Iron Curtain & Ironman: Brno (Day 5)

Hola todos,

(I promise the photo isn't crooked--the sign is on a downhill slope!)

I left the hostel early this morning to catch my bus to Brno, a city that is roughly halfway between Prague and Bratislava, my next capital city. It was a pretty early bus ride, so I slept for a large part of the journey. But we drove through some beautiful green countryside.

We arrived in Brno just in time for breakfast, but first I had to get rid of my large bag for the day. (It's pretty heavy, and I didn't want to wear it while walking 20k+ steps!). I found an app that connects travelers with luggage they want to check for a day with shops that can store their luggage for $5-10. I booked one of those on my bus ride over to Brno and found the little shop right near where the bus dropped me off. Perfect! Now it was time to get movin' and groovin'.

I wandered around the Old Town hub to get an idea of where everything was and stumbled across this farmers market in the Old Town square.

After a quick breakfast and espresso (of course!), I went up to the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, the city's largest church (and, because it sits on the top of the Brno hill, it defines their skyline, too). The interesting thing about this Cathedral is that its noon bell chimes at 11 am every day. This dates back to the mid-1600s when the Swedish tried to capture the town of Brno. Apparently, their military leaders had decided that if they did not have victory by noon, they would give up. One of the local townspeople found out about that plan and rang the noon bells one hour early to trick the Swedes.

 

 

The view from the top of the bell tower.

Then it was time to head to the real draw of Brno: Gregor Mendel! The Old Brno Monastery was where Gregor Mendel lived as an Augustinian monk and "discovered" trait-based inheritance. You can tour the monastery grounds and they have a small museum about Mendel's life, work, and legacy. It's pretty small and you need to pre-book tours for almost everything else (like the basilica, the inside of the monastery, and Mendel's former room) which I didn't do.

Next, I headed back into the main part of Old Town to check out the Capuchin Monastery. This monastery is built into the complex right below the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, but it's noticeably more austere. (Old Town Brno has like 8 churches--I couldn't get to them all!)

I still had a ton of time until my bus left for Bratislava, but I didn’t want to just hang out at the bus station. So I aimlessly wandered around, going down new streets and finding all sorts of surprises.

I walked by what I think is the university in Brno, and I found this fun plaza with chairs and a fountain.

 

I sat there for a bit while I ate lunch, people watching and just absorbing the city a bit.

Then it was time to head to Bratislava! I picked up my bag from the shop and caught my bus without any complications (which is always a small miracle).

The bus ride to Bratislava took us through more of the Czech and Slovakian countryside and farmland. It’s an absolutely beautiful drive. And crossing the border to Slovakia was just like driving across a border in the US—a sign and a truck weigh station, but it hardly felt like an international border at all!

Czech Republic: General Miscellany

I have just a few notes on the Czech Republic and traveling here that I couldn't really fit anywhere else, so here goes!

Beer Culture: Apparently, Czechs are the number one consumer of beer per capita in the world, drinking roughly 150 liters of beer per capita annually. People there drink beer like water, and even their mediocre beers are pretty good.

 

Left: Staropramen lager, a pretty ubiquitous draft at many pubs/bars. If they didn't have Staropramen, they had Pilsner Urquell. I'm not a big beer drinker, but both were really good to me! Right: The beer I had at the monastery restaurant. That was definitely the best beer I had in Prague.

Currency: The Czechs are on a different currency than much of Europe! While the Czech Republic is a part of the EU, they are not on the euro. They use Czech Korunas ("crowns") instead. The conversion rate is trickier than the euro. Right now €:$ is roughly 1:1, but the Czech crown is roughly 22 CZK : 1 USD) which is some tricky math on the go! Also, many more places take credit cards here than I expected. I know Europe is less credit card-friendly than the US, but there were only a handful of times that I really needed cash. (And, a lot of places took euros if you didn't have korunas.)

English: Although I have mostly traveled to places where I speak the language (English or Spanish) or can stumble my way through it or generally understand it (most romantic languages), I was way out of sorts with Czech. Fortunately for me, almost everyone spoke at least some English. (There was one shopkeeper in Brno who seemed so offended at my pronunciation of whatever I ordered that she made me point to it instead; when she repeated it back to me, I swear it sounded just like I said it. But, whatever.) And I've also had a few moments of levity while I attempted charades.

Besos,

Tina the ExploraDora