Valtice

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Today is our last day in Valtice (to my ears pronounced Val-tit-sa) and also our last day in the Czech Republic. We arrived in Valtice last Sunday after a 3.5 to 4 hour drive across the southern part of the Czech Rep from Cesky Krumlov. It was a fairly sunny day and we chose to travel on quieter backroads for much of the trip rather than freeways and busier roads. Our only stop was a drink and toilet break at a moderately-sized town at the halfway point. It would have been nice to have stopped and taken a few photos along the way but that was difficult due to the large drop-offs on each side of the road.

I’ve been very surprised by the Czech countryside as it is nowhere near as hilly as I expected. Rather, it is gently undulating with large fields or woodland areas. The fields currently are either freshly ploughed or new crops are starting to show through. It’s difficult to know what the crops are but, given that a lot of them look like young grass at present, I’m guessing that they are some sort of grain. Per person, the Czechs are the world’s greatest beer consuming nation so I imagine that if the crops are grain then a fair proportion will be going towards the beer-brewing industry. Once we got closer to Valtice much of the farmland was given over to vineyards as this area is known for its wine industry rather than beer.

We arrived in Valtice with about 1.5 hours to fill in before meeting our new landlords. I was very taken with the appearance of the town as we drove into it. From a distance you can see the ornate twin spires of the large parish church plus those of a second nearby church. We drove into the town square as I knew that our apartment was nearby; first impressions were that it is one of the most attractive squares that I’ve seen – for a start it is dominated by grass and gardens rather than the cobblestones of most other squares. The square is surrounded by oldish shops and houses, the local school, and one wall of the Valtice chateau. After a lunchtime pizza and beer it was time to meet our new landlords and move into “home” for the next 5 nights/4 days. Our accommodation in Valtice is a very spacious and comfortable 2-bedroom apartment complete with washing machine, dishwasher and 3 flat screen TVs with cable television available – great value for less than $70 per night. What’s more we were welcomed with a homemade apple teacake, a bottle of homemade apricot jam and a bottle of local white wine. Today we’ve been given a traditional Czech Easter gift of a gingerbread Easter egg.

Valtice is part of the UNESCO-listed Valtice-Lednice Cultural Landscape with the chateaux at both Lednice and Valtice recognised as is the complex of lakes, rivers and woods that lie between the two towns. The Liechtenstein family (now the royal family of that country) acquired the castles/chateaux in Lednice and Valtice in the 13^th and 14^th centuries and these 2 properties served as the family’s residence until 1939 at which time they were confiscated by the Nazis. Following WW2, the communist Czechoslovak regime refused to return large estates to aristocratic landowners and so it passed into possession of the Czechoslovak government. Since the late 1989 Velvet Revolution the family has been trying to have the properties returned to them but for some reason the Czech Government is a touch reluctant – I read somewhere that the case is now being considered by a UN Court. Anyway, on our first day here we decided to visit the local sites with Valtice chateau first port of call. As I mentioned in my last blog, we’re a bit early in the season and, starting this weekend, the chateau is only open to visitors on the weekend. Still, that probably saved us a couple of hours of visiting and will no doubt help lessen the castle/chateau overload that is bound to be a by-product of this trip. We did enjoy some time walking around the extensive chateau gardens but at present there is not that much in flower. Afterwards we collected the car and drove to Lednice to view the magnificent Lednice chateau from the outside and walk around the even more extensive gardens. Lednice and Valtice are joined by a 7 km long avenue (now a road) lined with lime/linden trees.

The chateau at Lednice is very ornate and the gardens are huge. A major feature of the garden is a huge greenhouse and then further away from the house are various follies and ponds made by diverting and damming the river in various locations. We cut short our stroll around the chateau and its gardens when it became obvious that rain was on the way.

On Day 2 (Tuesday) we awoke to rain followed by a touch of snow which then went back to more rain, all of which was accompanied by squally winds. It didn’t take much to convince us that our planned trip to Brno should probably be delayed and so we spent a quiet morning reading at home. Following lunch we went on a wine tasting expedition at the Wine Salon of the Czech Republic. The Wine Salon of the CR is the highest wine award in the CR and is awarded to the 100 best wines made from grapes grown in the CR. The wine tasting is in the old wine cellar of the chateau and after paying we were provided with a tasting glass, a basket of bread and a basket of cheese and let loose. There were about 95 wines available for tasting but, in the interests of the rest of the day, we refrained from tasting all of them. The wines were generally grouped by grape variety although in some cases it was wine style that lay behind the grouping. Old wine barrels were setup as the tasting stations with large posters on the walls providing a technical description of each of the wines. There were a good 2 dozen wine tasters down in the cellar with only another 2 of them being women – sort of reminded me of many of the science-based meetings that I attended up until about 10 years ago.

We awoke to brilliant sunshine on Wednesday and decided Brno was the place to be. We drove to the nearby town of Breclav and caught the train into Brno. One thing that we wanted to do was to suss-out the proximity of the Hertz depot with the train station in preparation for transiting Brno on our way to Budapest tomorrow. We did that but ended up organizing to have the car collected from Breclav station, thus saving ourselves time in the morning and giving us a relatively stress-free departure – traffic in the centre of Brno was something that we decided we’d prefer not to tackle. Our day in Brno was OK. We visited the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, consumed coffee and cake in a fancy coffee shop on the old vegetable market square, walked through the old town square, did a tour of the Brno underground and spent the last hour or so looking at some of the exhibits in Spilberk Castle. The Brno underground is a complex of old cellars situated 6-8 metres below the old vegetable market; they were originally used for cold storage of vegetables, fruits and meat.

Today we drove 10 km or so to the town of Mikulov. Mikulov is also an old wine town but in this case perched picturesquely on a limestone outcrop. Driving towards the town the most visible feature is the chateau (currently closed), originally home of the Dietrichstein family. We wandered around the town square for a bit before purchasing tickets to the Dietrichstein Tomb – anything to get out of the bitingly cold wind. The tomb is housed in the Church of St Anne which the Dietrichstein’s rebuilt following a devastating fire in the late 18^th century. The remains of 45 family members are in the crypt and the tour was surprisingly interesting. After a bit more of a wander in the cold wind we decided to return to the car and drive home the long way via various small towns and beside one of the large lakes that dot the countryside here.

We’ve had cold and very windy weather here for the last 4 days which I think has been due to Cyclone Niklas. Niklas caused a few deaths and significant damage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on Tuesday and has been slowly moving eastwards. I think we are on the periphery of the system. Despite the cold weather we have noticed that trees are starting to look a little greener and some fruit trees are starting to blossom. There are also various sorts of wildflowers, bulbs etc starting to flower, birds are quite vocal and it won’t be long now until the environment looks much more colourful.

Tomorrow we will leave Valtice mid-morning and travel to Breclav to handover our hire car to the Hertz man before catching the train to Budapest. We should arrive in Budapest at 1635 and hopefully find our new home on the Buda side of the river in the following hour.

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Photos

Valtice Town Square
View from our bedroom window

Lednice Chateau
Front entrance

Lednice Chateau
Back yard and garden complete with glass house

Lednice chateau
Boats on the river

Lednice chateau
View from a rear entrance towards "The Minaret". Note the dark clouds - it bucketed down.

Lednice Chateau
These guys guard a back door

Wine tasting at the Valtice Chateau wine cellar - Wine Salon of the Czech Republic
A tasting station

Wine cellars at Valtice Chateau.
Lots of grey-haired blokes but not many women.

Brno Underground
The alchemist exhibit.

View from Spilberk Castle towards The Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul
It was even colder and windier than it looks.

Dietrichstein Tomb - Church of St Anne, Mikulov
Some of the 45 caskets in the crypt.

Getting ready for the summer hordes - Spilberk Castle, Mikulov
The workman were relaying the cobblestones at the entrance to the castle and in the castle garden.

Comments

[Moira]

Guys it looks like you are having a fabulous time. Glad everything is going well. Was a bit concerned that you might have seen a bit of the cyclone. Your photos are wonderful, what great old buildings and lovely scenery. Checking out the wineries, good on you!