the best tour of Prague isn't actually a tour

The hordes of Chinese sweep past, followed by the Russians, the Americans, the British. Gobs of single-ethnicity armies positioning themselves for better sights, better shots, each led by some embittered Czech, or expat perhaps, holding an umbrella high in the air, waving it around in circles, marshalling them onward, onward, onward! And they follow, mindlessly, thoughtlessly, carelessly, those lagging behind scoped out by the derelicts and ne’er-do-wells, hiding in the corners and near the beer stands of Vaclav Square. Up Na Prikope, past, around, down Myslbek, or any other nameless alleyway, towering sentinels of Baroque and neo-Romanesque and gargoyles and angels leering down at the masses. In a group one can never be truly in the city, bound by the authorities of the tour leader. You can’t linger long, you can’t skip through what’s interesting, you're bound. 

There, behind the trdelnik stand, lurks a ne'er do well

You're bound by the umbrella. The Segway. The bicycle. There are naturally benefits to any tour, but the real adventurer, those like myself, mock such contrivances. I will not be hedged in. I will not be defeated in my conquering of the city. But I do hours of reading; reading tour guides, history books, Wikipedia, whatever I can do to discover the city in advance, though I still manage to miss a lot.

There is another way though.

A couple of months ago, someone sent me an email from the contact page on my main site. They were working for a new startup.

Old Town Square in Prague. Don't buy beer in a café here, but in the street.

Just in the same way a museum has an audioguide, they were working on developing audioguides for cities. What are cities but great big outdoor museums anyway?

And wouldn’t I like to write and record an audio tour for Prague?

Why not? 

One that let's people follow along at their own pace, stopping when they want to stop, lingering when they want to linger? And even they can stop and wander off midway through and pick it up the next day?

One of the best views in Prague, 360 degrees around.

The route I chose wasn’t anything edgy. Just the route that I would want, first coming in to Prague. The King’s Road. The old coronation trail that the Bohemian Kings followed down, from one end of old town, through the old main road, across the medieval bridge, and up to the Castle. And the Castle is not necessarily something easy to find. So, I spent some time researching the more notable things and then set to work.

The process initially took a long time. I had to first mark the places on a map to coordinate the GPS triggers, and then write about each place. Their editor would then add a few notes, or question for clarity. Then back to me and then finally, after another approval, it would be ready for my sweet and sultry voice to vibe it out on the ribbon of the mic.

And there you have it, the final product.

Charles' Bridge

Now you too can have a super cheap audio tour from yours truly, guiding you through the Prague old town, telling you where not to get beers, where you can buy the best trdelnik, and find one of the best views of the city. And it’s like I’m right here with you.

It’s a brilliant concept really, and after trying it myself, I’d have to admit that my tour is awesome and highly recommended by the most trustworthy of judges of my work. And you'll lose 30 pounds and get a million dollars in a month. I promise.

Now, when I have guests, instead of giving them a personal tour for the thirtieth time (for me, not them), I can just have them download this excellent piece of bohemian Bohemian guiding.

And it’s all available just below. Along with some other off-the-beaten track routes in Prague, and other tours in cities across the globe. Bonus points are that you don’t even have to be there to do the tour. Instead you can just listen to the whole thing from the comfort of your home like a true armchair adventurer. There's no shame in that.

Here it is:

And welcome to Prague. Or not. Maybe even welcome to your armchair. But either way, you should grab a beer and send a "na zdraviye" my way. 

the museums of Orlik and Zvikov

Orlik Castle

It’s surprisingly cold in the newly re-branded country of Czechia. The climate has been on course for the change, though to something slightly more comfortable than all the warming mumbo jumbo. Last year, I remember sitting up in my attic apartment at night, soaking in sweat, unable to do much but drink water and breathe heavily. This year, I’m quite happily relaxed in blue jeans on my balcony, sipping coffee while I watch all the plebeians pass me by down below. But summer isn’t over yet, as there are still some things to be done and castles to be seen, and truly some borderline summer spirit to take you there.

The current cool cloudy clime is still the perfect time for a visit to Zvikov and Orlik. This would be my third time there and indeed, my second time to write about it (the first time was covered here). I won’t cover much information that I covered there on this blog, but rather something we managed to do that I’d never done before: the tours.

Orlik

Our first stop was Orlik, or the “little eagle” in English, beginning with our customary langose. I’m not overly sure what a langose is, but it’s flat, fried, and topped with copious amounts of cheese and garlic. Frankly, I’m not even sure if it’s any good, but I keep ordering the stuff so it must have some merit. 

We then went on our merry way to the castle grounds. My first instinct is always to go down the stairs at Orlik and follow the moat to a small peninsula, where you pass by a door where there’s always a hundred or so people streaming out. What was that door? A secret entrance? I couldn’t tell, since as I said, there were a hundred or so people streaming out an egress that could barely fit a kitchen stool.

Back up the moat and to the tour. The tour costs 120 czk for the straight Czech and 200 total for that with a booklet that will let you decipher the tour guide’s speeches. The castle is well worth the tour and is now on my top three list of castle tours. 

Orlik castle was the main manor of the noble Schwarzenberg family, who still wields power in the Czech government today. The house tour shows you the living period of the most famous of the Schwarzenbergs, Karl Philipp, who led the victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig. However, the man also served as the Austrian Ambassador to the French Empire and had been an acquaintance of the Corsican Fiend, even receiving the best gift you could receive from a friend: their own bust. The bust of the Little Corporal is on display in the gigantic lounge room, which is situated next to the dining room, by far the chambre sans pareil of the chateau. The room is paneled entirely of hand-carved wood, taking the master craftsman from the locality over four years to complete. The ceiling, the walls, everything. It’s truly a masterpiece of woodcarving and shouldn’t be missed by any fan of the trade, and it certainly makes the entire tour worth the price.

The next most interesting thing are the Halls of Terror (name is mine). In one hall are rows and rows of hunting guns, and in another, an unparalleled assemblage of animal heads. It seems that the Schwarzenberg family tradition was to provide a fresh gun for each guest and store the gun for later use by that guest, and they’d go out hunting in the immediate lands. The guns were all notched with their score and on the plate of each beast’s head was served the name of the hunter and date of the conquest. 

Orlik from the front

From Orlik, we went on the ferry down the Vltava. The schedule is on this site and costs 240 czk for a round trip. On board you can find beers by the can, so no need to come prepared, and there’s also a beer garden on the Orlik side.

Zvikov

Zvikov I’ve already written about as well. It’s a mystical little place with the ruins of an old fortress. The boat lands in the back, but it’s best to hurry on and walk through the place and pretend to walk in from the front, which is certainly the best way to enter, where you walk over a bridge that’s easy to imagine having once been a drawbridge. There are ruined towers galore here and a museum that’s well worth a visit—again, before I’d never taken the visit, but this time decided on it, as it was just 70 czk. 

Zvikov from the front

The first floor of the museum has a couple of art galleries and for the castle and history buff is a bit of a disappointment. It’s the second floor that makes the place shine, with the old wooden rooms and the stairs up to the top of the tower. Moreover, I learned about why the castle stopped being occupied. It once served as the storage facility of the crown jewels of the Bohemian King, an honor that was later transferred to Karlstejn. Part of the palace had crumbled down off the cliff, and this part included the royal bedroom of the King. Figuring that this wasn’t a good precedent—especially for his crown jewels—the King abandoned it and it declined in its usefulness.

The walls near the dock

The church of bones

Kutna Hora

I first visited Kutna Hora nearly six years ago, during my great trek across Europe. I went for a day trip from Prague with some mad Greek. We explored the ossuary and the two main churches, and then ended the day hidden in fog at the train station—I was trying to figure out which of those ancient electric trains to jump on to get home while he was trying to figure out how to score some weed from some neighborhood kids that were huddled nearby. Many years later, weed was decriminalized and I moved to Prague (the two are not actually related). It’s one of the most premiere tourist sites in Czech Republic and really, if you’re in Prague for three days, then you should take your time on one of those to visit the village. Why? Because there’s an ossuary there that’s filled with bone sculptures.

But don’t go just for the calcium craftsmanship, go also for the other two churches that are there. You can get a discount pass for the three attractions, which also includes the Cathedral of Our Lady and St. Barbara's. If you’re in for a really intensive day, you can visit the place where—I overheard one local tour guide saying—“is the place the Jesuits used to take poor Czech children and brainwash them with the mindless idiocy of Christianity”. As interesting as that sounds, I’d suggest skipping it and visiting the nearby Vlassky Dvur (the Italian Court) instead, which was an old mint and part-time royal residence, or to the Hradek, where you can tour a medieval mine.

Kutna Hora is a thousand-year-old village, which started with the founding of the Sedlec Monastery. Silver was discovered nearby and the place became an immediate attraction and it was soon a booming mining town, something that is not lost on visitors of St. Barbara's. It also became the site of the royal mint, where the Bohemian Kingdom would press its money.

Sedlec Ossuary

Sedlec Ossuary and the plague column

The last time I visited the ossuary was with my parents a few weeks ago. There seemed to have been going on a death metal festival nearby, as there were no limits to the numbers of darkly dressed Goth punk rockers wandering about, with lots of black, face makeup, black, purple, or dark red hair, and piercings. For a moment I had to remind myself I wasn’t in Finland. It seemed the perfect pilgrimage for such patriots of punk, given the theme of the place. Of course, the place itself doesn’t have such a dark history—there are no Draculas or Bathorys in the mix—just a bit of bizarreness that results when people take religion a bit too seriously. 

Sedlec Ossuary was originally the small cemetery of a Cistercian monastery founded in the 12th century, but it wasn’t really known as an ossuary until the Bohemian King Otakar II sent the abbot to go down to the Holy Land and check in on the peaceful folk making camp down there. When he came back, he brought some dirt from Jerusalem—as you do—and added it to the monastery. Before he knew it, it became the most popular place in all the land to be buried.

The chandelier and candle holders

Within 300 years, after the Black Death and a few wars, thousands of bodies had been buried in the tiny plot of land and something had to be done. They built a tomb in the middle and put to task a half-blind monk to take the scores of dead bodies and exhume them one at a time, so that they could have bare skeletons and make more room for the dead. 

It was in the the 1800s when they had the best idea. a member of the noble house of Schwarzenberg—still a prominent Czech family today, owning many a castle—had the brilliant idea to get more room there by making it into art. So they hired the woodworker Frantisek Rint and set him to work. He made a coat of arms, a chandelier, candle holders, and four gigantic pyramids of skulls and crossbones. A true marvel in the world, making the ossuary an absolutely unique place. 

The House of Schwarzenberg

Church of Our Lady

To be honest, the church itself is not that interesting. Being Cistercian, it was all bare and not decorative, not at all your typical Catholic Church of Central Europe, which tends to be gaudy and Baroque. The 14th century church—which suffered from a huge fire during the Hussite Wars and some 200 years of neglect—was restored in the 1700s but put into a plain, aesthetic form of the Baroque Gothic style. What’s interesting about Our Lady is that you can go up into the roof. During the latest 2001 restoration work, they decided to put in a walkway above the vaults from the choir loft to the back loft. This can be reached from the stairs just left of the altar and reliquary, and you can explore the tops of the vaults. 

The Church of Our Lady

St. Barbara's

If you’re driving, then the best way to get to St. Barbara's that includes a nice, scenic walk through the old town is to park at Morovy Sloup and to make sure you walk by the Vlassky Dvur (the Italian Court). If you're taking the train in or walking from Sedlec, this is really the only way. You can take a tour of the Vlassky Dur or continue on to a really cute pedestrian street where you can try a glass of the local wines or have a beer in a garden pub. Then continue your walk up to the GASK—the old Jesuit brainwashing chamber-turned museum—where you can check out some modern Czech art (this is the fourth place on the ticket deal, if you purchase all four). The restaurant just in front of the GASK is the best restaurant in town, with some killer duck and great prices. So eat there. The walkway alongside the GASK is stunning, with a nice view of a nearby hill, a creek, and a small stone wall lined with statues of the religious and royal famous.

The GASK and St. Barbara's

The construction of St. Barbara's, a church dedicated to the patron saint of mining, started in 1388, led by the son of the famous architect, Peter Parlor, who had designed St. Vitus in Prague. The church is one of the most interesting Gothic designs I’ve ever seen, with three green spires pointing upward from the central nave and flying buttresses surrounding almost the entire church. Inside can be seen many pieces dedicated to miners, from a statue of a miner himself, to paintings of the coat of arms for the miners and the pulleymen. They were two houses of the same guild apparently too, one for the guys digging, and one for the guys lifting up the stones. 

St. Barbara's

another Prague beer spa

Bathing in beer is something I imagine the gods taking time to do up there on Mount Olympus, next to drinking ambrosia and playing fatal games with mortals. So when at first I heard this could be done in Prague, I jumped on it and went with my wife to Spa Beer Land on Zitna. It was a good experience, but one thing let me down, I wouldn’t be bathing in actual beer. It was tepid water with some malt, barley, and hops added. Not quite the real thing. But with unlimited pours of beer and my beautiful wife, a good time was had anyway.

When my parents came to visit, it was a reason to celebrate. Another beer spa would be had, as a proper treat for any foreigner to this great land of Czechia. The two remaining beer spas to try in Prague were Spa Pramen—featuring a microbrew owned by Staropramen—and Prague Beer Spa Bernard. To tell you the truth, drinking Staropramen or Bernard didn’t really excite me. Neither did going downtown to Spa Bernard. But Spa Pramen was at the less trafficked area of Hradcanska—an easy ride on the green line metro—and was serving the aforementioned microbrew, from a small brewery out near Karlovy Vary. That would be the choice then.

At the front desk, we were greeted and brought down to our beer spa room. It was similar to the Spa Beer Land room—cozy, fireplace, two big wood tubs for two, and a large straw bed. The main difference here was that at Spa Beer Land, you got your own bathroom, whereas here at Pramen, you had to share the restroom. Since we were there with my parents, that wasn’t an overly big deal, but for anyone planning a romantic night, that might be an issue.

The biggest difference though was in the tub. They actually put several liters of dark beer in the tub, then water, and then a mix of malts, barley, and hops. While we were expecting some jets a bit sooner and they only finally turned them on after asking them again, they did apologize profusely and added another 15 minutes of time for soaking and drinking. Then we went upstairs where we had another beer and decompressed.

All-in-all, Spa Pramen got my recommendation when I was telling some Prague newcomers where to go.

The treasure of the Clementinum

View of the Castle from the Clementinum

There was a heavy knock at the door. Pavel was kicked out of bed by his wife, who whispered loudly to answer the door and it better not be Vasek coming home from the hospudka again! Pavel muttered something about his wife as he stumbled through the kitchen and opened the door. There in the hallway were two men in heavy monks’ robes, the hoods up so their faces were only deep shadows. Pavel was somewhat surprised and rubbed his eyes a bit before making out a groggy “Hello?”

“Pavel Krumlov?” one of the men asked.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

The other man was holding a small, cloth pouch, made from the same material as the heavy robes. He held it out for him to take. Pavel took it—it was heavy and clinked. Gold. At least as much that he needed to pay back that lender he owed.

“What’s this?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“We have more.”

“Do you?”

“We have a job for you.”

Pavel naturally accepted the job, as his masonry business had gone somewhat downhill. The men refused to say where the job was, but rather took his wrist and led him into the hall, down the stairs, and into the street. “You’ll have to wear this,” said one of the men, holding a blindfold to him. After a short sigh, he put on the blindfold and they led him around the streets of Prague, over the river, in circles around buildings, back over the river, in circles, around this building, that building, up a hill, down a hill. He was completely lost by the time that he heard a door open and he was led down some steps into a cellar. From the cellar, there was a dark passage that led to chest after chest after chest. Jewels and glittering things were on the ground, the light from their torch picked up and scattered, making the floor itself almost look like a precious object.

“What is this?” asked Pavel.

“You will make a wall here, and it will appear as if the wall was always here. Do you understand?” one monk said. “The materials are all here. There are bricks, mortar, spades. If you need anything, you tell one of us and we will get it for you. When you're done, we'll take you back a different way.”

Pavel understood. This treasure was to be hidden. One monk remained behind to watch Pavel as he worked through the night. He slept on a cot through the day. When he woke, there was a different monk and he kept working and working until his wall was perfected.

When he came home, with several more sacks of gold, he told his wife what had happened. “Do you think you can find the place?” his wife asked. They searched again and were never able to realize that his commission was from the Jesuits of the Clementinum. 

A bit of history

In 1773, the Empress Maria Theresa told the Jesuits to pack their bags and go—thinking this was only a temporary departure, as they had a perfectly functional relationship with Charles’ University, they had allegedly decided to store many of their treasures in a secret room somewhere on the campus. Maria Theresa had designs for her own functions though and the property was never returned to the religious order. Which means there’s still a room full of gold somewhere in the Clementinum. 

Inside the Observatory tower with bookshelf/ladder

The building standing in the heart of the Prague Old Town was built by the Dominicans in 1556 and reconstructed and developed into a full-scale university by the Jesuits in 1653. The complex spans over 2 hectares, making it one of the largest building complexes in Europe. It was used by several famous astronomers, notably Tyco Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Brahe was key in keeping most of the scientific community of the time—meaning the Jesuits—against the heliocentric theory, while Kepler would advance the early Copernican ideas and correct them, adjusting the planetary orbits into off-center ellipses, which was the main failure of Copernicus. Then he also wrote several books expounding how Christianity and the Bible allowed for a heliocentric theory, and he never made the famous Galilean mistake of calling the pope an idiot in any of his tomes. Pope Urban VIII at the time interestingly supported the heliocentric theory, but didn’t support being called an idiot. And so the Inquisition goes its way.

The King's Road

The Clementinum now stands alongside the “King’s Road”, the path of coronation for the old Bohemian Kings, and is thus on the direct route to the Charles’ Bridge from Old Town Square. It works still as part of Charles’ University, containing an immense library, and it also functions as a museum—preserving the library wing where Kepler and Brahe once worked, in the form that they had left it. You can tour the library and observatory tower and you can sign up for the tours in the inner courtyard. Don’t worry, it’s okay to walk around the courtyards, even though guards might be eyeing you while you do so. 

View from the Clementinum

The tour lasts for about 30 minutes, is sold out quickly, and doesn’t really take reservations, which means you need to show up about 30 minutes before the tour and buy your tickets then. The price is a whopping 220 crowns, but the view from the top and the fact that you are looking into the library where Kepler was working certainly makes it worth it, especially if you’re only in Prague once.

Olomouc - ecclesiastical metropolis and a proletarian clock

The main square at night

Though slightly disappointed in our hotel at Slatinice, we didn’t let that deter us from enjoying ourselves. First would be the ecclesiastical metropolis of Moravia, Olomouc, which can claim the best Communist astronomical clock in the world. Come for the clock, but stay for the Torture restaurant! 

Olomouc – where did all the Germans go?

The King takes a selfie

Olomouc has been around since Roman times, serving as a forward operating base against the German barbarians in the 2nd century. It was originally called Iuliomontus (or Mt. Julius), and eventually became a Slavic settlement in the 6th century and in the 9th century became a part of Great Moravia and became its religious center and capital, until the start of the next millennium when Brno stole the mantle of capital. It remained a religious center though, and as such, had very close ties to Germany and developed quite a large German population. During WWII, the city was strongly allied to Germany and somewhat proud of its occupiers, even renaming the town square in honor of Hitler. After WWII, the German population mysteriously vanished, the town declined and eventually turned into some sort of medieval college town, not unlike Krakow’s fate, just north of the Polish border.

One of the biggest clues to its fate was the odd atmosphere that we felt as we walked around. Despite the happening Easter market with the bizarre, Communist-sounding people’s choirs, the town was otherwise empty. Regular restaurants throughout the old town were fairly sparse, however the bars and kebab and pizza shops were plentiful. In all, it told me that story of endless fun during the school year nights.

A castle, or something like it

St. Maurice's

Olomouc’s castle is very similar to Prague’s in that you wouldn’t have realized you were in a castle until someone told you that you were. There are no walls, just a big square, a big church, and old palaces everywhere. The city itself was walled with a wet moat, though much of that has since disappeared. But doesn’t that deter you from going for a medieval experience. Some of the city walls still exist – and some even house dance clubs and coffee shops – and the entire place is something of a cobbled wonderland of churches and Baroque architecture. The two highlights of our short tour was the 15th century Church of St. Maurice, with its tower that’s crowned with battlements. I can’t find anything on why that style was chosen, though I do know off-hand that many Crusader orders decorated their churches back in Europe like this. Whether St. Maurice had any connection to the Templars or Hospitaliers though, I can’t say. Maybe the style was chosen as a dedication to their soldier saint patron. 

St. Maurice was originally born in Thebes, Egypt and became a Roman commander of the Theban Legion under the Emperor Maximian in the 3rd century serving in modern day Switzerland. As the Theban Legion was entirely composed of Christians, Maximian wanted to mess with them and issued the order that all soldiers must make sacrifices to pagan gods, but Maurice and his legion inexplicably refused. Maximian then ordered every 10 soldier to be killed, thinking that this would set his legion on the right and honorable path, but they still refused. So then, in one of the more extravagantly wasteful uses of soldierly ever in the history of the world, he had them all summarily killed and they legion of 6,600 soldiers set off to meet their Lord on that day without resistance.

Not your bourgeois movement

Stalin's favorite timekeeper

The next point of interest is the astronomical clock, which far outdoes the one in Prague for being awesome, decorative, and something that must have been in one of Vladimir Lenin’s wet dreams. People flock to the Orloj in Prague to see the giant medieval cuckoo clock where they can ooo and aahh and the saints passing by the windows and the skeleton marketing the time with a bell. But the real clock that people are missing is part of a giant socialist realist mosaic on the northeastern wall of the Town Hall. The clock used to be as cliché as the Prague one, but in 1945, as the Nazis were withdrawing, they did the Czechs one last favor and shot up the tower. After which, the clock was repaired and the little saints were replaced by hard working proletarians, with big hammers and scythes, and motions to depict the hard work of your everyday socialist (not those loafer versions you here Bernie talking about, real Socialists have to work for their free education!).

The clock has a seven-minute long chime and completely non-bourgeois dance and motion, and even marks the birthdays of Stalin and Lenin, and it also lets people know when it’s Labor Day. It also marks every saint day of the year, showing whose day it is on the green dial, with red markings whenever it’s a special Commie day and all the workers have to show up for some parade to show their solidarity.

Orthodox Torture

The Church at the end of the road

Another church of note in town is the pink and green, gold onion domed Orthodox Church of St. Gorazd, built in 1939, which crowns the road going to the East. St. Gorazd was born in Moravia and was originally a Catholic priest with an unhealthy interest in Saints Cyril and Methodius. During the time of the Czechoslovak First Republic, the Czechs and Slovaks were allowed complete spiritual freedom, and so many people left the Catholic Church to try and experiment with other ways of life, things previously outlawed like homosexuality, nationalism, and Orthodoxy. St. Gorazd then converted to the Serbian Orthodox Church and founded a new Czech branch, though when the Nazis came and occupied Czechoslovakia, the church administration shifted to Berlin. St. Gorazd was made famous when after the assassination of the Hangman of Prague, Reinhardt Heydrich, he helped the assassins make their getaway by hiding them in his cathedral. He was found out though and executed.

Inside the Torture Restaurant

Conspicuously on your way to the Orthodox Church of St. Gorazd, you pass by the Torture Restaurant. This was one of the only places we could find to eat that was open, so obviously seeing the title this was our choice. We descended down the wooden stairs – the rails were giant iron chains and the lights were glowing shrunken heads – and found ourselves in a huge dungeon. The bar was made of carved skeletons and dead bodies, and the decorations about the restaurant were of life-sized wood carvings of people getting tortured. Someone getting quartered there, on the rack over there, and before us a naked woman with her hands tied above her head, with only your imagination left to think of ways for her to get it. A classy joint indeed, my friends. The food wasn’t all that bad too, though the goulash was a touch fatty, the sauce did have a nice bit of spice. I’ve an Orthodox friend looking to get married in an Orthodox Church in Europe. It seems like St. Gorazd could have the ceremony and this restaurant would be the perfect reception.

a brief on Cesky Krumlov

Cesky Krumlov on a cold morning

My first visit to Cesky Krumlov was a romantic overnight stay last winter - and I've been back three times. Overnight with a lover is really the best way to see the beautiful crown jewel of South Bohemia. Cesky Krumlov is settled on the tight bends of the Vltava River with several scenic bridges spanning over the sanguine stream, and two large hills littered with cottages and Baroque blocks and one precipitous climb with a castle grasping on the ledges of granite. In the winter, when we were first there, the nights are quiet and the lights dot the darkness like candle flames, the reflection of the water flickering as the gentle wind blows. In the summer, during the days the streets are packed with tourists and the river crowded with kayakers, making their journey through the castle riddled hills of the Czech Republic. 

The night lights

The town and castle were founded in 1240 by the Vitkovci clan to protect an important trade route on the southern road leading from Prague to the Alps. The town was built in two stages. When the castle was built, the town Latran was built underneath it, mainly for the administrative staff and servants of the castle. As it expanded, it grew across the river to a “green meadow”, where no previous settlement had been. In fact, that expansion and term led to the name of Krumlov, which itself comes from the German for “crooked meadow”, or Krumme Aue – to Krumlau to Krumlov, "crooked" because of the river.

One branch of the Vitkovci, the House of Rosenberg, came to prominence and took over the castle. The Rosenbergs have a weird family history for Slavs, though it followed the fashion of the time. Many of the old Greek families traced their origins back to the gods, the Roman families often linked their families to the Greeks of myths (or the gods), and the medieval nobility linked their own to the Romans. The Rosenbergs linked their family to the Ursini family, who were said to have resided on Mons Rosarum (hence, Rosenberg). Ursa itself means bear, which led to the family deciding to take on the care of some friendly bears in their moat, a tradition that continues even today.

The crooked meadow

The House of Rosenberg came into decline, especially after several pricey renovations of their castles. Finally, in 1601, Peter Wok von Rosnberg had to settle his debts and sell the castle to Emperor Rudolf II Habsburg. Several wars and a Swedish occupation later, a future Emperor handed the property over to the Eggenberg family. The Eggenbergs died out and the property went where all properties in Bohemia eventually went, to the Schwarzenbergs.

Though Cesky Krumlov can be reached in 3 hours by a Student Agency bus and can be handled within a day, I’d recommend staying the night. Take some time to meander through the cobblestone alleys and streets, have some shisha in the Moroccan flavored Dobra Cajovna, and in general just enjoy the medieval beauty and atmosphere of the old town. Most of the restaurants there are delicious too – there’s always some fresh game at Rozmberska basta, while Kolectiv serves up a fine enough breakfast. For beer, there’s the local Eggenberg brewery which has been supplying the town with brews for the past 500 years.

A Paval work

There are three main attractions in the city. For those of you liking castle tours, the Cesky Krumlov castle is one of the best (the best in the area is in Hluboka, if you can, go there for the tour). Even better though is what’s literally underneath the castle. Within the old wine and storage cellars (and perhaps dungeons?), there is now housed a museum of statues by the Czech artist Miroslav Paval. His work looks like Rodin slipped on a Freudian banana peel and came out with a sexualized statue representation of Dali’s paintings. Which is to say, in a word, awesome. Though most plaques accompanying the scuptures of perverse, mutated figures with seemingly anal fixations have right out political descriptions, one takes notice that there must be something else going on inside of Paval’s mind. However, I still like what he has to say, such as on his statue “Guardian of the Intestines”:

“Up to that point, they were used to living in socialism, ie to go once per year to the Baltics for holidays, to have free weekends, to work only eight hours per day. After the change of regime they suddenly found out they had not enough free time. Successful entrepreneurs stared spending most of their time with their good-looking secretaries and soon after divorced their wives. They used unfair business practices as part of their strategies to be successful. What started to appear in society can be called a new form of aggression – my territory, my carrion, my intestines.”

Lastly not to be missed is the Egon Schiele museum. Mostly the museum has local and national modern Czech artists. But as you get lost in the bizarre layout of the winding corridors, you find a large collection of Ex Libris plates, chocked full of art nouveau occult symbols, and then up finally to the namestake of the house: Egon Schiele’s rooms. There are mostly copies of his work with a few originals, and some of his clothes, along with texts about his life. Schiele was a protégé of Gustav Klimt and spent much of his life in Cesky Krumlov, where his grandmother was from. Most of his art looks starved and deranged and features an almost melting quality, as if the skin and the souls of his subjects were under and intense and putrefying heat. His best works are his nudes, which look like vapid connections to their representations, with hollowed husks of hips and emptied, sagging breasts.

If you only have a day to hit Cesky Krumlov, then do it. But try at most to spend the night and see everything the town has to offer. There’s plenty to do there and around.

a dessert of dreams

The trdelnik "chimney"

There was a great disturbance in the Internets when the monster of pastries in the picture was released the other day. Cyberspace exploded and the shockwaves passed through the comments section of many silly tourists thinking they know the true history of the thing. “Oh, that’s so common in Budapest and can only be found there!” said one. “You can only get those at Christmas in Vienna!” said another. Well, I’m here to set the record straight. Living here in Prague, I can tell you all about those amazing little spirals of sugar and thinly sliced walnut covered dough.

A modified trdelnik cooker

Here in Prague, the treat is interchangeably called trdelnik and trdlo, which are both equally impossible to pronounce. It has its modern roots in the Slovak town of Skalica, where in the 18th century the Hungarian general, Jozsef Gvadanyi, decided to retire. A poet and philosopher, he had a clear sweet tooth, which was reflected when he hired a Romanian chef from Transylvania who brought the dish with him. In Skalica, the locals refined the treat and gave it its name. The name comes from the tool which is used to cook it – a metal chimney that the dough is wound around. It’s then placed and rotated over a coal pit until the dough is golden brown, after which they remove the pastry and dip it in sugar and sliced walnut mix. The treat is available year around in Prague and many other locales – especially in the Czech Republic and Slovakia – though in other places like Vienna it might be an only seasonal dish. It costs anywhere from 1 euro to 2 depending on what part of town you’re in. The two best trdelnik stands that I’ve found are on Na Porici, near the Mustek metro station, and at Malastranska Square in front of the tram stop. In most places they also cover it in Nutella for a few crowns more.

Good Food and the line

Recently though, a place has been serving a new variation of trdlo (pictured above). Seeing the sudden immense popularity of it, and that the trdlo is one of my and my wife’s favorite winter treats, we decided to go and investigate this Bavarian bounty of dulcitude. As we approached Charles Bridge walking down Karlova street, we saw many people with all sorts of delicious variations of it. Our excitement was growing. When we found the place that was serving it, Good Food Coffee & Bakery, at Karlova 160/8, we found a line that seemed to go on for some one hundred meters. We jumped in and got lucky, many people gave up and wandered off.

We found that Good Food had modified the design of the trdelnik to make it into a cone so that various things can be put inside. They have the standard “chimney” option, which is filled with ice cream, and they also have a strudel option, with apples, walnuts, and raisins, as well as one with strawberries and cream. Most of the options are from 80 to 120 crowns.

To be honest though, after tasting it, I couldn’t figure out what the fervor was all about. The pastry itself was not the best I’ve had – which can be found at the above places – and the soft serve ice cream was pretty substandard. The popularity seemed to be based off the pure novelty of the product rather than the actual thing itself, and the fact that all these tourists probably didn’t realize that there were trdelniks everywhere for much cheaper and with far better flavor.

a Prague beer spa

Beer time!

 There are few better ways to spend a Valentine’s Day than soaking in an oak tub of tepid barley malt, drinking bottomless beers from a private tap, and staring in the face and other places of your dearest loved one. Then, after the bath, a literal romp in the hay – there’s a hay bed in the opposite corner. The smell is great, recounting one of simpler days of farms, pitchforks, and 12 babies needed to beat the high infant mortality rates and constant pillaging by the folks of the neighboring barony. It’s a growing fad in Prague, the beer spas not pillaging that is – completely alien to most Czechs as soaking in a tub of a beer-like mixture doesn’t happen to be one of the parts of their ancient hop boiling culture. However, it’s certainly something that should catch on. 

There are three or four different beer spas in Prague. When I first learned of a beer spa, I imagined it as though you would soak in a tub of near boiling beer, in a position where you could nearly and actually drink your own bathwater, while also downing the cold stuff out of a tap. So when we arrived at the Spa Beerland on Zitna street, this was the impression that I had had. I was also under the impression that the price of the spa might also include that blond in the picture with the huge tracts of land, but – unfortunately for all you English blokes reading this blog and trying to figure out ideas for your next stag party – it doesn’t.

The entry has a huge wall of souvenirs and a self service tap in the middle of the room. If you’re a bit early for your appointment, or they need a few minutes to prep your room, then you are free to grab a glass and start your guzzling. Then the lady will show you down the stairs into the dungeon of some hotel, where they have two rooms situated for the most ingenious of all spa visits. Room one, which we took, had the hay bed and two tubs for two people each, with each tub having its own tap. The slightly more expensive room 2 had three tubs, a sauna, and a hay bed. Certainly on my next visit, that might have to be the choice.

Now, I was a bit surprised when the lady picked up different baskets of powders – barley, malt, and hops powder. “Smell this,” she said on each one, explaining what they were. Then she put them into the tubs that were filled with steaming water and stirred. What? We weren’t going to be soaking in beer?! And then she went on about how all this stuff softens your skin or some other not interesting BS that’s dished out for the ladies. It’s really a great marketing technique – men don’t really have to be convinced to go to a beer spa, but they might have to convince their ladies. “It has magical properties that soften your skin!” 

Pouring some to-go glasses

She left. We had our own private bathroom, so using the restroom after disrobing wasn’t a problem. Also they left some “beer bread”, which was probably just made from the same stuff normal bread is made from, barley and wheat. It was good bread, especially after drinking twenty or so liters of beer. Then we got in the tub and soaked it all in, having this all-you-can-drink contest for the next one hour. The place cost about 1,150 crowns a person and I’m pretty sure I cleared at least half of that in my consumption. Then we had a romp in the hay and a bite of beer bread. When our time was up, we had seven minutes to get dressed and get out, which allowed us time to fill up another glass. And since when we got back to the lobby, we hadn't time to empty our glasses, we sat down to finish them. Naturally, I finished them faster than the old lady, so I refilled my glass again without a problem.

It was almost the perfect Valentine’s Day, and there will be definitely a repeat visit the next time we have special guests in town.

We returned home and remembered we were entertaining guests from out of town - a whole family of them. Time to pretend not to be drunk! But at least we had soft skin.

on tepidariums, prison towers, and catacombs

View of Zdikov from our room

For my birthday, I wanted to splurge a bit for my weekend getaway with my wife. Of course, splurging in the Czech Republic doesn’t mean much – 70 bucks gets you a full service castle retreat, complete with swimming pool and sauna. Since we were planning on skiing that day, the sauna would have been a great addition, a nice place to cozy up for some time and sweat out all the aches and pains built up for a day on the slopes. Given the weather though, there were no aches and pains since there was no snow on the slopes. But saunas are always nice anyway, so why the heck not? 

Upon finding a tepidarium there, I immediately went for the tepidarium. I, like probably most people reading here, didn't know what the heck a tepidarium was, hence my marvel and eagerness to check it out. A tepidarium was an old Roman hobby, a place in the bathhouse that was heated up by its proximity to the boilers for the main baths. Men would go down and have some bonding time, scraping each others dirt off their backs with sharp rocks and talk about man stuff like who got murdered near the Forum and what barbarians are going to attempt an invasion this time. You know, man stuff. The tepidarium at the schlosshotel, located in what once was the carriage house, is a two seated place full of Roman mosaic tile. You get to sit and sweat for an hour, where you're pretty happy to finally leave that weird form of relaxation torture therapy and go grab a could drink.

The sitting room in Zdikov

The Schlosshotel Zdikov Zamek is located about a 10-minute drive from Kasperske Hory, where there’s a nice collection of bunny hills for beginners to ski and learn on. It’s also just on the edge of the foothills of the Alps, next to the scenic Sumava Forest National Park - great hiking for anyone so inclined during the summer. Zdikov itself, the village where the schlosshotel was located, seemed to have existed solely for the purpose of supporting the castle and hasn’t grown much since the castle’s construction in 1395 – though there is now a bowling alley, according to the large sign across the street. The Schlosshotel, originally a castle of a local lord, was converted into a school after the revolution and remained so until the fall of the Communist regime, when it was privatized in the 90s and converted into a hotel, which is now a member of the Schlosshotels & Herrenhauser group. Not only does it have fully modernized and well-sized rooms, but also a medieval sitting room and an excellent restaurant decorated with hunting trophies and a crackling fire.

Our trek would continue the following day. Prague’s beauty has many rivals throughout the Czech countryside, and anyone who would praise Bavaria for their villages would do well to rent a car and take some trips throughout the Czech countryside, which is littered with beautiful villages and towns, one after the other, until the traveler is quite confused on how so many amazing little places can exist.

the Black Tower and Jesuit church of Klatovy

The next town we hit was Klatovy. Klatovy was founded in 1260 by the Iron and Golden King, Ottokar II of Bohemia. The younger son of the Bohemian King, Ottokar was quite into drinking and hunting and was living quite the lavish and comfortable life that only a nobleman could live in those days. However, he had to unhand the wenches and put down his drinking vessels when his older brother unfortunately died, making him the unhappy heir. He was suddenly thrust into responsibility, trying to repair the kingdom from past Mongol raids, when the noblemen convinced him to lead a rebellion against his father, the King. This led him to being imprisoned and excommunicated, a double whammy of medieval whooping. After some meditation while in prison, he decided to make up with his father, who later restored his rights of inheritance.

As King, Ottakar II was the second most powerful Czech to rule within the Holy Roman Empire, with lands stretching all the way to Trieste on the Adriatic coast. As he couldn’t quite win the election to the highest seat - as Charles IV did - he slipped historically and couldn’t quite hold it up to the other, much more well-known name. He did at least get enough fame to make it to a place in Purgatory in Dante’s Divine Comedy, so that’s something.

The old Klatovy wall and a bastion

Klatovy has a fairly large, preserved old town, with pieces of the town wall still extant. As it was placed to defend a primary trade route in the region, it quickly became a center of wealth and power and was one of the richest towns in Bohemia by the 16th century. However, like most things in Europe that was big back then, it came to an end with the 30 Years War, which was a kind of medieval World War II, changing the face of Europe and the style of diplomacy and warfare forever. Around the town square, there are numerous cafes, the Black Tower – a prison tower built in 1555 – and a huge Jesuit church with catacombs underneath. Naturally, we decided to tour the catacombs. 

Besides getting to see some 30 well-preserved bodies that once walked around some 400 years ago, you also get a great deal of reading about the history of the Jesuits and general history about the area. Even more interesting was the details on the construction of the catacombs and how the ventilation was created to keep the atmosphere and temperature at a good level for the proper and natural mummification of the bodies whose dark grinning leathery faces lie staring at you. To think of the technology they had back then, what marvels people developed before the advent of electricity. Now all of our building structures tend to be monolithic wastes of resources, sucking in millions of dollars on air-conditioning systems that were designed to be mostly free to maintain hundreds of years ago. Electricity has made us lazy indeed.

water castles and ravagings

Blatna Castle

The goal of the weekend was to take my wife skiing at a beginner slope to help her learn. We wanted something not so far from Prague and something a little romantic, so the idea was to find a nice bed and breakfast, or castle as it goes, to stay in somewhere near a ski resort. The place I came up with was Kasperske Hori. My mistake, I’ll admit, was thinking that in the beginning of February, ski conditions should be pretty ripe. But then was the week long heat spell, a sort of savage Indian summer that reaped its way into the deep winter, with temperatures going past 40 all the way up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit (for non-Americans, read that as somewhere around 10-20 degrees Celsius). By the time we drove to South Bohemia, there was not a flake or patch of snow in sight, despite Kasperske Hori even having snow-making technology. When it’s that warm, it ceases to be even worth it trying to crank up those blowers. 

We only had to make some minor adjustments. As we set out, I decided that we should hit up some random towns that I hadn’t heard of before and see what views we could see, before hitting our final destination of the Schlosshotel Zdikov Zamek. We’ve already seen the mainstay of the region – Cesky Krumlov, and been there a number of times, so why not try something different and less touristic?

Blatna

Our first stop then was Blatna. The town dates back to somewhere in the 13th century as a chapterhouse town of the Knights Templar, though what’s left of the old town seems to be only a few streets with two quite nice walking arcades – it was burned down completely in the 1800s. From the two arcades, which are linked together by a huge tower and a church, you can walk down to the “water castle”. Blatna gets its name from the Czech word for “marsh”, and once you’re at the church with a view of the castle, you can see why. There is indeed a marsh surrounding the castle, with a beautiful walking trail going through the marsh, and plenty of places to jump around and find weird spots for a picnic. The castle itself, being once a chapterhouse of the Knights Templar, is home to many legends, including one about a Templar treasure being hidden either in the castle or somewhere nearby. It’s last renovation turned it into an English Gothic manor, so that the main tower looks something like an English cottage. The true beauty of the place though is the Rozmitalsky Palace, a decaying, falling apart manor that’s nearly as tall as the tower, with dark stones and beautifully huge windows and an amazing wood terrace that has a great view of the marsh and surrounding park. 

Rabi Castle

Our next stop was Rabi Castle, which is the largest castle ruins in the Czech Republic – and a place I admittedly had never heard of before. Construction at the castle began in the 13th century and it reached its full height in the 1500s. It was the site of some major battles during the Hussite rebellion, with the famous one-eyed Jan Zizka – after which the Zizkov district in Prague was named – taking the castle and losing his other eye there. For most of its tenure as a strategic place, it was held by the Rosemburg family, who also held the castle at Cesky Krumlov in the early years. During the 30 Years War, that terrible period when everyone was quite confused on German lands and much of the European kingdoms decided to traipse about and take advantage of the local Slavic ladies, the castle was ultimately destroyed by Ernst Graf von Mansfeld from Luxembourg, who changed sides more times than one hand can count. 

The entry of Rabi Castle

After Mansfeld’s ravaging, the Hapsburg emperor decided that Rabi didn’t need to be a castle anymore and that the place would be illegal to be repaired. Since then, it’s been left to the pickings of local villagers, with the limestone especially being useful in building houses. It became a local landmark in 1920, and has been something of a museum and site for medieval festivals ever since.

Unfortunately, when we were there, the castle was closed up for winter, with the locals, I assume, not realizing that there would be a purpose of having it open in what is usually a snow covered season. It’s now on our list of places to go back to though.

Kasperske Hori

The final stop before our own ravaging of a castle was the town of Kasperske Hori itself. Where we should have stopped for coffee was Susice, quite an established town that ran the length of the River Otava. If we do this trip again, that will be the next plan, as Kasperske Hori wasn’t that overwhelming of town, which is to say, it was a bit underwhelming. It has the ski resort, and it does have a beautiful main square, but that was about it. Though the cafe in that yellow building on the right has some great blueberry cake.

From Kasperske Hori, it was only a 10-minute drive, which brought us finally to Zdikov Zamek just as the sun was setting.