Chris plotted a twelve-mile hike for our final day in Moravia. I'm higher than you think.
The farmland--mostly vineyards and orchards-- below the limestone of the Palava Hills extends all the way to the Austrian border and beyond.
Here we are in action. What sounded like gunshots in the distance gave us pause, although I would have been a lot more nervous in red-state America. Chris later learned that farmers play audio recordings to scare away the birds at grape harvest time.
A paddocked pony gave me the side-eye when I tried to pat him.
Ruins of two fortress-like castles at least half-a-century old served as our destinations.
Check out the view from the lookout above.
It took a lot of huffing, puffing and live blogging to get to our end point. By "live blogging" I mean Victor's frequent reporting of his Apple watch health vitals. Not unlike how Varick plays Scrabble with a blow-by-blow of his board frustrations. Play the game, hike the trail!
We climbed 144 floors, not quite as many as Thom and I did the month before at Mount Mansfield.
And the views of the lake--actually a man-made reservoir and landlocked Moravia's largest body of water --were worth it. On a clear day, you really can see almost forever.
We passed through a small, cheerfully painted village where a couple was busy making their own wine for commercial sale
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We also cheated a little and walked the highway back for a mile or two, facing a stiff, unpleasant wind.
Victor and I rented e-bikes from this fit entrepeneur to explore what UNESCO calls the "Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape." Chris stuck with pedal power.
"Cultural landscape" could less diplomatically be described as a royal playground and game preserve for the Liechtenstein dynasty, richly scattered with Baroque and Romantic structures. At least one is an example of a European prince giving his finger to a very short emperor. What does this Temple of Diana remind you of?
Thanks to Chris, seen declaiming below at my request, I now appreciate the structure's political subtext. Napoleon commissioned the Arc de Triomphe in Paris after successfully laying siege to much of the continent in the early 19th century. The Liechtensteins, among the European nobility who eventually defeated the power mad emperor, likely designed their hunting lodge in part as a "fuck you."
Again, the attention to detail is stunning. Looks like Diana is exhausted from hunting in this oversize medallion.
Why is this satyr rubbing Pan's belly in another one? So much to unpack.
The 60,0000 acre playground, which includes the castles in both Lednice and Valtice, remains home to a wide diversity of plants and animals.
Biking enabled us to see nearly all of it in less than a perfect day.
This chapel, the last structure to be added to the playground in 1855, is dedicated to Hubert, the patron saint of hunters. Quelle surprise. Although to be fair, what else was there for the one-percent to do in the 18th and 19th centuries, other than make war? Too bad about the morning shadows.
Worse, I used an old digital camera, once considered "state-of-the art," to conserve my overworked i-Phone's battery power. The photos sucked.
Other bikers were enjoying the fine autumn weather. A German group posed in front of the Temple of Three Graces.
Athena, Aphrodite and Artemis, sculpted from a single stone, graced the Lednice castle gardens until their nubile curves proved too distracting for the princes. But instead of removing the original mean girls from the male gaze entirely, the Liechtensteins built them a colonnade backdrop.
The Czech stewards keep it in good repair.
Next stop: Apollo's Temple. Grander, of course.
Many of the follies are elevated, to afford views of the fish ponds.
We took a break at Jan's castle, surrounded on three sides by a river. Here's where the Liechtenstein's celebrated the end of the hunting season with a huge banquet.
Plenty of flowers were still in bloom.
The inventor of the pencil designed the minaret which climbs almost 200 feet into the sky. If we had been able to climb to the top, Vienna, 55 miles southwest, might have been visible.
The minaret may have been another of example of the Liechtensteins giving the royal finger. Rumor has it that the prince began erecting it in 1797 after local authorities refused to allow the construction of a church. Has there ever been a taller act of cultural appropriation? At least they imported Arab artists to decorate the mosque on the ground floor, never used for worship, but a beautiful example of Moorish architecture nevertheless.
I learned the physical meaning of "nettled" after an intrepid pursuit of a photo op near this pond.
During an unsuccessful attempt to get a shot of Apollo's Temple across the water, my bare legs stung for the next couple of hours, perhaps because of the nettles that also adhered to my clothing.
We saw the grape harvest in full swing on our ride back to Valtice. Our batteries were still nearly fully charged!
Chris and Victor were kind enough to indulge my passion for cemetery exploration, which also had an historical aspect.
The recent dead were mostly Czech.
But German names and language appeared on many of the older graves. Chris thinks there's an important book to be written about the Allied expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Czech Republic after World War II. It's never gotten much sympathetic attention for obvious reasons but as many as three million--including Florian's grandfather--were literally walked out of small towns and villages where their families had lived for centuries.
The fog lifted Sunday morning as we crossed the border from Bohemia to Moravia, another of the three "lands" that comprise the Czech Republic. Acres of sunflower fields gone to seed failed to reflect their namesake.
Neither Victor nor our hotel was shy about emphasizing the quality of our delightful accommodations.
Although chilly water rendered the infinity pool useless, it provided a pleasant backdrop for rooftop cocktails and conversation at sunset.
Before World War II, Valtice belonged to Austria just a few kilometers to the south. Borders in Central Europe have shifted constantly over time.
A movie shoot had shut down tours of the Baroque castle which dates from the 11th century. We first glimpsed it at night.
You couldn't miss the signage for a local bike store.
Open restaurants were few and far between post-tourist season but we managed to find a couple during our three-night stay. I ordered venison goulash with dumplings that resembled crustless white bread at one
. . . and a strawberry parfaits for all of us ended another meal. Pavel, our wonderful innkeeper, shared his homemade goulash our final night--at no charge--when we were too exhausted to leave the hotel. Now that's what I call service!
I also purchased some burcak from a roadside vendor. Foodies describe it as a "young Moravian wine," partially fermented. It's definitely fizzy as I learned back in Prague when I opened the two-liter bottle in Chris's apartment. Pink foam spewed everywhere.
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