Brno, Day 2

March 31, 2012 ... Brno, Day 2

We started off our day with a walk towards the Villa that is one of the sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list to visit in the Czech Republic.  As we were walking from our hostel to the Villa, we saw the biggest dog I think I have ever seen.  It was like a small horse, seriously, it was!

Yes, this is a dog, a HUGE dog!

After about a 15 minute walk from the hostel, we arrived at the Tugendhat Villa.  It was gated and we weren't even sure we could get into the place.  Then the nice man in a suit at the gate let us in and asked us if we had a reservation.  There was a look that passed among us with the silent look of "reservation?" on our faces.  Replying no and asking if we could talk to the ticket office, we entered the office and asked for the cost of a tour and it was about $25 US.  It was quickly decided that it was not worth $25 to any of us ... well, maybe Ann but we made a group decision to skip the expensive tour of a pretty house. 

Here is a picture of the Villa that I found online, we could not see much from the outside ourselves.

Making our way back to the tram line, we stumbled across the Simpson's Bar.  We all thought that was pretty cool, even had a picture of Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie on the outside.  It cracks me up when we see blatant United States pop culture stuff over here.  

I am reminded how far our pop culture can reach.

The next stop of our day was to the Capuchin Monastery and Vault.  This probably was one of my favorite parts of the whole day.  It had an English guide for us to read aloud as we walked from room to room telling us what everything was.  There was an inscription as we entered that translated into, "What you are, we once were.  What we are now, you shall be."  Thought that was the perfect way to start the tour.

The first room held the body of a noble and a saint. Thea was a bit freaked out by the bodies that we first saw as you can see by the picture below.

 Behind Thea is the body of St. Clementine.

The temperature and conditions of the crypts made the perfect setting to preserve the bodies.  Nobles and monks alike were buried in this place.

 The bodies were amazingly preserved.

 Coffins lined up in every room.

 The bodies of the monks were laid directly on the ground with bricks under their heads.  The coffin at the head of the room was reused over and over for each monk that died.  They would bring be bodies down and put them on the floor and use it for the next person.  Some of the bodies still had robes and cords around their heads and waists.

 Yes, we took a group picture right in front of the corpses of monks.

After we found the cabbage square where there is an open air market but unfortunately, not that day.  In the middle of the square was the statue of Hercules within the Parnas Fountain.  I think this statue is amazing, the detail all the way around is incredible.

Parnas fountain...no water at this time. :(

A side note about people and their pets here in Europe.  I have noticed that in the Czech Republic people take their dogs EVERYWHERE.  It is a very pet friendly society.  While in Brno on our way from the Hercules statue we saw another pet on a leash, a lovely pig!  It was hilarious!!!

The next stop for the day was the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul.  This church is famous for the bells that sound at 11am instead of noon.  When the Swedish were invading in 1645, the deal was if the noon bells sounded before they were able to invade Brno, they would not attack so the bell ringers sounded the bells at 11am instead of noon, thus avoiding the invasion of the Swedes.

That day there was a huge youth festival taking place for what I think was World Youth Day.  We did get to see the inside of the Cathedral but they were having mass for the event at the time and did not stay long.  We did climb to the top of the bell tower that provided us with a magnificent view of the city.  

After climbing to the top of the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul we decided to grab some lunch.  We went to the oldest restaurant in Brno, Spalicek.  We divided our group due to lack of tables for larger groups.  Thea, Caleb and I went off to a different table and started to figure out what the menu said.  Luckily this menu had about five different languages including English!  

Thea and I decided that the lunch menu sounded the best for the money.  The menu had tripe soup, fried chicken with potato salad, and apple strudel for dessert.  We didn't really know what tripe soup was but we both thought it was a fish of some sort and figured that if we didn't like it, we just wouldn't eat it. Bread was brought out and the soup came next after our drinks.  It was a dark brown color and smelled ... interesting.  Thea and I decided to go for it and just try it.  The first bite was horrible but I gave it another try and got some "meat" on my spoon and attempted to eat it.  

It was slimy and chewy and it took everything in my power to swallow it while at the same time shoving bread in my mouth to make it a little less painful.  Caleb did not believe that it could be that bad and he dipped a breadstick into my soup and his face said it all.  YUCK!  Needless to say, we did not finish our soup and proceeded to the next thing brought out for us.  

The rest of the meal was wonderful and the apple strudel for dessert was a great finish to what was an awful start.

Two days after we returned from Brno, I was walking with Dr. Clark after class as we were on the way to lunch and I told him what we ate.  I mentioned that my step-dad thought that tripe was stomach lining of pig or cow and I was not believing him at all.  Dr. Clark confirmed it and I about gagged right there even though it was a couple days later.  Later, after return to our dorms, I informed Thea of what we had that fateful day and she did gag.  Tripe soup is NOT fish soup.  Lesson learned.

Finished with lunch we wanted to go see the castle, so we started off in that general direction.  We took a slight detour around the cathedral and found our way there.  It is positioned at the top of the hill in the middle of the city, you can see all of Brno from the castle.  We paid for the tour that we had time for.  It consisted of seeing artifacts and learned about the history of Spilberk Castle.  

It was established around the mid-13th century by the Czech king Otokar II of Bohemia. After the fire, in 1578, it was transformed into the Renaissance building by Antonín Paris. During the Thirty Years’ War the castle was turned into a Baroque fortress. In 1820 the fortress was converted into a prison, which was called the “dungeon of the nations” in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it was the place of political persecution.  Part of the exhibition was a description of the daily lives of prisoners and methods of torture that were used.  I wish we would have gotten there a bit earlier in the day so we could have seen more of the torture items.  It is a fascinating and horrifying thing to me to see how humans are able to do such horrific things to other human beings.  It really is unfathomable to me how this has happened over and over again throughout history.

Leaving the castle, we wanted to find our way to the Gregor Mendel museum and we happened to find a little park with all sorts of fun items to play on.  We had a blast!  There really is nothing like relaxing and acting like a kid again.  I kept walking and found a zip line! 

Caleb, Thea and I got to take a ride on it and as Ann was attempting to go, we got yelled at in Czech and then in English that we needed to get off because it was for little kids.  Party pooper! 

So, we went along our merry way and did find the Mendel Museum.  

It was about closing time, so we got the times for the next day and decided to come back on Sunday morning.  By this time, it was getting colder and rainier.  We made our way to the main square of Brno and found a small cafe just in time.  Right after we got seated, the sky opened up and let loose a torrential downpour.  My hot chocolate (aka pudding) never tasted so good.

Making our way back to the hostel to unwind and dry off a bit, we started to really get a feel of the city and find landmarks to guide our way.  I think our weather made a huge difference on our afternoon.  I think we would have all stayed out longer and explored the city more but it was really cold and miserable.

The great part of our night was sitting around the table, snacking on everything we had with us, there were bottles of wine (soda for me), and we played cards.  After a while, Thea, Caleb, Ann and I decided we wanted to try to find the Simpson Bar for dinner, so we ventured out into the darkness and attempted to find our way there.  Over two hours later and after walking in a huge circle, we finally found it and the owner pretty much told us we couldn't stay because it was getting close to closing time for them.  Oh well, we did eventually find it but had to head back to our hostel with empty stomachs. 

All in all, I think we had a great day in Brno.  We got to see a castle, a cathedral, and a lot of dead people.  Gotta love historical sites!

This sign just made us laugh because we were lost that night walking around and somehow we did find our way back.  This was definitely a great way to start our explorations on our own.