Central Europe Part I

The reason I haven’t updated in so long is not (only) because I’m lazy: from October 18 to October 26, the Central European Studies students all went on a trip around Central Europe: Brno and various small towns in Moravia, Slovakia, and Austria.

Thursday: Třebíč and Moravský Krumlov

Thursday we left Prague on a minibus and first went to a town called Třebíč. In Třebíč is a basilica on the UNESCO World Heritage list. It was somewhat small but very beautiful, and unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. We also saw a synagogue there.

After Třebíč we went to Moravský Krumlov to see Alfons Mucha’s Slav Epic. Alfons Mucha is probably the world’s most famous Czech artist, and you probably know his work even if you don’t know his name. Here's his Wikipedia entry. His greatest achievement was the Slav Epic, which consists of 20 paintings showing important scenes in the history of the Slavic people. What’s really impressive about the series is that the paintings are all HUGE. The reason they’re housed in Moravský Krumlov, which is essentially in the middle of nowhere, is that they’re too big to be housed in Prague – they’re in a castle in Moravský Krumlov. I don’t know the exact measurements but I’d say most of the paintings are at least 12 ft by 12 ft. The one pictured here was my favorite.

The Slav Epic was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The paintings are very detailed, and it was really interesting to hear descriptions of what everything in them meant. My only problem was that the paintings were set up in the order that Mucha painted them, rather than in chronological order. That made it somewhat difficult to get a sense of the progression of history as it should be.

Friday: Brno and Kroměříž

After spending the night in Brno, we went to the Museum of Roma Culture in the city. The museum seemed like it was pretty interesting, but unfortunately the entire thing was in Czech and we couldn’t understand any of the exhibits. We had an English-speaking tour guide take us around and talk about the Roma a bit, but it was fairly dull.

That afternoon we went to Kroměříž, another little town with a castle. The castle itself was pretty cool, but what really made the outing awesome was that our tour guide was a drunk 50-something Czech woman. Not only did she smell like booze, but she told us that we could wear protective shoe covers (to protect the old floors) “if we wanted to“ and that we could take pictures even though they’re “not really allowed.“ An example of her behavior: the first room we entered had a pool table behind the rope that kept us from touching all the furniture. She hopped over the rope, picked up the pool cue, and started using it to point to things all around the room. Another example: when we entered the gigantic ballroom, she said it was good for singing, and proceeded to sing us part of an opera. And she was good, too.

After the castle tour we went to the royal gardens. Because it’s fall, most of the plants were dead or dying, which made it eerie and cool. This is a picture of the gardens when they're actually in bloom.

That night a few of us decided to check out what Brno’s nightlife had to offer. We walked into town and found a club called Two Faces, and it was hilarious. It wasn’t a gay bar, but there were two guys constantly up on the speakers dancing and pulling one another’s shirts up, and at one point the DJ put on Bryan Adams‘ “Summer of 69“ and told everyone to “go crazy.“