Olomouc - With or Without Commercialism - Day #2
A mural of T.G. Masaryk, one of the founding fathers of Czechoslovakia, seen in Bezručovy sady
Sobota, 26. V (Saturday,
May 26), 2018 – (excerpts from my journal The Pressburg Diaries, vol 9 and another travel journal)
I was up with the sun
and a splitting headache. I think it is the result of last night’s last nightcap over an hour after leaving the restaurant. It’s not good to have a beer or
two with dinner, wait an hour and then have another one.
Our Saturday morning
kicked in when we went next door to Sophie’s Café for breakfast. We had cold
cuts, cheese, and croissants with jam and butter, and some pretty amazing
coffee. You don’t need Starbucks in these parts with such good coffee. Nope, no
oats nor groats this morning in Olomouc. We wanted to explore the town and some
of the shops, and since most businesses are open only half a day on Saturdays, we
had to get a move on. Our first stop after breakfast was a bookshop. I bought a
hiking map of the region of the Czech Republic where I lived in 1994 and 1995,
and Zuza bought Czech translation of a book by a Norwegian writer. Next, I went
to a stationery shop while Zuza found a cosmetics seller. We’d heard of some
rose gardens in the area, and this turned into a walk to the botanical garden
through the Bezručovy sady “moat” park, which afforded a nice view of the
remains of the medieval city walls. We found the botanical garden, all right,
but not the roses. Entrance to the garden is free, however a visit to the
toilet costs 5 kčs. It was also hotter than we’d anticipated, so I’m glad I
didn’t wear my jeans. However, I forgot my cap, and I was painfully aware of
the strong sun, leaning toward the shade whenever I could.
Part of the old city wall in Bezručovy sady
We passed some more churches,
including the Chapel of St. John Sarkander, where a priest was once imprisoned
and tortured. Because it was getting hot, we began a quest for some liquid
refreshment. This brought us back into the center for lunch at Restaurant U
Mořice. We sat on their terrace in the shadow of the giant cathedral and
ordered ginger ales. It was quiet here, away from the bustle of the center. Eventually
we ordered beer and lunch, enjoying the good service of the restaurant and the
breeze out on the terrace.
View from our table of the massive Gothic cathedral of Sv. Mořice, Olomouc
Lunch is served, Czech style
After lunch we went inside the cathedral to see the glass windows inside with the daylight outside. It was an impressive few minutes of time well spent. While we were walking around, sucking in the awe-inspiring artwork and reveling in the sheer solitude afforded by the cathedral, a group of very bored-looking Asian women tourists were seated in the pews, lost in their cell phones; their faces alight with the glow of the screens. It made me wonder what compels such people to travel so far from home to see things they’re not even interested in. I couldn’t come up with a suitable answer other than perhaps they were bored with the lack of commercial options here. I concluded that I was fortunate not to have to climb aboard a plane and fly a long distance to see such a sight as Sv. Mořice. I decided I could wait until I got back to the room to tell Facebook and the world any news from the day’s adventures.
Inside Sv. Mořice Cathedral
A trip to a simple shopping mall across the street was fruitful for me because I found a Czech phrasebook to complement the one I have at home in Slovak. Every now and then I need a refresher on how to ask for simple things. I used to think phrasebooks were for tourists, but they can come in handy even for long-term residents who have studied the language. In any event, I would wager a guess my Slovak might be ‘that’ much better than my Czech. And here, at the local shopping center, was the only sign of retail commercialism we found in Olomouc. You don't see chain stores or brand-name franchises any place else but here. We walked around a bit more. Zuza found a place selling the famed--or infamous, depending upon how you feel about certain smelly foods--Olomoucké tvarůžky. This is a local and very stinky cheese that you either have to try or you don't. It's aged with meat, apparently, and is a tradition here. It comes in a few forms, and the shop sold it in a kind of cold creamy form, reminding me of a sort of God-awful frozen yogurt. I didn't try it, since I'm not a lover of smelly foods, and this is the sort of thing that, if it weren't at least for goulash, would send me running for McDonalds--except that if a Mickey D's existed in town, I certainly didn't see it. Finally we returned to our room and took a long, well-deserved afternoon rest.
In the evening we
thought to go to a wine festival that was taking place on Horní náměstí (Upper
Square) but when we got there, we decided against it. It was too warm to be
drinking wine, and there seemed to be little or no food to go with it. With the
bright late afternoon sun, any wine I consume would result in a splitting
headache. Instead, we walked around to find a place for dinner. Had we walked
to Dolní náměstí (Lower Square), we’d have had a better choice of eateries. But
as far as we were, we decided to try and find something here. After searching
the area out, we found U Červeneho Volka, a Pilsner pub, and tried that. They
had reasonably good goulash and Greek salad (which Zuza claimed wasn’t really
Greek because of the peppers they put in it), and a nice “vintage” atmosphere
with lots of décor, but with horrible 90s-era club music playing. Zuza was
really tired so we didn’t stay here too long.
We walked back home,
skipping a nightcap this time. It wasn’t even 8 pm. We tried finding a tea
room (we’d seen one), but we weren’t able to find it so we gave up and went
back to the room. Later, I went out alone for a short walk further down
Denisová Street. I still felt a pang of hunger and contemplated getting a pizza
from Telepizza, down the street from our flat, but decided against it. I tried
looking for a place to stop in and get a beer (the nightcap desire finally
hit!), but nothing looking like a pub was open, nor were there any shops
selling beer. The only places I found way down the street looked really dodgy
or sleazy. They were probably full of well-oiled belligerent locals who’d sooner beat you up
than look at you. Small local pubs can be like that. But the lack of any small
grocery shops or drug stores was frustrating. It’s like the whole center of Olomouc
is in a sort of commercial retail vacuum. It was as if the center grew over the
centuries until it industrialized and then never made it past 1887. You can
really appreciate it until you really need something and then it’s just
annoying.
On Day #3, nothing particularly exciting happened. I wrapped up my travel notes as we wrapped up our weekend in Olomouc, checked out of our room, and we headed back to the commercial jungle of Bratislava.