In May last year we took a whirlwind, or so it seemed, journey to Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Under pressure of a deadline for Opinions Post I finally wrote an article about it: Budapest: Majestic City With a Wart–now with its own page.
Great Market Hall with glazed tile roof
Read about some of our other travels within central Europe on our Environs page.
This town and its suburb, Sedlec, have a mixed reputation. Yet we consider it a must go for any visitors that are spending a week or more in Prague. Only an hour train ride away it offers all the glory of a former silver mining capital along with the gruesomeness of a unique ossuary.
Bones, bones everywhere. The crest is of the Schwarzenberg family and includes a crow pecking the eye of a Turk. There are many other “art works” and four massive piles in each of the four corners. For more photos and a bit of history see Karin’s photo journal.
This bone church causes conflict with visitors. It is one of those places that you think you have to go to see for yourself and be able to say “I was there!” Yet afterwards it is a let down. Within five minutes you are finished and ready to move on. Thankfully the admission is only $2 and then you have the rest of the day to enjoy the hillside town and its wealth of magnificent buildings.
These two photos show our January visit and our June visit. Since our first three trips to the Czech Republic were during winter we are really enjoying seeing the differences when we return to the same places in the summer.
There are many other fine buildings and sites in the town. See more of them at this photo album We usually try to stay away from “tourist restaurant
This is the best day trip out of Prague. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
In the previous post my admonition was to Hit the Streets. In this one it is Get Out of Town.
In past visits we traveled to the more well know tourist centers including Cesky Krumlov and Kutna Hora. This summer we are really enjoying getting off the beaten path to the smaller, less known towns and districts. The latest is Kladno, less than 50 km(30 miles) out of Prague. It was a pleasant 40 minute train ride through parts of Prague that we had not seen from this perspective before.
This large central Bohemia city has shed its history of coal mining and iron foundries and become a suburb with plentiful clean industry. Yet we found much of interest, historical and current, as we hiked through the town. We were especially impressed with the cleanliness. Karin wrote: “Kladno is one of the nicest and most comfortable Czech towns I have visited.”
In the square in front of the church and town hall is an interactive tourist map in three languages.
Impressive town hall and church located at east end of pedestrian area.
There is a large Chateau with gallery and a beautiful park with relaxing views.
There is even a gourmet restaurant with prices lower than Prague’s standard fare. This meal exceeded our expectations and I rated it Five Stars on TripAdvisor.
All photos by Karin, who has done one of her excellent photo journalism albums on this day trip with 99 photos and lots of comment and history. Find it as Kladno
For fifty years or more my family has been involved in the game of Mahjong; at every family gathering the tiles and dice would come out and the Chinese oaths would begin. Now days, however, Mahjong players are hard to find. So about 15 years ago when an English college student taught me the new game Shithead, it became the game of choice for family events. Plus Karin and I played best two out of three hands most nights after dinner instead of immediately jumping up from the table.
It did not take long for this infectious game to spread among family and friends. The rules appear complicated at first look but when you have played three hands you understand the game. The hands go quickly and are exciting because the outcome is undetermined until the last hole card is turned over. The leader can quickly become the loser. By the way, there are no winners in a Shithead game, only losers.
Speaking of rules. A quick browse on the internet produces as many variations as there are locations where the game is played. This appears to be the natural course for a game popular among young drinkers and smokers(not tobacco).
Now the point of this is to point out a major benefit of long term travel. You have the time to find and experience off beat, out-of-the way festivals, events and activities. So I first searched for Mahjong in Prague and then for Shithead and turned up Jičin International Shithead League on Facebook. We arrived in Prague on 31 March and on 20 April we caught the bus to the quaint town of Jičin(Jitz son) about an hour out of Prague.
We arrived early enough to explore the town and have lunch before arriving at the
Grand Hotel Praha for the tournament. Both Karin and I had difficulty adapting our game strategy to the local rules which were very different than those we had used in thousands of games over 15 years. The main benefit was spending an enjoyable afternoon with a mixture of expats and Czech students practicing their already good English.
We did not make it back for the May event but did for the season grand finale on 27 June, the last day of school for the Jičin college students. The mood was festive and many had dressed up for the occasion. I wore a tie for the first time in a couple of years. I did play better but consistently lost to one of the best student players. Karin not only won her table to enter the semi-finals, she came close to beating the player with the highest win percentage and finished second out of 22 very experienced entrants.
How many tourists can have this kind of experience?