Jewels of Bohemia Day 8

Tuesday, Sept 2

After breakfast, we walked to a kindergarten in Slavonice, a charming village near the Austrian border whose streets have changed little since the 13th century.  The town has a traditional medieval renaissance city centre with Sgraffito covered buildings dating from the 14th to 16th centuries, the oldest dating to 1545. The Sgraffito are the second oldest in the Czech Republic, with older existing only in Prague from 1544. The renaissance character of the town is due to a period of extreme wealth in the 14th to 16th century when Slavonice was an important town on the route from Prague to Vienna. When the route was relocated to the north, passing through Znojmo the town's source of wealth dried up as the local farming and forestry activities could never generate enough income. Our stroll through the well-preserved town center revealed that it's very much preserved in its renaissance look.

the principal of the school and Tereza, our trip leader

Sgraffito covered building

Sgraffito

Sgraffito

After visiting the kindergarten, we drove to a ceramics shop outside of Slavonice.  Here we observed ceramics being made and painted.  Their designs were whimsical and fun. Then we tried our hand at painting our own ceramics – nice remembrances of this visit even if our painting wasn’t the most beautiful.
 

the ceramics shop

one of the artists painting a cup

an artist throwing pottery

After lunch on your own at the hotel’s restaurant where Dave had a whole trout, we had free time to further explore the medieval streets.  I walked up and down the main street but there wasn't much to see.  The shops seemed to carry things that looked like they were from the 1960s.  It was raining so we elected to just stay at the hotel the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening we visited a family in a nearby village and learned how to prepare potato dumplings during a cooking class. Our hosts provided genuine Czech hospitality as we were dinner guests in their home.  After dinner the family’s opinion of the Russian occupation was discussed.

Arriving at our hosts' home in the rain.

Gathering in the kitchen.  Our hostess is in the blue/yellow sweater and her husband is to the right.

Our hostess begins making dumplings by grating some potatoes.

Then she kneads in flour and eggs.  She rolls it in a jelly-roll like roll and cooks it in water.  Then it's sliced into individual portions.

Charlotte, Tad, Dave and Me

Erik, Jytte, Jayne, Tereza and the bus driver from Poland who spent 11 days with us and became like one of the group.

Marsha and Alyce

Nancy, Al, Arnet, Roy, Odell and Paulette

Our discussion begins with questions from our group.  Here our hostess is holding her granddaughter.

The discussion became somewhat lively as our hosts told us how passionate they had been about ridding the then Czechoslovakia of Communist rule.  As young adults they had gone underground passing out anti-communist leaflets and urging the end of Communist rule.  As they were close to the border, the Communists watched their every move -- on the way to work, on the trains, in the stores, etc.