The Czech Republic has such classic beauty in its cities and in its rural areas. Whether I'm walking through a city's main plaza or watching the fields and small towns passing as I ride through on the train, there is more of a fairy tale aspect here than I feel in other places.
Though Brno has s population of 400,000 or so there is a small town feeling about it. Everything is intimate in its proximity to the center where the daily farmer's market flourishes. The folk festival we located by following our ears to find the entrance to an internal courtyard was great fun. The minimal amount of traffic encountered during our wandering has me wonder where everybody is.
Zlin is famous for Bata shoes and the shoe manufacturing has been outsourced to lower-labor-cost countries. So now the huge stretch of warehouse-sized buildings are being converted to other uses such as the university's consolidation. From the middle of town, which has a large amount of parks, you can see the forests and grass climbing the hills surrounding this area. Our interpreter owns a cooking school here and has world class chefs come in as instructors. Yes, there are occasionally classes in English!
Praha ( aka Prague ) is the largest city in CZ, the capital, and it is bustling. Yes, a farmer's market was there and had delicious produce. The Lobkowicz Palace and its story of Nazi occupation and then the 1986 overthrow is well worth the price of admission. The palace grounds contain St. Vitus Cathedral which is wondrous as well. A boat ride on the Vltava River as darkness falls and the lights come on is great way to end the day.
This past spring the Vltava flooded and ruined the ground floor of many of the buildings that line the river. All that today's tourist sees is an extensive exhibit of poster-size photos in the river park showing the height of the flood waters and, if you take the time to notice, it is evident that the lowest levels of buildings have fresher paint.
It all projects a fairy tale quality for me and I would not be too surprised to suddenly become a Connecticut Yankee a la Mark Twain.
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