing area of the Czech Republic.  Here large estates used to be owned by the Liechtenstein family but their property was confiscated by the communist authorities in 1945 (they are currently seeking compensation from the Czech Government) and their palaces and grounds have been largely restored and opened to the public, though some smaller lodges are privately owned and occupied.  With its palaces, a minaret, a temple …

… and a number of other buildings built in fanciful Greek or Roman styles, the whole area is rather like a much larger version of Stourhead!  The Palace in Lednice, which is now a popular venue for weddings …

… has a large greenhouse full of tropical plants.

We rather liked St John’s Castle - a house built to look like a partly ruined castle.

It would appear that the Lednice Palace was used mainly for entertaining visiting dignitaries while the family preferred Valtice, a few kilometres away and joined to Ledice by a long straight avenue.

We had hoped to visit Mikalov but were unable to go in without paying an entry fee as the whole centre had been taken over for a wine festival.  We did however see the rather imposing castle.

From there we continued to Telč (pronounced Telch) where the old town and castle are surrounded by fish ponds providing not only food for the inhabitants but extra defence against invasion.

At first glance the Town/Market Squares of the many old towns and cities seem very similar – Burghers’ houses round the edge, a church or two and a Town Hall.  However they all have their own characters and differences of detail.  The town square at Telč is not actually a square or even a rectangle but a sort of drawn out triangle.

Arcading runs along the front of the Burghers’ Houses at ground level and some of them are decorated in very distinctive styles.

The courtyards inside the castle, which is separated from the town by strong walls, now provide lovely peaceful communal areas.

We decided that Telč is a very pleasant town, catering for tourists but not overdone. 

BRATISLAVA

We stayed on a site on the edge of Bratislava, conveniently situated at the end of one of the many tram routes which meant that we were able to catch an old but clean, fast and extremely cheap tram into the city (about 75p for up to an hour’s travelling).

The city is rather different from others we had seen – no big market square with elegant restored Burghers’ houses and no elaborate old Town Hall.  There is a scattering of fine houses obviously dating from the beginning of the twentieth century – a time when the whole of Eastern Europe seems to have blossomed with trade and wealth –

and there is an old Town Hall but it is now a museum of local history and even its outer walls seem to be part of the exhibits showing architectural styles from different periods.

There is a castle (of course!) looking rather forbidding …

… perhaps appropriately as it was the venue for the Bush-Putin summit of 1995!  

The whole of the old Jewish quarter with its fine Synagogue was demolished during the communist era to make way for a drab housing estate. A replica of the Synagogue has been erected just across the river.

At the same time a new bridge with a restaurant high above it built over the Danube.

There are, however, some amusing curiosities including the narrowest house in Europe, just 130 cm wide …

… a bronze figure of a workman sticking out of a manhole …

… and the blue church.

But our favourite part of the Bratislava Museum is not in the city at all but in the village of Devin a few kilometres away where the ruined castle stands guard at the confluence of the Danube and the Morava rivers.

There was a Celtic settlement here as long ago as 5000 BC and the first castle was built by the Romans in the 1^st century AD.

It was never successfully attacked until it was destroyed by Napoleon’s forces in 1809.

A LAND OF CASTLES

As we travelled further into this land of castles it seemed as though every small town had at least one, and often two, castles bearing witness to the part it played in defending the Hungarian Empire from the Turkish invaders.  Many, like Strecno Old Castle, are now little more than ruins barely visible atop the rocky cliffs they once dominated …

… but some have been painstakingly restored, like Orava which was featured in the 1922 Dracula film.

We set sail on the good ship Slanica …

… and after a short cruise, landed on the island of the same name in the huge Orava Reservoir. 

When, against much local opposition, they flooded the valley to create the reservoir in 1953, five villages were submerged.  Only the hill in Slanica, on which the church stood, remained above the water.  The church now houses a permanent display of religious folk art and sculpture from the 14^th - 20^th century.

From a lovely riverside site in the Male Fatra National Park we drove up the Vratna Valley and took the cable car up to Snilovské Seidlo …

… a col from which we were able to follow easy, well signed paths (the signs all sponsored by Kia Motors who have a huge factory nearby) …

… to two peaks – Vel’ký Kriváň (1709 m) …

… and Chleb (1646 m).  Even on a hazy day the views were stunning with dozens of peaks crowded into a relatively small area.

Back at ground level we paid a short visit to Trenčin (with yet another castle) …

… on our way to the capital of Slovakia – Bratislava.