Death by Elevator

Back before "Health and Safety" standards were a twinkle in the eye of law-makers anywhere, there existed a type of elevator that could thrill and chill at the same time. They are a dying breed (due to the fact they are ILLEGAL under EU law) but they can be found floating around a few old Prague buildings.

These are elevators that have no door and move in a continuous conveyor belt style. It doesn't stop on each floor, it just slowly goes continuously until it gets to the top and then slides over and begins the decent downwards in the same way. The brave traveler must carefully wait until the elevator is just at foot level and then jump in. The floors pass by in front of your eyes, and finger tips if you are brave enough to put a hand out. Then when the correct floor arrives, you jump out again. Calculate incorrectly and you

will find yourself sprawled on the marble floor.

Those elevator riders of the 1930s were living on the wild side.

Orlicke Hory: The final installment

Sunday: Home and Away

Sunday morning, our tummies full of ham and eggs, we set off for home. But on the way we made a few stops to see what local culture could offer us. Because of Karel Polacek, we were inspired to dig a bit deep into the Jewish history of the area. We started in Rychnov at the Karel Polacek Memorial. This building had once been the synagogue of a small but thriving Jewish community. About forty men, women and children were removed from their homes and sent to concentration camps with millions of others during the Nazi occupation and the Jewish community that had lived in Rychnov for around 400 years "ceased to exist" as the memorial states.

How does a culture and a community cease to exit? It's hard to imagine a place like this, when I grew up so close to my hometown's Jewish community. Of course, I'd studied WW2 and I was as mortified and horrified as any rational human is by the facts. But growing up I was surrounded by a very local vibrant Jewish community with a synagogue across the street from my high school. To be in a place where that community "ceased to exist" makes racism and nationalism and fear and ethnocentrism things not of the past, but demons we need to conquer today as well because they are very very real and relevant.

A short drive and we found ourselves in Dobruška (www.mestodobruska.cz), birthplace to František Kupka and F. L. Věk. (Don't worry, if you aren't Czech then I doubt you've heard of them. I never had until my history lesson from H!) Like dozens of small Czech towns, it was centered around a cute little square with cookie-cutter buildings and a clock tower that we climbed our way up to get the bird's eye view.

The last stop on the Orlicke Hory tour was Třebechovice. Blink and you'll miss Třebechovice. The claim to fame is the Nativity Museum where the prize possession is a 7 meter long, hand-crafted wooden Nativity from the beginning of last century. It is a sight to behold. Every crevis and corner revealed another scene. WOW sums up anything I could write about it.

And then we drove home and went to bed early, exhausted from all the mountain air, walking, good beer and Czech-ness of Orlicke Hory.

Orlicke Hory continued

Saturday: Finding Bunkers

Saturday morning the clouds were thick and full of rain. That was ok because we planned on spending a lot of the day underground in a bunker. After a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and all the trimmings, we were off.






Prior to WW2, the Czechoslovaks could feel the world around them changing. As a preemptive measure against invasion they made several alliances with France and Russia and then began fortifying their borders. They built scores of bunkers in the hopes of staving off invades long enough to give their allies time to swoop in and save them. Unfortunately, Czechoslovakia was carved up in the Munich Treaty, betrayed by her allies and invaded regardless of her efforts at defending herself.

Now, when H said bunker I was thinking "tank size" with a soldier or two manning some guns. There are bunkers in the system like this, but Haniča was on a scale I couldn't imagine. It was designed for 420 soldiers (!!!) and had the feeling of being in the bowels of a ship. (www.hanicka.cz) The parking lot is about 2k from the entrance so there is a nice walk through the forest before going the 38 meters below ground. The tour takes about an hour and is very cool, as well as cold as the interior stays around 8 degrees Celsius.

Our second stop of the afternoon was less heavy, definitely lighter. It was in the village of Vamberk to see a lace exhibition (http://www.moh.cz/2010_img/vamberk201006.pdf). Vamberk and the Orlicke Hory region is known for their long history of handmade lace. It just goes to show how those Czech golden hands really can do anything!

After dinner in Rychnov's local pizzeria, which surprised us with its sophisticated menu including veal, saffron rice and wild mushroom dishes, we decided to follow the trail of Karel Polacek's book "Bylo nas pet" (There were Five/translated: We were a Handful). The book is a memoir of his childhood. As you follow the map from sign to sign you learn about the places and people of a small town in the 1930s through the eyes of this little Jewish boy. The signs show photos of how the town looked at that time and give the historical significance of each site.

Traveling in Time

When I find myself in a new town for the first time, it isn't just the visual I'm looking for. I want to feel the "time". Every place moves through the universe in its own time. Sometimes it is fast and modern, sometimes slow and traditional, or with an ora of the Middle Ages.

Orlicke Hory (Eagle Mountains) takes me back a hundred years or

so. The houses are wooden, with low steep roofs for the heavy winters. The town squares have families walking slowly with ice cream greeting one another. I feel my heart beat slow and I breath deeply as this old time washes over me.

Our weekend getaway: The perfect 3 day escape from city life

Friday we drove off to find Rychnov nad Kneznou (www.rychnov-city.cz), a little town that sits in Orlicke Hory, not far from the Polish boarder. One of our main objectives for this trip was to go back in time (it's a theme!) and find the bunkers that run along the border. These bunkers were built in the 1930s as the first line of defense. But more about bunkers later...

On the way we took a slight detour to lunch in Podebrady. We'd been to this town before and knew finding a good inexpensive meal wouldn't be difficult. We parked and were seated for lunch in less than five minutes. With full tummies we continued our journey.

Rychnov proved to be a sweet little town with a square, chateau and church. Also, it was the birthplace of author Karel Poláček (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Poláček). We arrived in the late afternoon so we checked into Pension v Chaloupce (www.penzionvchaloupce.cz). The owner is a cheerful woman who was more than accommodating. She thought of everything. Breakfast isn't included in the price but is well worth the 80,-kc extra, as we discovered in the morning. We felt at home instantly.

Dinner was on the main square at the town's finest hotel, Havel Hotel. They served a delicious local unfiltered beer called Kastan. We liked it so much we had two, and we never have two. My schnitzel dinner was also very good: hot, fresh and tender.

In the cool of the evening we walked through the center and found that the city has placed 12 signs throughout the city marking important sections of Karel Poláček's book, Bylo nas pet (There were Five of Us) which is a memoir of his childhood. We decided we'd have to find all the points before leaving. But for us, the day was at an end. We needed to hit the sack in order to be up early in search of bunkers and World War 2 history....

(Find more photos at: www.flickr.com/photos/honza-tasci)

Co Mohamedu Mekka, to Čechu Říp

"What Mecca is to Muhamed, that is Říp to the Czechs" so goes the saying in yellow letters across the pub at the top of Říp Mountain.

I use the word mountain loosely because it is actually more of a hill. It takes about 25 minutes to climb, but don't think it is easy. The incline will challenge muscles in hard to reach places. (I run 4 times a week and it still winded me!)

The legend of Říp is that in a distant time there were two brothers, Čech and Lech who were leading their Slavic family clans across middle Europe.

When Čech climbed to the top of Říp he looked out over the land that would one day be the Czech Republic and said he could see a land of milk and honey. He and his family stayed and founded the Czech people. (Lech moved further north and founded Poland.)

As I looked out over the golden land and quaint villages, I understood Čech all the way to my bones. I want to stay in this land too.




www.hora-rip.cz

Finding the Balkan taste in Prague

Let's stay with our Balkan theme this week, but move on to the happier side of life: FOOD! This weekend I met up with an old friend who has just arrived back from a trip to Belgrade, Serbia. He heard there was a new Balkan restaurant open in his neck of town so we decided to test it out.

The name is Restaurant Boem and it is situated on the ground floor and in the courtyard of Hotel Lublanka on Lublaňská, near metro I.P. Pavlova. The space is quiet and simple. The restaurants choice of music made it sound more like a disco then the Balkans, but that just meant we had to keep the conversation flowing to drown out the lame beats.

I ordered the chicken stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes and cheese. R. had the Pleskavica, which is a patty of fried ground beef stuffed with cheese and served on a bed of vegetables. A side of rosemary potatoes came with each meal. The average meal price was between 120-220kc, each of our meals were in the 165kc range.

When I'm in the I.P. Pavolova area around lunch I will remember this little oasis of the south. I will be ordering the Pleskavica next time around, it made me remember my travels in Croatia.

http://www.restaurace-menu.cz/restaurace?id=657

(photos courtesy of the above mentioned website)

Another lesson of travel

It is 15 years since the mass killing of men and boys in Srebrenica. It is a day of pain and heartbreak, a day to reflect on the "why" of human inhumanity. And for me, it reminds me of my travels through the Balkans in 2005. I was in Sarajevo, Bosnia during the 10th anniversary of the massacre. There were posters remembering the dead, an exhibition was held in a museum and the U.N. peace keepers were very visible.

This is the other side of travel. When people think of holiday it usually involves sun and smiles and friendly locals. But when you really go to get into the lives of the people you are traveling among, then you leave yourself vulnerable to their history, their story, their hopes and their pains. I remember this burden I took on in Sarajevo during my travels. Traveling from one place to another isn't about taking photos or broadening your own horizons, it is about becoming one thread in the vast tapestry of humanity. And understanding that our shared humanity unites us far more then culture divides us.


Read more at BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10593799.stm
(photos courtesy of S. Galea)

Farmin' it up in the city...

I live in a big city. I grew up in a small city. I've been surrounded by buildings my entire life. But as a child, I spent lots of time in my grandparent's garden weeding, picking and planting anything and everything. Some of that earth sunk into my soul and, although I'm terrible at getting green things to grow, I love fresh-from-the-soil fruits and veggies.

So, this summer when Farmers Markets started springing up all over Prague, I was up and out early on Saturday mornings to collect the lovely produce for my fridge. This past Saturday I spent the morning at Dejvice. The market covers all your basic needs. Of course there are the standard fruit and veg stands, with a sprinkling of herbs thrown in for good measure. There are also stands for goat cheese, turkey, kolbasa and sausage, baked goods, field mushrooms, grilled carp, fresh juices, honey and bee products...and on and on. It's really a foodie's dream.

This weekend I brought home parsley to do up some traditional tabouleh along with some tomatoes, onion and cucumber, sweet cherries because when it is cherry season I can't resist, sprigs of mint for cooling mojitos, 5 liters of fresh apple/carrot juice and turkey kolbasa.

Check out a Farmers Market near you:

for Prague 10 and 2- www.farmarsketrziste.cz/kde-nas-najdete

for Prague 6- www.farmarske-trhy.cz

Taking the Waters- 48 hours in Budapest

It is interesting to me that I don't return often to cities that I adore, but to cities that I have mixed feeling about. Maybe it is this unsureness, this lack of adoration, this desire to make a place mine when it eludes me that draws me back to places that aren't on the top of my list of favorites.

Budapest is just such a city. This was my fourth trip to "Paris of the East", as she once was known. It's a large, imperial city that time and regimes have not been kind to. The edges are frayed, it's raw and a bit rough but with small glimpses of the past regal. My friend Angela and I wanted a weekend away to relax and be girly. Where could be better than the Turkish spas and baths of Budapest. So we traveled the seven hours by train to soak, walk, eat, relax and observe.

Friday

We arrived at the bustling train station to mounds of construction. After a few false starts we figured out that our hotel was just a short walk away and headed in the right direction. Budapest has a very southern feel. The vegetation is palmy and green, the people walk slowly and in the shade, the streets look like they need a good scrubbing.

Something that was striking, that I don't remember from previous trips, was the number of homeless. There were colonies of men and women set up in squares, in metros, along the streets. I knew that Hungary has been having economic troubles, as many nations, but the city wore this downturn very visibly. We felt safe, we were never bothered. But both our hearts were heavy with the overwhelming human need.

Our hotel was in the center on a road lined with kebab and pita sellers. We collected ourselves, tried to cool down a bit and then head to Margaret Island to experience the evening cool near the Danube river. On the way back we stopped at a brightly painted restaurant Hummus Bar (www.hummusbar.hu) where we nourished ourselves with good lemonade, beer, hummus and tabouleh salad.

Saturday

We were up early and at the spa by 9.00. We choose to go to the Széchenyi Gyógyfürdő (www.szechenyibath.com), which sits in the middle of the National Park. The park is a grand complex with museums and a replica castle and the spa. It's a perfect place to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. After 3 hours of soaking in mineral water and having our tired backs rubbed in a traditional Hungarian spa massage, we were ready to get some lunch and take a nap.

When the fiercest heat of the day began to subside we ventured back out to find ice cream and some dinner. We walked up to the castle grounds, perched high above the city. As we wandered back across Chain Bridge, we found a weekend festival with handcrafted goods and lots of sizzling sausages. Dinner! The atmosphere was alive and energetic. We couldn't understand a word, but happiness is universal.

Sunday

We wanted to catch the midday train home so we scooted ourselves out of bed with the dawn and were at the spa by 7am. We were the youngest people there, as most bathers were pensioners with State Health Insurance passes. (How great is that! Spa treatment covered by the State!) By 9 it had started to fill up with people and it was time for us to run back to the hotel for a shower and lunch before catching the train.

Every part of me was satisfied: my stomach was filled with good food, my muscles were massaged, my skin was refreshed. Budapest has her quirks, but she's worth the adventure.