Wednesday 26th September 2007

Woken very early today, not by the train (too far away), but by the quacking of ducks around and underneath Henrietta. The prospect of duck a l'orange for dinner is very appealing.
A short trip today to Jindrichuv Hradec – please don't ask me to pronounce that, it is sufficient to say that when we heard in said by Czechs, it didn't sound anything like our attempts. We found out that it meant Henry's Castle and we can pronounce that. It is the third largest castle complex in the whole of the Czech Republic and we had a very interesting tour of it. This was somewhat of a surprise given that such tours in the Czech Republic are normally given in Czech and British visitors are given a very short, often badly translated written guide to read as they go round. This means that you listen to very long descriptions of rooms in Czech whilst reading the guide, which describes the room as “Two olde wallrobes and painting depocting Noam Arc and his animels”. This time, as luck would have it (and it being late September), we were the only people on this particular tour. This has happened to us before and, if the guide doesn't speak any English, it can be very embarrassing. This time however we were very lucky and the guide spoke Czech, German (obviously), French (specialised in that at university, together with history) and English as his fourth language. If only I could speak any other language as well as he spoke his fourth language! It was a fascinating tour made all the better by an enthusiastic guide. We learnt many interesting things such as:-
1) The castle started off as a proper castle, defending the Southern borders of Bohemia but was converted into more of a Château during the Renaissance.
2) The well was as deep as the Black Tower was high (35m) and the very ornate cover of the well was given as a wedding present.
3) One of the line of Lords of Hradec went to Hungary for battle experience and came back with the “Hungarian Disease” (syphilis) and gave this to his children after his subsequent marriage. His children were all badly affected by the disease and the heir who inherited the title died without children. The estate then past with the daughter's marriage to the Slavats but the promised dowry was never paid and her husband kept her as a hostage until his death without getting a penny. He had, of course, only married her for the money (I never got the chance to do this and I am still waiting for the dowry!). On his deathbed, he asked her for forgiveness but she refused and he cursed her. This meant that she haunts the Slavat castles to this day as 'The White Lady'.
4) The Czechs used to be afraid of the woods and thought that they were full of witches and warlocks and as a result, they were afraid of the colour green and never used it. After the Renaissance they realised that this was wrong so they used green in all of the rooms of the new buildings to show that they were not afraid.
5) The Rondel (a very impressive round building added to the Château - see photo) was a music room and its very ornate and impressive walls and ceiling had 30kg of gold leaf put on it during its restoration. This gold leaf was only put on the parts that were out of reach of the public! The musicians at that time were peasants and peasants were not allowed to see their betters, so they were put in a cellar 4m below the floor of the room. The sound came up through a hole in the floor and was amplified by a 'vase' connected to the hole. Unfortunately, a later owner of the castle kept animals in the Roundel and the 'vase' was destroyed. Nobody can work out how the 'vase' amplification worked – all ideas all welcome!
6) The 'Black Kitchen' has been left in its original, unrestored state with all of its smoke-blackened features. It typically served 500 meals but also served 'sweet porridge' (with honey) to the poor of the town. This was extended to meat, beer and wine over time. This was far too tempting and soon thousands of people, rich and poor were taking food. When this was discovered, they changed the rules and restricted it only to the poor.
7) The symbol of the Lords of Hradec was a five-petal rose and there are more that 11,000 examples of this in stone, wood and paint within the castle. I started counting as we went round but soon gave up!
8) The communist regime confiscated the castle from the owners in 1945 because the owners had allegedly collaborated with the Nazis and it has been in state ownership ever since.
We had lunch whilst waiting for the guided tour. It was supposed to be a light snack and I had a set menu that turned out to be chicken soup followed by dumplings stuffed with smoked ham with caramelised onions, a lovely variety of sauerkraut and sauce. Jane had dumplings with goulash in a lovely sauce. Together with an apple juice, the total bill came to less than £4.50 and we were totally stuffed! The meal was however traumatic for me. The drink / drive rules in the Czech Republic are very tight – no alcohol at all. This meant that I had to refuse 0.5l of wonderful Czech beer at 19kc (less than 60p) and pay 25kc for a coffee or a soft drink (0.2l). This cannot be right – how can it cost more to produce a coffee than half a litre of beer?
Jindrichuv Hdadec's other claim to fame is to be found in its museum. Amongst its other advertised attractions of 'The Emmy Destinn (opera singer) Parlor', 'The Apothecary of Virgin Mary, The Helpful' and 'Firearms and Target Weapons' (including 60 wooden targets donated by the Sarpshooters Society of Jindrichuv Hdadec), is the highlight – the largest mechanical nativity scene in the World. And it is official – listed in the Guinness Book of Records. It took 60 years to create, covers an area of 60 square metres and has 1398 figures of which 133 move. We were the only people present at the English presentation but it appeared that the Czechs came from all over the country to see it.
The evening was spent cooking an innovated version of goulash and trying to translate the instructions on the Czech dumplings packet.