Don't Spare The Horses

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The best laid plans don't always work out. We'd booked this trip ages ago for a spot of R not R on the Czech beer. The mission was cast into doubt by the Ryanair scheduling fiasco. Flights cancelled. Pilot holidays take precedence. In all fairness, pilots are somewhat essential and the Pardubice express wasn't on the Michael O'Leary list of casualties. We were off. Well we would be once the car was parked. The mid stay car park was turned into a state of confusion at 0645 hours. Proceed to Open Zone E. It wasn’t open! How can airport parking turn out so wrong at an official car park of a major London airport?. Heads must roll. We followed the masses and parked up in Zone F. The Ryanair landed 10 minutes behind schedule in deepest Bohemia. We were spared the trumpet fanfare of another "Ryanair flight landing on time". After a short tour of the rather impressive former military bunkers - the grass banks on the roofs still lovingly maintained in case of NATO air strikes - the buses from the runway took it in turns to reverse in beside a small building that transpired to be the terminal. The baggage carousel was no bigger than 10 cases capacity, but with most only having hand baggage wasn't required. "Processing" was fairly swift, but it all had the feeling of not quite having left the Cold War era. The bus to town was not! A steady band of passengers wandered out on to the main road in search of transport. We all waited. In vain! We were treated to a tree felling exhibition by a couple of lumberjacks across from the bus stop, but still no bus. The police were on hand to cause traffic chaos by halting all other vehicles, whilst the tree boys towed away their spoils. We finally gave up and walked back inside the airport where we managed to grab the solitary taxi. As airports go, Pardubice is close in - a mere 4 km to our accommodation popped up on the satnav. We sailed past the ever growing band in search of a bus. One of the reasons Pardubice is even remotely on the map was immediately before us. I am not into the horses, but this is Grand National territory. Aintree eat your heart out - this is the Great Pardubice Steeplechase otherwise known as the Czech Grand National. 11 minutes later, we were dropped at our pension at the competitive price of 127 Czech crowns. Check in was listed as 1400 hours. It was nearly 1330 hours. The a board outside suggested the restaurant attached didn't open until 1530 hours. We tried the phone number listed. No response. Ryanair had come up good, but we were foiled by our accommodation. We did what English men and women would do in such a crisis and retreated to the nearest pub for a conference on what to next! Thinking juice required. The Budvar duly arrived. A plan was hatched. The Man in the Middle and I sent the Other Half back down the road to investigate and ordered another round. It was to no avail and we finally got the room, after the restaurant opened. Meanwhile, an afternoon on Czech beer was soaked up with the fine dining choice of a homemade venison sausage and horseradish.



The Other Half was not particularly impressed with the room, but then she is not a veteran of the preferred choice in Belgrade. The electric sockets functioned, so if nothing else phone and camera charging was possible. There was an element of an exfoliating scrub about the sheets and the towels were threadbare. Hey, Ho. We set off out to see the delights of the town. The first point of call however was the Tipsport Arena to get ice hockey tickets for tomorrow. Pardubice is not just a one trick pony, it has an Extraliga ice hockey and a Division 2 football club. The accommodation check in delay meant a mere 45 minutes to get to the ticket office of the former before it closed. 3 x 215 Czech Crown tickets in hand, more relaxation was due. HC Dynamo are a pretty big deal in a small town - Czech champions as recently as 2010 - so when they are doing well demand is high. The Tipsport Arena is disproportionately large for the size of the population and boasts a capacity of over 10,000. The Man in the Middle would be making his ice hockey debut, which is quite staggering given his residence in Panther town all his life.



The Other Half expressed a desire for coffee and cake, so wandered across to the main pedestrian thoroughfare. We stopped in the first available opportunity to prevent another Barcelona incident. A statue of the Czech aviation pioneer stood motionless outside. He held firmly on to a large propeller. There was no sign of his aeroplane. Jan Kasper goes down in history as an early long haul flight man. Kasper was the son of a wealthy Pardubice hotelier, who spurned the career aspirations mapped out by his father and chose to study mechanical engineering. He made his maiden flight for a whole 2 km in a local field, allegedly watched by over 10,000 enthusiastic Pardubice residents. The pinnacle of his achievements was a 120 km flight to the outskirts of Prague in May 1911 that lasted 90 minutes. He gave up aviation completely in 1912, but his cousin carried on testing and developing a new plane. Pardubice was on the aviation map.



Horses are everywhere in Pardubice - or to be more precise, half horses are everywhere. The white stallion on a red background is etched on to the cobbles, on plaques on buildings and in every poster. The coat of arms comes from the warriors of yesteryear, who went on a hit and run raid to Milan in the middle ages. A forerunner of the Europa League. The 1158/59 season to be precise. They sneaked into the city, whilst the Italians were having a bit of a siesta and ransacked the treasure. Alas, they were spotted on their way out. The alarm sounded, the portcullis on the city gate was dropped. One of the raiders was a touch slow making his getaway and lost the back half of his horse. He still made it back to Czech lands with the loot. The coat of arms signifies the trusty horse or what was left of it displayed on the red background - the blood of the battlefield. We spent a good 2 days observing the horses with no hind quarters before discovering the story by chance on an exhibit half way up the Green Gate. The Green Gate is a 60 metre tower on the edge of the old town and the guardian of the main city square. The road to Prague technically starts here. The Barons of Pernstejn found it a convenient base to hit the capital and developed the town. Their cost of arms features a bison of the European variety with a ring through his nose. The rumour goes that the said bison was terrorising the local forests until it was tamed by a poor charcoal maker. He managed to free the forest of the danger armed with no more than a loaf of bread, which he used to tempt the animal into captivity. The less child friendly version has the creature decapitated in one swift blow!



The Green Gate was built in the 1500s and has had many adaptions in the intervening years. There is a decent view over town from the top of the tower and it is well worth the 20 Crowns a mission fee. We could see the old town and the new. The Castle grounds had already been explored on the first evening, together with a twilight stroll around the old town cobbles. There were few folk out in the early evening. The shops were either closing or making preparations to close. The bars were similarly quiet. The business hours were best described as relaxed. Monday to Friday opening with a handful of clothes outlets generously allowing you to make a purchase as late as noon on a Saturday. The lesson is there - if you are looking for a smart new pair of Armani jeans for your Saturday night out, you best not have a heavy Friday. The only central shops open all hours were inside the former Grand Hotel - a modernist building facing on to Republic Square. The Opera House remained masked in shade throughout our visit.



The main town square is mainly a series of bars in renovated old houses. The unseasonably warm temperatures meant that the outdoor seating was still in place. The Bushman Bar became the centre of our operations purely as it was the first bar visited. The pizza place in the far corner served reasonable food. The main pedestrian street - Tina Muda - had a series of bars running into the alleyways, but given the weather the square was the obvious choice. Our local on Tira Muda was the Velvet hospoda - pub in Czech. They did a mean beer snack - particularly the pork noodles, which was accompanied by fried bread and a whole garlic clove, should one be needing to flavour it up. The Other Half also favoured the Cafe Bajer - an old Austrian coffee and cake venue with an eclectic style of decor.



The main tourist spot in town was the Castle. Old photographs portrayed a frozen moat with half the town out skating. The Castle and old square were originally surrounded by water as part of their medieval defences. The water was drained in the early 1900s and the loop road through the centre of town now runs the watercourse passing the Opera House. We visited the Castle on our final day and debated hard about which of the multitude of ticket options to purchase. The simple logic suggested the value was in the "All Exbitions" ticket. However it transpired not to include the main state rooms or the chapel. At least 3 of the other areas were closed and in all honesty, it was at best misleading and at worst a con. The cost wasn't excessive for the additional entry tickets, but it was the principle. We had a latte in the mid-morning sunshine. Free gingerbread was the order of the day and the resident peacocks came calling for their freebie, as soon as the drinks arrived. Tales arrived on Facebook of ice cream thieving emus, so we kept an eye on our feathered visitors. The Man in the Middle recognised the peacock need as greater than his own and fed his confectionery to the waiting birds. Grantham has the title of UK gingerbread town and along with the big horserace, Pardubice is most famous for the sweet biscuit. A number of shops in town sell nothing else, although as described earlier not necessarily outside of Monday to Friday. The gingerbread comes in all forms - though pieces cut to resemble half a horse and decorated with icing abound. We made a purchase as far from the square as possible in the interests of economy. The area around the Castle is now all drained and a landscaped park. We studied the trees for a red squirrel. The colours of the autumn leaves danced in the sun as they fell.





I couldn't resist a walk round the old football ground next door. It was still used by someone, but not by FK Pardubice. The stand on the Castle side looked like it had been out of commission for some years. The Hotel Sport was tucked into the back of main stand. It was still open, but didn’t look particularly appealing. the old telecommunications tower from the Communist era loomed overhead, now fully embracing a role as a huge mobile phone mast. The Tipsport Arena adjacent and the ice hockey was on the agenda for tomorrow.

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Photos

Pardubice
Vennison sausage..............

Pardubice Castle
Pernstejn family crest

Pardubice
Gingerbread shop

Pardubice
1st World War Monument