We arrive via Pendolino, a smoother, faster, quieter, ritzier train and easily make our way to the hostel. The thing about travelling within Czech lands is that, like it or not, this is our home. We are accustomed to the customs, to the waitress slamming the beer down like she has a vendetta against the table, to taking our shoes off inside living spaces, to navigating the menus and speaking Czech, to the trams and to the grey and miserable Autumn we are having.
Due to an internet mishap we are doomed to set up in a dorm for the night, which given the nature of our journey, a relaxed weekend away, is not ideal. However we are given some helpful pointers of restaurants and sights and head out to caffeinate. Our first stop is cafe 87, a clean, spacious, non smoking venue, adjacent to the art gallery. Our hostess has suggested Hospoda Hanacka for Czech food so after an appetite inducing wander through the quiet streets we find the restaurant to discover that it also is non-smoking! In Prague people smoke in every restaurant, the subway and the hospitals. However, our dinner is exquisite. Beautiful halusky with smoky Moravian bacon and creamy, tangy sheep cheese; and chicken like a duck, which has been coated with beer and roasted until the meat dropped from the bones, served with chewy potato dumplings and the most amazing sour cabbage ever. We stay to try the hefe weisen and then back to the hostel to drop dead.
Day 2
With morning comes the prospect of ham and eggs. Nervously wondering how it will come, we are presented with real Moravian ham held together with three perfectly runny fried eggs. After breakfast we intrepidly set foot out into the rain heading for the prettiest church which does not dissapoint. It has a wonderfully decorated interior with a quiet cloister and a windy stone staircase up to some brilliant bells. After one tower we predictably go looking for another which has a double-helix staircase followed by some slightly frightening metal steps which take us out onto the roof for a birds eye view of grey Olomouc. The roof is wet and uncaged, juxtaposing communist-era super market with 14th century churches. We returned to earth and peek inside the church to find a small, blind old lady with many bags and a big voice singing hymns in Latin, filling the emptiness with warmth. Back at the upper square we wait for noon and the astronomical clock. Unseeing workers slowly pound iron for six minutes and half formed melodies appear when finally the cookoo cock (yes really) beats his wings and dings 12.06. After lunch we go to the modern art museum and spend a delightful hour with the anti modern painters and printers.
Day 3
Kratochvile provides afternoon tea and then we circumnavigate the empty town looking for a suitable restauraunt until we end up under the clock on the main town square eating garlic soup and Ceasar Salad, edible but unexciting. We sleep early and heavily, thankful we are no longer in a dorm with snoring men.
We are leaving midday but when we wake the clouds have dissipated and we are pleased to attempt the city walls. First we head to the cathedral where they are having mass, and the Arch Bishop's museum where they have religious art books and fragments of buildings. After a brief jaunt up and down the walls its time to collect our bags and head back to Prague and the real world.
