Day 258: Trebic & Telc

Another double WHS day today, and another long day! Left home in Brno quite early (just before 9am) and headed west in central Czechia. First destination was the town of Trebic, where the old basilica and the Jewish Quarter were both on the list.

Thankfully the 90 minute drive was uneventful, it was moderately sunny and not particularly windy which was nice - a big change from yesterday, though it was quite cold! Parked up near the basilica and headed down, hoping to get on the tour at 11am. Just as we walked down, some huge clouds rolled in and it started raining, and then snowing! More sleeting I guess since the snow didn't pile up on the ground, but it was enough to stick to your jacket.

Thankfully it stopped after about 10 minutes and suddenly it was sunny again! The basilica was quite nice, very old in places and with some original 12th century frescoes. Emerged from the darkness into dazzling sunshine - go figure! Wandered down to the Jewish Quarter which is surprisingly the only specifically Jewish world heritage listing outside Israel, though other city-wide listings (eg Prague, Budapest, Krakow) cover Jewish districts.

It's preserved much as it was in medieval times, when Jews were allowed to live here across the river from the main town. It was quite a large and prosperous community, but sadly was entirely wiped out by the Holocaust - of the several thousand sent to the camps, only about 40 survived and they didn't want to return home, so it's now a former Jewish district.

Wandered around and filmed a bit, though the sun soon disappeared and the snow returned! Hid away in a cafe and had some lunch, and eventually the sun returned. Hurried through some more filming and finished off as the snow returned - very strange weather!

Back to the car where it had stopped snowing and drove about an hour westwards to the town of Telc. This is an old fortress town, as it falls right on the border between Moravia and Bohemia, and due to the river was an important trading post. I wasn't expecting much, but we pulled into the main square and found a whole lot of beautiful baroque and medieval town houses. Very colourful and intricately decorated, and gorgeously lit in the setting sun. Oh yeah, it was now 3pm and since daylight savings ended overnight, it now gets to twilight around 3pm.

Wandered around the main square a bit, though the castle at one end had closed for the season. Filmed a short video as best we could, then I bought some gloves from a shop on the square (my hands had been freezing!) and we retreated to a cafe for cake and coffee. Weirdly, the snow hadn't reached here at all - it had been bright sunshine since leaving Trebic, though we'd driven through villages with snow on the ground.

About 4pm we hopped back in the car and drove the 90 minutes back to Brno. Lots of peak hour traffic here, the roads seem pretty poorly designed and since trams have priority you end up getting stuck quite a lot. Thankfully we managed to find a park right out the front of our apartment. It was far too cold to venture out for dinner, so we just ate the frozen pizza we'd bought from the supermarket on the way home.Read more