Brno

We spent the day in Brno. Brno isn't really known as being a tourist destination site. In fact Rick Steves doesn't even mention it in his book. That said, Brno appears to be a very clean, safe and prosperous city. I find that Czechs don't smile a lot but everyone looks fairly content and healthy. I think when I initially planned this trip in 2019 it was because we could rent a car in Brno but not in the neighbouring city Oleomuc.

Other than the Mendel museum and Bunker Z, the main 2 tourist attractions were St Peter's and St Paul's Cathedral and the Spilbeck castle in the centre of town. We walked up to the castle through a park with very moderately steep paths. The girls complained about the steepness but we had to remind them that they were mountain women from Alberta. The castle at the top was quite pretty and we walked around the embattlements at the top. The views of surrounding Brno were quite impressive. Madeline and Jada weren't terribly impressed by the Castle having only experienced Scottish castles. They thought it was rather a wimpy castle despite the fact that in 1685, it had withstood a 122 day siege by a Swedish army of 30000 people. That is correct, I said Swedish. After the castle we walked over to the cathedral which had some pretty impressive stain glass windows and a bell tower with a very narrow viewing platform at the top. We also heard the bell tower ring it's bell 12 times a 11 pm. This is a tradition going back to 1685 when the Brnites learned that the Swedes would call off their siege at noon on the 122 day, they rang their cathedral bells one hour earlier to trick the Swedes into ending the siege.

There is a heat wave in Czech right now with daily temps of 31 degrees. Fortunately it has been cooling off at night. We decided the best place to hang out was the pool so we took a trolley to a public outdoor pool on a hill outside of town at almost the same height as the castle. The view looking over at the castle was also spectacular. Unlike the pool in Prague, it didn't charge per hour so we chilled out for about 3 hours. There was a nice breeze and after a dip in the pool it was very pleasant sitting on a chair in the shade on the grass. Interestingly 97 percent of the Czechs preferred lying around the pool in the sun. Jada and Madeline lay on the grass by the pool despite our warning them about the hazards of too much sun. After about 2 hours they came and complained that they were getting heat stroke and wanted to go. We told them to sit with us in the shade and bought them some waffles and they seemed much happier.

We left the pool around 4 pm and after having a little break at the apartment headed off to the airport to get our rental car. I had booked it way in advance and at 90 Euro for 3 days thought it would be fun to visit 2 of the UNESCO heritage sites in the countryside around Brno. Google maps has been a great game changer for foreign travel. It tells one with very good consistency how to travel around using public transit. We entered into the phone that we wanted to go to the airport and it directed us to the bus stop at the correct time for the half hour trip. Our hearts sank a little at the airport when we arrived as many of the car rentals were closed as it was now Sunday at 6. Budget was open and the attendant was patiencely waiting for our arrival. We were his last pickup of the day. We picked up the car and everything went seemlessly. Google maps on our phone then helped us navigate back to accommodation. The most difficult part of the journey was finding the correct parking garage. There were 3 and we went to the wrong 2 first before finding the correct parking lot that would accept the QR code from the Air BnB. There was a lot of backing up but both Cheryl and I kept our cool.Read more