Moravia

I dropped my dad off at the airport Friday morning at like 4 am, came back to my dorm and slept until 930. Why didn't I sleep longer? Because I had to get up and pack for Brno!! Brno is the capital of the Moravia region of the eastern Czech Republic. We met in the lobby at 1030 am, then we jumped on a bus and went off to Tišnov to see a cloister. It is one of the oldest buildings of it's type in the CR. The church gate was absolutely AMAZING and decorated so intricately that it seems weird to know it was built over 500 years before USA was a country haha. The gate is called Porta Coeli or "Gate to Heaven". After we saw that, we headed into Brno to check into our hotel. We literally had about an hour there before we had to jump back on the bus to drive to dinner. We all assumed it wasn't too far to dinner, we were all wrong. It was over an hour to dinner and we were all STARVING. However, when we learned that there would be wine tasting involved, our tunes changed. They didn't give us a lot of food, but we definitely made up for the lack of food in how much bread we ate and wine we drank. There was about 20 or so of us, and we drank a SOLID 10-15 bottles of wine. The wine was made by the mayor of this little town, and we were in his private cellars. It is all traditional Czech wine and is all grown and made in this town. Out of the 10-15 types we tried, there was only 1 I didn't like, and that's because it smelled fricking rotten. Yuck. Anyway, other than that one they were all good and amazing and delicious. Then we went upstairs and there was a little competition waiting for us up there. We had to see who could pull the most water out of a bucket with one of those glass wine barrel taster things with the breath in their mouth. You had to suck the water up this LONG tube and then fill up the center part (which was about the size of an old school round canteen) and take it all the way to the top. Whoever could do that would win a bottle of wine. Well, since no one could get it all the way to the top, the guy and girl that got the closest got it. Anywayyy, after that we went down into the wine cellar where he stores his wine, and he told us some more history and we got more wine and then he said that if you stick a coin on the wall and it sticks, then you'll be destined to come back. Naturally, I did it. IT STUCK. It's happening, I'm going back. I have photographic proof that it stuck. Anyway, after all of this, we got to buy bottles of wine. Take a guess how much they were. $10? $20? WRONG. 70 krowns each... that's less then $4 a bottle, for AMAZING wine. I can't even explain how happy this made me... so I bought 4 bottles, and drank one with my friend Allison that night haha.

The next day we got up and did a bunch of touring and what not. We did Gregor Mendel's garden (you know, the wrinkly yellow pea guy? father of genetics? Ya, him), the Slavkov hill where the Battle of Austerlitz was fought by Napoleon against the Austria and Russia and just annihialated them. Take THAT, guys. Anyway, after that we went up to the Memorial of Peace on Prace Hill, which is the war memorial commemorating the loss of lives in the Battle of Austerlitz. After we did that, we went back to Brno and did a little walking tour of the city. We saw city hall, St Peter and Paul's Cathedral, St. James Church, main town square, etc etc. I also got to try burčak (which is "young wine" that is highly potent in alcohol content and tastes like lemonade for the white and grape juice for the red. Amazing stuff. THEN, we headed back to the hotel for the evening. Allison and I were going to go down to the bowling alley, but we decided to finish our bottle of wine from the night before, and Andrew and Michaela joined us and we stayed up til somewhere around 2 am just talking, telling real life ghost stories, talking about movies and things of that nature. It was a really awesome night.

The next day, we had to be checked out of the hotel at 930 am and when we got to the bus, we headed over to like 5 other towns to see churches and things like that. The first one we saw was the "Pearl of Moravia" church in Křtiny, which is considered one of the most beautiful baroque churches in Europe. After that we went on over to the town called Adamov to see the altar at their church there and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. EVER. So amazing. I didn't get a picture because we weren't supposed to take any, but google "St Barbara's Church, Brno altar" and you should get a picture of it. After that, we went to the Moravian Karst cave complex, and into the Punkva section of them. We walked through them for about 40 minutes, and then we took a little boat through for the rest. It was sooooo amazingly beautiful to see the stalagmites and stalactites and then the stalemates which is the meeting of the 2. Check out my facebook to see more pictures of those, because I won't be able to post too many.

All in all, the trip to Moravia was a really awesome one that had it's up and downs, like any other, but overall it was awesome!

Next weekend, Florence! Absolutely CANNOT wait for that!! ITALY!!!!!