Weekend 2: Český Krumlov
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| Map of Český Krumlov |
Saturday, September 9th
We had to meet Jana at 8:50am at hlavní nádraží, Prague's main train station. We were going on a hike before checking into the hotel, so we could only bring what would fit in our backpack. This wasn't difficult, but my school backpack definitely wasn't the ideal hiking bag.
We got off the metro at Mustek and tried to walk to the train station, but got a bit turned around when we ended up on a sidewalk in the middle of the highway. Christine and I realized we needed to take a flight of stairs into a tunnel under the highway -- glad we figured that out before trying to run across it.
When we got to the train station, we couldn't find Jana. Turns out she was waiting at the metro stop below the station, and that's when we realized we could've taken the metro all the way there. You live and you learn.
Jana showed us a few memorials in the train station dedicated to Nicholas Winton, who was a British man responsible for saving 669 Jewish children during the Holocaust by arranging for them to be sent to England in an operation now known as the Czech Kindertransport. You can watch a very popular, and incredibly moving, video of him meeting some of the children here. The monuments were beautiful and I think perfectly encapsulate the heartbreak the children and their families experienced.
I look at monuments and memorials differently after my art history capstone, Art and the Holocaust, where we spent a large portion of the class discussing different memorials and their effectiveness. I find the Holocaust memorials I've seen in the Czech Republic to be much more impactful than any in the United States because they are standing in the place where the events they are dedicated to occurred.
We then headed to the train, which was cool because we had our own room like they do in Harry Potter and a man came around selling things from a trolley.
I know this entire semester is going to be difficult to write about because I'm experiencing all these new, exciting things while surrounded by the sad reality of the past. I want to include things like Terezín and the memorials to Nicholas Winton, and I don't want their importance to be undermined by humor or Harry Potter references. Even now, I'm questioning whether I should include it at all. It feels disrespectful to write about something like the Czech Kindertransport and then about the fun I had over the weekend, but I believe that it would be more disrespectful not to include it at all. I want my blog to reflect my experience, so I may go from serious topics to joking around and I don't want to feel guilty or insecure that anyone will interpret it inaccurately. The main reason I decided to do a blog this semester is to record my experience to look back on in the future and I'm working on not being overly-conscious that there are people reading it.
We arrived in Český Krumlov to have an authentic lunch at an old-timey restaurant. Jana told us it's been left mostly unchanged since the Communist era and they usually don't have menus, they just let you know what's available that day. We tried Malinovka, a popular raspberry drink, and I had the best fried cheese so far.
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| The Český Krumlov train station |
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| At lunch |
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| My lunch |
We then took the regional train to Holubov where we started our beautiful 5km hike to the Dívcí Kámen castle ruins. We learned about the legend of the cold dwarf and his tiny musical instruments and then hiked to catch the train back to Český Krumlov.
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| Dívcí Kámen castle ruins |
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| At the Dívcí Kámen castle ruins |
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| Most visitors leave like this :) |
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| About a cold dwarf |
After checking into the hotel, we got dinner at a medieval-ish restaurant and took a night-time gelato stroll.
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| Medieval-ish dinner |
Sunday, September 10th
We had a walking tour of the town in the morning and learned about its history and famous families. There's some sort of legend about one of the families where the men are buried somewhere else, but their hearts belong to Český Krumlov, so there are seven hearts in the basement of one of the town's churches, which I love for them.
We also visited the castle, which has a bear moat. It's less of a moat and more like one of the Cleveland Zoo bear exhibits, but I feel better about it ethically because these bears were rescued and couldn't be returned to the wild. I also think it's interesting how renaissance artists and architects were so obsessed with symmetry that they painted windows to mirror the actual windows instead of just building the castle with symmetrical windows in the first place.
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| Lunch time for the bears |
We got lunch at Papa's, and I had another fire meal of tomato soup and kiwi and lemon soda. I love that Czech's love soup because I also love soup so there's a lot of soup here for me to love. I'm also intrigued by the lemonade phenomenon; the term limonády translates to lemonade, but refers to any sort of sparkling, soda beverage. At some places, this includes cola.
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| Lunch time for the humans |
We had free time in the afternoon to stroll the streets. I stopped in the Museum of Commerce because it was free and also had a lot of vintage packaging that I love as a design person. I even learned that the modern cash register was invented in Ohio. I wasn't surprise, just blown away that I learned that 4,338 miles from home.
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| Museum of Commerce |
We met back up with Jana in the afternoon to get the bus back to Prague. I really appreciate these API activities because Jana makes sure we get familiar with a variety of things we will encounter or utilize throughout the semester, like both the train and bus systems. It's still a little intimidating to try and navigate on my own, but I feel much better equipped and am hoping to plan a few day trips!