Author: Chris

On our final day of this trip we took another tour with Lenka from Brno Day Trips, this time to the Punkva Caves which lie just north of Brno.  This region is known as the Moravian Karst, which is a vast area of limestone filled with underground streams, caves and gorges. and is considered the birthplace of modern spelunking.  Of all the caves in this region, Punkva Caves is considered the most scenic, and gets the most attention.  The sign at the entrance gives an overview of the cave system.  Please note the large depression in the forest, as that will come up later in this post.

Upon entering the cave your first stop is called The Front Dome.  This is the first section of cave that was discovered back in 1909.  This part of the cave system extends 810 meters.

The second stop is Mirror Lake, and I really can’t put my finger on why they called it that?  Those little glints in the water are from people throwing in money.

About halfway through this section you head up some stairs and they have markers on the cave wall depicting where the water level reached during historical flooding.  By the way, it was good to have Lenka along to interpret for us, as the guide only spoke Czech.

Just past the markers is an area that is now dry, so there are no new cave formations being made.  This one stalactite and stalagmite got so close!

Here is a closer view.  The guides have named this pair Romeo and Juliet, as they will never find their way to each other.

Just past Romeo and Juliet, near the end of the first section of the caves, is The Curtain.

You then walk out of a doorway and into the Mococha Abyss, a gorgeous hole in the ground!

This depression was caused by a large cave collapse that happened thousands of years ago.  I had to shoot a video of the area.

We then entered the second section of Punka Caves, where we boarded electric boats for a ride along the subterranean Punkva River.  It was like something right out of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride.

Boat rides on this river opened to the public in 1933, so maybe Walt Disney actually visited?

This ride would never have passed muster in the United States.  You literally had to duck and lean over to avoid the cave ceiling and walls as the boat made its way along the river.  The river has sections that are 40 meters deep, so the bulk of this part of the cave system is underwater.  This section of the Punkva Caves is 440 meters long.

The boat stops for a brief side journey on foot into another set of caves, known as Masaryk’s Dome.  This section of the caves was discovered by accident when the military was trying to drill through the rocks to reach a different chamber.  The lake in here is the one that should be called Mirror Lake!

Just past the lake is a beautiful cornucopia of cave formations!  This was definitely the most impressive part of the Punkva Cave tour.

About 200 meters later, you are back into daylight.  A very cool trip, and well worth the half day trip from Brno!

The next morning we took the train to Vienna, and stayed next to the airport since we had an early morning flight.  We had planned to eat dinner in the hotel, but we had walked around the airport and there is a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the airport.  It’s also one of the highest rated restaurants in Vienna, so decided to eat there.  Their wine list is impressive, and their stemware is even more impressive.  A Chapoutier wine in an airport is a first for me!

That’s a wrap for this trip.  Our next adventure is Norway and Denmark this August.  Until then, as usual, if you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Whenever we travel to another country, I always try to fit in a visit to that countries wine region.  In the Czech Republic, that region is known as Moravia, and it lies in the southeast of the country.  Brno is the historical capital of Moravia.  I hired a guide, Lenka, from Brno Day Trips, so we could drink wine and not worry about driving, which is a good thing based on how many wines ended up being available to taste!

As part of the tour we visited the “Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape”, a UNESCO World Heritage site that sits right on the border with Austria.  The entire area is over 109 square miles, filled with landscaping based on English parks, complete with huge lakes and various small buildings, as well as a castle and a chateau.   The first stop was at the stunning Lednice Castle, dating from the 14th century, and rebuilt in the Gothic Revival style in the mid 1800’s.

The Dukes of Liechtenstein transformed the vast property between the 17th and 20th centuries, making it into one huge private park.  We toured a portion of the gardens around Lednice Castle.  They had the largest greenhouse I think I’ve ever seen, at least from this time frame.

The entrances to the greenhouse are beautiful!  I’m sure I’ve seen this in a movie at some point.

There is even a subterranean portion of the greenhouse, with these windows on the ground which allowed sunlight to reach the tops of huge palm trees that they would move underground in the winter.  Apparently cost was not an issue for these people!

We ran into several interesting characters in the park.  One guy had brought his rare chickens to the park to show them off.  Our son Fletcher said the completely black chicken actually lays black eggs.

The view of Lednice Castle from the rear is just as impressive.

The Liechtensteins had a minaret built on the property, not for religious purposes but because they liked the architectural style.  It is 203 feet high and serves as a viewing tower.

We then drove towards the other end of the huge property to visit the Valtice Chateau, which served as the home of the royal Liechtensteins from 1249 to 1939.  This chateau, castle and and all of the land have an interesting WWII history.

The Liechtenstein family opposed the annexation of this territory into the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany, so the Nazis confiscated the property, and the family relocated to Vaduz in 1939, in what is now the small country of…you guessed it…Liechtenstein!  After WWII ended, the family was classified as German so they could not get their property back.  The family has made several legal attempts to have the property returned, to no avail.  It has been the property of the Czech state since communism ended in 1989.

The purpose of our visit was to go down into the Wine Salon in the chateau’s cellar to taste some Czech wines.

The “Salon of Wines of the Czech Republic” is an annual wine competition, judged by the country’s sommeliers, to come up with the best 100 wines of the year.  Each of those 100 wines is available to taste!  Holy crap, what an experience!

The wines are in no particular order, sorted by varietals, and numbered 1 to 100.  There are 85 whites, 10 reds, 2 sparkling, 2 roses and 1 liqueur.  Where to start??  How about at number 1!

There is nobody there to assist you or pour for you.  You do it all on your own.  I’m not entirely sure how many wines I tried, but there was no way I was going to try all 100!  Our guide pointed out a few of her favorites, but in the end we probably tried somewhere in the range of 30-40 wines.  I think Kim stopped at 20 or so.  Each wine had a full set of statistics to read over.  Number 32 was a nice Pinot Gris, and only 14.13 euros!

That’s our guide Lenka looking for Kim’s next wine.  I can’t imagine this concept in the United States.  Every Bachelorette party would have the bus stop here and they’d have to be carried out!

Out of all of the wines we tasted, there were actually a few standouts.  There were also a few that were blah.  The sparkling wines were terrible…maybe stick to what you know?  Regardless, this was an excellent visit, and I highly recommend it if you are traveling in the area.

The below map identifies the various wine regions in the country, and makes it clear the bulk of their wine comes from the southwest in Moravia, with a smattering of small regions in the Bohemian region near Prague.

After our intensive tasting, we visited the cute little town of Mikulov, which is surrounded by vineyards.  If we were to stay in Moravia for a few days during a future trip, this would be the place, as it’s got a great small town feel to it, with plenty of hiking trails in the surrounding hills.  We also saw quite a few people riding their bikes to the various tasting rooms in the area.  It has almost an Italian feel to it.

We took a stroll around the Mikulov Chateau.  While the original chateau was built in 1249, it was reconstructed to it’s present appearance after a fire in 1719.  In 1945, during the retreat of the German army, the chateau was burned to the ground.  It was reconstructed in 1950, so it’s a fairly new building.

The view from the top of the trail around the chateau is exceptional.  The hill on the other side of the town is called Holy Hill, and has 14 pilgrimage churches on top.  I wish we had the time to hike up, but more wine awaited!

Our last visit was to a small winery just outside of Mikulov.  I forgot to take photos of the winery, but Kim shot one of this dog that became my best friend when I let him have a piece of charcuterie.  Apparently dogs like meat!

Up next, we spend a day exploring an amazing set of caves in the Moravian countryside.