Long-Winded...

We'll start at the very beginning - a very good place to start...

On Wednesday at 8 am, our entire KIIS Prague group loaded up on a tour bus to adventure to Southern Bohemia on a 3-day excursion. After a two-hour ride, we arrived in:



Tabor, a town known for three things: being the home of Jan Hus and the Hussite revolution (an early Protestant group), a gigantic series of catacombs (which we toured, see picture), and a cukarna (or sweetshop). We were unable to visit the Jan Hus Museum, due to time constraints, but made time to visit both the others - would Jess miss a sweetshop?


(Catacombs)

After the catacombs, we went to another local site, Klokoty, a pilgriamage church frequented by early Catholics and still visited to this day. It was up a huge hill on which there were stations of the cross (something about hills here and stations of the cross - see Petrin Hill post - Golgatha representation?):



At the top of the hill, there was a giant field, and we felt like we were in "The Sound of Music":



Klokosty was beautiful, very quaint and calm.


(Amazing!)


(for you readers)


(for you Czech readers)


(mischevious Zach looking for a bathroom)

After Klokoty, we walked back down the hill, not nearly as bad as the way up, and rewarded ourself with SWEETS! The sweet shop in town was the best place ever - delicious and cheap - and there were no problems with knowing what we were eating:


(Tiramisu)


(Domino cake)

After we all loaded up on sugar, we loaded up on the bus to move on to our next stop, Budjevice...

On the way, everyone had a sugar crash.


(Especially Zach)

Budjevice is a southern Czech town where the ORIGINAL Budweiser is produced. Not at all related to the Anheuser-Busch breed, this Budweiser was first brewed in the 1500's and is now a nationalised beer. We tried some, it was okay, but not worth a trip through the factory and what not... (roll ACME theme from "Looney Tunes"):


(huge vats)


(bottling machines)


(more machines)


(from the tap)

Another hour-long bus ride took us to Cesky Krumlov, our destination for Thursday and Friday night. This small town is home to the second largest castle in the Czech Republic, after Przasky Hrad - Prague castle- but it is a castle done in a much different style. Instead of being gothic and imposing, it is a bit more "friendly" having been painted in the Rennaissance:


(it's pink)

We got a small intro. to the town from an expat living in the area, then ate dinner. After dinner, we walked around for a bit, and took some pictures of the town and its environs:


(Cesky Krumlov's valley position)




(awwwww...)


(castle at night)

On Thursday morning, we took a tour of the castle with our group. Outside of the castle, there were


CUTE BEARS!

Apparently, instead of filling their moat with water, the Rozumbergs (sp?) who once owned the cstle decided to get some bears. Now, the town carries on the tradition of the bear moat, making two bears completely miserable for their entire adult lives just for our tourist pleasure. But, they were cute, and we saw some cats running around with them which led us to this question...


Are these cats the delicacies mentioned here? Or are housecats typical bear-food and the staff is merely trying to "vary the meals" a bit?

The tour was great, but we both held objection to the Rennaissance style of the castle. The entire thing was painted in the sgraffiti style, meaning that no real statues or bricks or windows exist in most parts of the castle. Instead, these details were painted on by later owners (we think they're just cheapskates) - we'd post pictures, but none were allowed. Nonetheless, the tour was interesting. After the tour we walked to the castle gardens, where we ate lunch. There was this gorgeous fountain:



Then we had fun around town, pretending to be bears ourselves, only more specific types of bears:


(dancing bear Zach)


(Karate bear Zach)


(full belly Jess)

We then walked through the rest of town, stopping in at the Egon Schiele museum (again, no pictures allowed). It was great. Schiele is one of Zach's favorite artists, and there was also an exhibit of Keith Harin's (sp?) work. We took some more pictures:


(town church)


(river that wraps around town)

Then got some coke at a dimly lit restaurant


(glowing Coca-Cola Light)

Friday morning we left early for Mariz, where we got to eat at a small restaurant and then paint some pottery. Zach's and Jess' were both disappointing, but our future-U.S.-ambassador-friend Ken was a bit more successful:


(hooray for U.S. - Czech relations!)

Then we took the bus to the middle of nowhere, where we were told to get out with no explanation and walk into the woods (our director is not a big "explainer"). It being Friday the 13th, we were a bit leary of walking into the woods, but we went nonetheless, and all was fine. We were simply visiting an abandoned Jewish graveyard from the 16th century.







We walked out of the forest and took the bus a few miles down the road to a Monastery that wasn't opened, and was not all that pretty:



(Jess' note: why take a group of students from Kentucky to a monastery when one of the most beautiful in the world - Gethsemanie - is located so close to home?)

Finally, we made it to our last destination, Telc.

Here there were scary statues:


And pastel buildings:


We ate a quick dinner before boarding the bus one last time and returning to Prague. It's good to be back to our Hostel Home-away-from-Home. Today we just got a few things together, studying a bit and writing journal entries for our poli-sci class. It got warmer here in Prague - hot, even - a drastic change from last week and from Cesky Krumlov, where pants and long-sleeves were essential.

After our travels, we feel super-cool:


'Til next time,

Jess + Zach