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)