Advertisement
Hotel Apollon, Valtice
Our comfortable and friendly home for 3 nightsWhat a difference a good night's sleep makes. We both awoke at an early hour (0530) to the sound of roosters crowing, pigeons cooing and cuckoos cukooing. By just after 0700 we were down in the dining area for breakfast, the staff just finishing setting it up. Not only did they have muesli and yoghurt, they actually had a fairly decent coffee too. Apart from the ubiquitous cheese and meat they also had a huge bowl of cherries. We have seen several large cherry trees in the vicinity including one in the hotel grounds that was simply loaded with cherries.
We took our time over breakfast and getting ready to go out but by about 1000 we went out to have a look at the huge Baroque chateau here. We found a wine expo in their underground cellars and were able to wander around here. Perhaps it wasn't open yet as there were few people around and those who were, appeared to be setting up. It's hard to know what is going on when everything is in a foreign language! We then found ourselves in the extensive garden. There were a few things
Baroque Valtice Chateau
This was firstly a Gothic Castle but was rebuilt a couple of times until it was built in its present style in the 17th century. It needs a lot of external renovation now. of interest there, although we have become somewhat blasé about them, having seen so many. Much of the grounds were still very untidy, but there were some signs that they were being tidied before the busy season started. We did spot a very well laid out vegetable garden but could only see it from behind a fence.
There was a bit of rain threatening so we went to the railway station, near our hotel, to buy tickets to the next town, Breclaw. from here we can buy tickets to Bratislava, as we made the decision last night that we would re-visit this city after 11 years, on our way to Vienna.
We had a good lunch, at local prices, at the station before returning to the hotel to await the arrival of the owner of the bike hire company so that we may return the bikes and more importantly get our bond back.
Michal, of Okolo Bikes, turned up at 1400 as arranged with both of our suitcases. He told us, with a rueful grin, that he was making a weekend of it with his girlfriend meeting him here. The changeover went well, Michal pleased that all
Valtice
The wine cellar in the chateau.
Each stand has wines from a particular wine district for tasting. went well and that the bikes were returned clean and in good condition. The bonus for us was that the bond was partly repaid in Euros, which we can use after Czech R. and US$ which we can use later.
We returned to the town square to watch the performances down there, the semi-finals of the majorettes for all the districts being held there. Watched this for a while, then went for a walk in the direction of some wine cellars.
We found the Chateau Valtice wine cellar eventually, most appear closed this time of the year although we are starting to suspect that they only look closed because the doors are closed. We are finding all sorts of surprises behind closed doors here. There were only 3 wines to sample, a white, a rose and a red. These were sampled by the very full glass, each costing the equivalent of A$0.60. We only tried the red and rose even though we had tasted all 3 before. Being by ourselves took the fun out of continuing, with a group we may have stayed there for some time! We did buy a 1 litre plastic bottle of the rose,
straight out of the keg, to take back to our room, for the princely price of about A$3.
Returning to the square once again, we sat at one of the cafes and enjoyed the music (from the majorettes competition) while having a beer and a citron drink for Judy. Neither of us felt hungry enough to eat as we'd had a rather large lunch.
Dinner was cheese on crackers washed down with you can guess what, followed by one of the movies Judy has on her laptop.
Saturday 31st May 2014 Out of the blue, Judy suggested, at breakfast, that we spend the day in Breclav. This suggestion suited Rags as he hadn't done much research on this area and was in fact, getting a little tired of looking for places to go.
As it turned out, an enjoyable day was had. We caught the train to Breclav, about 12 minutes away. Here, we decided to purchase our tickets to Bratislava and while doing so Judy struck up a conversation with a local lady who spoke fluent English, as she was married to an Englishman. The lady suggested there was more
to see in Lednice with its beautiful baroque chateau than in Breclav so as there was a train leaving soon we decided to go here as Judy had read about it too. She then helped us buy the rail tickets there. The tickets cost more than our local tickets and the woman explained that it was because we were going on the vintage steam train to Lednice.
The steam train only runs during the warmer weather and many of the passengers appeared to be locals enjoying this novelty. During the journey to Lednice we did see quite a few people lining the tracks taking photos of the train and waving to us. It was quite a slow trip, even though it was only 12 kilometres, it took over half an hour
A short walk from the station through the township brought us to the chateau, a truly beautiful piece of architecture. The grounds were immaculate and spread for many hectares. Tours of the interior weren't available for another 45 minutes or so, so we spent that time looking at the gardens, the birds of prey with their handlers, as well as the views of the palace from different
Lednice Castle
An amazingly beautiful building. angles. On our return to the ticket kiosk for the tours we found that the tour we wanted to go on had been delayed. For us to then go on this would mean long delays in getting a train connection back, so we decided to give it a miss.
Instead, we had lunch at one of the restaurants lining the road in, these overpriced as they usually are, but still reasonable compared to home. Our meal was a lttle hurried as we had a train to catch and the station was a good 10 minute walk from where we were. As it was, we were somewhat unsure if we were going the right way but as luck would have it, for once the road led us almost straight to it!
A quick walk into Breclav on our return followed, as we had 30 mins before the local train left. This left us with memory of a somewhat run-down place, perhaps it was better away from the railway area.
The evening meal was had at the hotel, as Rags didn't feel like going out again.There aren't a great array of restaurants to choose from here in Valtice. Judy
Birds of Prey Display
Zayferus a Society for protection of birds of prey had several birds around the grounds. would have preferred elsewhere as the hotel doesn't sell what she likes to drink but she decided to settle for some wine. We almost didn't get our wine as we thought something called vinea was wine but the one lady, the manageress we think, came out and showed us it was some sort of local soft drink. We then worked out we could have a wine even though it wasn't on the menu! In the dining room there were only two other couples but we did manage to have a conversation, albeit in broken English. One couple was from Germany, having a 3 day holiday in the area, the other was a young couple from Slovakia. Rags had a duck confit dish and Judy had the salmon which was excellent. We are both a little tired of pork and chicken which is the normal fare here.
Repacking our bags took a little longer than expected, as we now had to recombine the gear we took on the bicycle part of the trip with the gear we had left in Prague which Michal returned to us. Rags has found that he could have brought much less cold weather clothing, most
Hothouse adjoining Lednice Castle.
Looks like you walk straight form the house into this hothouse which was huge! of what he took wasn't worn.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.664s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 33; qc: 128; dbt: 0.2602s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
