Petersontravels

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.

 

 

We drove from Cesky Krumlov to Brno, the second largest city in the country, and had to stay off the main freeway due to construction.  This really slowed us down, so it was a long driving day.  Just outside Brno we encountered traffic that would make LA look tame….so many trucks!!  I was happy to return the car to Hertz!

We stayed at the beautiful Grandezza Hotel, with an excellent view over the Market Square.

After checking in we went over to one of Brno’s main attractions, what every European city has, ABC, which stands for Another Beautiful Church.

This is the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul.  I don’t remember running across a Cathedral named after two different saints.  I guess they couldn’t decide which one to honor?  I do love the stonework of the facade.

The first building at this site was a Romanesque rotunda, built in 1170.  The most recent rebuild in 1909 added the two distinctive towers.  This church has an interesting history that affects Brno to this day.

Back in 1645, during the Thirty Years War, the Swedish (I didn’t even know they had a military, and I’m part Swedish) attacked Brno and laid siege to the city.  On the final day of battle, an agreement was reached between the two generals leading each side, that if the Swedes had not taken the city by 12:00 they would retreat and end the siege.  It was one last bitter battle, and the city felt they wouldn’t make it until noon, so they had the Cathedral ring 12 bells at 11:00.  The Swedes bought it, and retreated.  In honor of this cunning time-shift, the Cathedral still rings 12 bells every day at 11:00.

The Cathedral was closed by the time we arrived, so we went back the next morning to have a look inside.  We of course had to go up into the towers!  This little interior hallway connects the two towers to each other.  I know from personal experience that you do NOT want to be in here when the bells ring!  Wow!

The view from the west tower is mostly industrial, but the view from the east tower is pretty nice.  That’s Spilberk Castle on the hill in the distance.

This pigeon was protecting it’s eggs on the balcony of the east tower.  He was not moving for anybody!

The interior of the Cathedral was as beautiful as you might expect.  I think we’ve seen more houses of worship on this trip than any other.  We’re getting a little “churched out” to be honest.

This container for votive candles is pretty cool, particularly with the two different religious symbols on the sails.  I’m not entirely sure why there is a Star of David in a Cathedral though?

If you are walking around the Market Square in front of our hotel you have to be careful for these little tripping hazards on the grates around the trees.  They had little animal statues on nearly all of them.  Perhaps this is their version of a drunk test?  Czech Republic is a zero tolerance country regarding drinking and driving, but you could walk around town with a beer in your hand all you wanted.

This is Brno’s bizarre Astronomical Clock, which has been referred to as an assortment of objects.  I’ll let you be the judge.  This was unveiled in 2010, on the 365th anniversary of the resistance to the Swedish siege.  Every day at 11:00, the various parts of the clock line up and it releases a souvenir glass marble.  We were never there at 11:00 to witness this, but one of our guides said a couple of homeless guys hang out there at that time to try to get the marble and sell it to tourists.  I’m not sure where they keep these homeless folks…I don’t remember seeing any in Brno.

We then took a tour of the Ossuary at Saint James’ Church.  If there is an ossuary in town, we’re visiting it!

The Saint James’ Church was built in the early 13th century, and included a small graveyard.  Since this area was within the city walls, they couldn’t expand the graveyard, so they started burying the bodies on top of each other.

The ossuary itself was started in the mid 17th century, and it rapidly filled up due to increased deaths from the Thirty Years War as well as several epidemics.  Over time the graveyard was built over and the ossuary was forgotten about.

During construction in 2001 they discovered corridors 12 feet under the street level completely filled with skeletal remains, estimated at more than 50,000 bodies.  Using about 15-20% of the original bones (the rest were buried in the Central Cemetery), they redesigned the space and opened it to the public in 2012.  The only space that was left as it was originally found is in the below photo.

They were definitely going for the creepy factor in the newly designed spaces!

In keeping with the underground theme, we then visited the 10-Z Bunker.  This bunker was originally built during WWII as a shelter from Allied bombing.  After the war it actually housed a wholesale wine store, until the communists confiscated the store in 1948.

It was converted into a secret nuclear bomb shelter, completed in 1959.  It was intended to save the most important 500 communists in the city in case of attack, and was unknown to the rest of the cities population until after the fall of communism.

It was opened to the public for tours in 2016.  We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

After departing the bunker, we walked up the hill to Spilberk Castle.  I’ve gotta say, not the most impressive castle we’ve seen, particularly based on the fact I didn’t take a single photo.  The best view on Spilberk Hill is of the Cathedral.

One last spot in the city that is a bizarre must-see, the “Brno Dragon”!  This crocodile is hanging in a passage of the Old Town Hall.  This is actually a replica of the original taxidermied crocodile gifted to the city in the 1500’s.

Here is a photo from 1901 of the original gift, hanging in the same spot.

That’s the whirlwind tour of Brno.  Next up, we travel to the Moravian wine country to taste about 30-40 wines!  Thank goodness we had a guide!