This past weekend, the school organized a trip for us to Eastern Bohemia. For those of you who need a geography refresher (because i KNOW all of you knew at some point) the Czech Republic is divided into two regions - Bohemia and Moravia. I live in Brno which is in the Southern part of Moravia. Prague is in Bohemia, right about the middle of it. The line between the two is somewhere along where the nose meets the face of the rhinoceros (does anyone else think the country of czech republic looks like a rhino's head?) If you can't get the visual in your head, here is a picture:
Anyways, the trip was organized in such a way that we might experience all things Czech (as though living in Brno wasn't enough). We didn't have anything on the itinerary that anyone living outside the Czech Republic would recognize (unless you were for some strange reason interested in certain things, in which case you may have heard of something) But for the most part, ordinary people wouldn't have any idea such things existed. This made for quite an interesting weekend. Here's the round up of all the things we saw, including (of course) the fascinating (sometimes sadistic) stories that accompany them...
Friday 3 April 2009
- Litomyšl - the birthplace of the composer Bedřich Smetana (who is like a Czech god, given how much they love and are proud of this man) In Litomyšl we had guided tour in the Renaissance chateau which was pretty but nothing too spectacular, just your average countryside chateau...
- Třebechovice pod Orebem - visit to the Museum of Nativity Scenes (unique mechanical Créche). This place was so random, but I thought it was so neat. They had the world's largest nativity scene (and yes, i am talking about the whole jesus in a manger with mary and joseph and the wisemen..) It was completely hand carved out of wood and designed to move. It portrayed not only the manger scene, but the whole life of Christ from conception (Gabriel visiting Mary) to ascension. It was so elaborate and really pretty awesome. Apart from the world's largest, they also had about a dozen other handcarved nativity scenes, all of which had Jesus lying in a cute little rocking manger. Which I thought was humorous.
- Jičín - visit to the House of Robber Rumcajs, Manka and Cipísek. This was the most random thing I've ever been to. It was just someone's house they had turned into an exhibit for this Czech cartoon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Oug6vZVxg The Czechs are very proud of their cartoons (all two of them - Rumcajs and Krteček http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upUnrtXoV4M )
- After Jičín, we drove to our hostel which was in a tiny, tiny town (they didn't even have a single store!), Motel Charlie where we stayed in adorable little cottages:
Saturday 4 April 2009
- Prachovské skály - hike through the famous rock formations. this was probably my favorite part of the trip. we did a 3.5 km hike through these beautiful rock formations. the weather was incredible, the hike was beautiful, and it was just so good to enjoy fresh air (apparently it was the freshest air in the czech republic haha) here are a few pics from that adventure:
- Hrad Kost - The Bone Castle. This place was where our trip turned gruesome. In the basement of the castle was a whole "museum of torture" that had all sorts of devices the Czechs used to torture and execute people back around the 18th and 19th centuries.
::WARNING - this next part is pretty gruesome. if you are disturbed by real stories from the past about death and murder and torture, SKIP THIS SECTION!::
the german version of a guillotine.
because in france, if you were executed by the guillotine but it didn't kill you, they assumed the gods were sparing you and let you live. in germany, they kept this rule, except that they made their guillotine blade weigh tons and tons of kg to ensure nobody survived. because of this, they also had no reason to sharpen the blade. ouch.
this was another tool used for executing criminals. they would break all their bones using the iron part on the outside and then weave the body over and under each spoke so it would hang from there in the town square for all to be warned.
the czechs used a 5 step process in torturing their victims. if someone was said to be commiting any crime (gossiping, witchcraft, theft, etc..) they would torture them either until they confessed, or made it through 3 rounds of torture (5 degrees in each round).
the first degree was where they would tie ropes around the wrists and drag the person around until they had rope burns all along their forearms.
the second degree were those little clamps you see in the middle - they were used to clamp down on the thumbs and eventually break the bones in the thumb.
if you didn't confess by now, they moved on to the third degree...
these fabulous looking things.
they strapped these bad boys on your shins (sort of like a shin guard) and squeezed until basically your shins were busted all to pieces.
if you still didn't confess....
4th degree of torture: the stretcher.
they used this to stretch the victims until all their joints were popped out and bones were broken. if they still didn't confess, they were stretched AGAIN, but this time over candle flame so that they would have searing holes in their skin.
if you made it through all 5 of these stages, you were allowed a few months to recover and be healed before they put you through all 5 again. if you made it through 3 times, you were deemed innocent and free to go.
needless to say, nobody really made it past the first round. :/
another brutal form of execution.
criminals were forced to sit on this chair and weighted down and basically left to die of blood loss.
I told you it was pretty brutal. Sorry if you've lost your appetites. Sunday was a much less violent day...
Sunday 5 April 2009
- Dvůr Králové - czech republic world renowned zoo. honestly, it was not much different than a zoo in the states, save for the much lower fences surrounding the exhibits and the duplicate exhibits around the park (i'm pretty sure there were about 9 different places that had antelope) It was really fun though, and the day was perfect because we were there post-rainfall, mid-morning to lunch time when the weather was warm not hot and the animals were hungry but not tired, so we saw a lot of activity among the animals, which always makes the zoo more fun. Here're a few of my favorite snapshots from that experience...
Overall, the trip was really fun, laidback, and a good glimpse into the Bohemian Czech culture. I hope you enjoyed your journey through my memories of East Bohemia!
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