Between two churches...

Frýdek-Místek is a city of around 60,000 inhabitants that straddles the Ostravice river about 18km (11 miles) south of Ostrava. The river here forms the border between the old historic lands of Moravia and Silesia and the hyphen might be a clue that Frýdek-Místek was once two towns. Frýdek chateau sits atop a high rocky outcrop on the eastern, Silesian side of the river; Místek was founded to watch over the lower, western, Moravian side of the river crossing.

The two tiny historic town centres of Frýdek and Místek are now surrounded by a sprawl of everything that was good and bad about the architecture and town planning of the socialist era. The high density apartment towers are separated by generous green spaces and the wide footpaths, tunnels and courtyards make it easy for pedestrians to get to either old town or the the bus and train stations that are just on the Frýdek side of the river. Unfortunately though, the lawns and gardens are unkempt, the pathways are crumbling and littered and the ground-floor shops that should have been grocery stores, hairdressers and newsagents have devolved into dark and mostly deserted non-stop bars filled with flashing lights and hypnotized gamblers.

Luckily there's more to Frýdek-Místek than its bedraggled suburbs and most visitors will probably spend their time in one or both of the historic old towns. The street layout of both is preserved.

Místek is the smaller of the two and just off the tidy marketplace square stands the most impressive building. The church of St. James was originally Gothic but the striking red and white plaster and pear-shaped copper dome are from a later reconstruction in the baroque style. Many of the houses around the old marketplace square are quite attractive and one side has a beautiful long arcade walkway from the 1500's. There are some insensitive and ugly buildings on the square too, and because the old town of Místek is so small, you really only have to walk one block to be among the grimly oppressive pavilions that sell discount clothes and house a hard-to-comprehend number of seedy all-night gambling bars.

Across the river in the shadow of the imposing Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Frýdek's old town does a better job of shrugging off the surrounding urban grimness. No doubt it's helped by its position atop a relatively steep-sided hill and the loosely connected ring of parks that cushion the impact of the communist-era architects. The imposing chateau that stands over the western end of Frýdek's slightly sloping rectangular square is open to the public six days a week and the courtyards and formal park are free of charge.

The rest of the Frýdek square is lined by two, three and four storey townhouses in varying architectural styles, and they seem to house the best of the city's best cafes, restaurants, penzions and shops. My particular favourite is the Frýdek-Místek teahouse (at Hluboká 64).

If you're not familiar with teahouses, they're inspired by the orient, offer 100 types of tea from across the world and there's at least one in every decent sized town in the Czech republic. I'm not sure what makes the Frýdek one so special but everyone I've taken there seems to agree it has a certain something. It's long been my favourite teahouse but if anyone thinks they've been to a better one, please post the address in the comments below because I'd love to check it out.




7

Another cycle trip

If you meet an English speaking traveller who tells you they've done a week-long cycling tour in the Czech Republic, there's a pretty good chance (I'd guess at least 4 out of 5) that they rode either from Mikulov to Český Krumlov or from Český Krumlov to Mikulov. Which is fine, of course, but sometimes I answer questions on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree forum and when one came up recently I found myself with hesitations about recommending the Mikulov-Krumlov shuffle.

South Moravia is probably my favourite region in the country and South Bohemia is definitely in the top three good-looking regions in the room, but I just wonder if this route really deserves four times as much attention and patronage as the rest of the cycle routes in the country put together. My main concern is that, with the exception of Znojmo, all the other towns might start to look a bit the same.

Znojmo has around 35000 inhabitants, medieval catacombs, and a variety of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance architecture; but Mikulov, Slavonice, Telč, Jindřichův Hradec, Třeboň and Český Krumlov are all smallish towns (maximum 20000 people) dominated by the renaissance architecture of the 16th century (two storeys plus attic, pastel or sgraffito facades, arcade walkways, and dating from 1500-1620). Unless you really have a specific interest in the variations and intricacies of Central European renaissance architecture (I must admit that applies to me) wouldn't this route be a bit like going to a smorgasbord dinner and having six helpings of the same dish?
In the case of the fellow that asked the original question, (lets call him Ben) I kind of thought Mikulov to Krumlov would be OK, but he expressed interest in hearing any other suggestions I might have and because I'm intending to finish my round the country ride soon, I thought it might be a good exercise to plan an itinerary a bit and see if it's any use to him or anyone else.

Ben was thinking of beginning in Mikulov and my last ride finished in Mutěnice near Hodonín, but for the purposes of this we might split the difference and start in Břeclav. Ben has a week and I have more than a month, so he'd have to skip some of the things I'd visit and I'd be able to devote more time to each place.

Břeclav

Břeclav is a good place to start because it has excellent rail connections and a well-equipped train station. Bombed in World War II, it's now a fairly unattractive town, but there is a chateau that was built to look like a partly ruined medieval castle during the romantic 19th century. Behind the chateau, cycle trail #43 heads off through the Dyje natural park towards Lednice chateau.

Lednice-Valtice area

The Lednice-Valtice area is 2 square kilometres of landscaped countryside and world heritage architecture from the 19th century. The highlights are another mock ruined castle hunting lodge called Janův Hrad, the minaret designed by Josef Hardtmuth (better known abroad for his pencils), the Lednice chateau and greenhouse and the chateau and Jesuit church in Valtice. I've done this ride a few time and i like to follow trail 41 out of Lednice, then turn off along the lake to visit Hlohovec castle, which marks the old border between Moravia and Austria. From there it's up and over a vineyard-covered hill and down into Valtice. Valtice's wine cellars are a great opportunity to sample the local drop, but bear in mind that cyclists should technically have a 0.0 blood-alcohol-content. From Valtice there are minor country roads back to Břeclav or sandy trails through the forest and past the rendezvous and monuments.

Ruins of the Great Moravian Empire

Trail #43 south out of Břeclav leads to Pohansko, which is marked on all the Lednice-Valtice maps because of the Pohansko chateau. More interesting to me though is the nearby archaeological site and reconstruction of a small encampment from the Great Moravian Empire. The Empire was the first organised nation state of Slavic peoples but you hear very little about it because most information comes out of Prague and getting a proud Praguer to use 'Great' and 'Moravia' in the same breath is like getting blood from a a stone.

Past Lanžhot, cycle trail 44 runs along the bank of the Morava river, and is a great opportunity to absorb what you learned at Pohansko, before delving into the centre of the great Moravian empire at Mikulčice. Actually no-one knows where the capital was, but the excavations at Mikulčice uncovered the largest cache of Great Moravian churches, graves, jewellery and ceramics ever found. It's likely to be the Czech Republic's next UNESCO-world heritage site.

Hodonín

From there it's not far to Hodonín, which has an impressive main square church, and museums devoted to a) local boy and liberator president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and b) South Moravia's oil industry. You didn't know they drilled for oil in South Moravia? Neither did I - I'm looking forward to visiting to find out more about it. From Hodonín, trail #47 leads along the river valley towards Strážnice, or we could shortcut through Slovakia and the pretty little town of Skalica.

Strážnice

Strážnice is best known for the huge folk festival that takes place every year in and for its skansen. A skansen is basically an outdoor museum; in this case with a collection of typical traditional South Moravian cottages, farmhouses and gardens. There's also a renaissance chateau that offers budget accommodation, a Jewish cemetery and a small port for boats navigating the Bata Canal.

Uherské Hradiště or Uherský Brod & Luhačovice

Uherské Hradiště is the biggest town in the Moravské Slovácko region. If it were possible to single out the one Czech region that has best held on to its folk traditions and customs it would probably be Moravské Slovácko. There's a handful of wonderful old historic buildings in Uherské Hradiště, but the best way to use the town is as a base to get into the real Slovácko countryside.

One good day long cycle trip is the loop to Buchlovice chateau ( home of the garlic festival) The imposing gothic Buchlov castle, Tupesy (ceramics workshop, gift centre and museum), Velehrad (pilgrimage church) and Modra (reconstructed huts, houses and church from the Great Moravian empire).

Uherský Brod is a relaxed town with a couple of very impressive churches and a good museum to the most famous local boy Jan Amoš Komenský, better known abroad as Comenius - the teacher of nations. Luhačovice is a spa town in a lovely forested setting with some of architect Dušan Jurkovic's best work. Personally I think all places mentioned above are worth visiting, but a cyclist pressed for time would probably ride from Strážnice to Zlín either along the river via Uh. Hradiště or up over the hills via Uh. Brod and Luhačovice.

Zlín

Home of Bata shoes. The innovative Bata factories, villas and shoe museum can all be visited and office block 21 is especially worthwhile for the rooftop terrace, the elevator office and the free exhibition on the eighth floor. The town chateau has good exhibition about the local film animation industry and the annual festival of children's film happens each year at the end of May.

Vallašské Meziříčí and Rožnov pod radhoštěm

In my experience, Wallachia (Vallašsko) is the Czech republic's friendliest region. Vallašské Meziříčí is its biggest town and the pleasant old square, cool bars and cafes and the inexpensive guesthouse right in the chateau make it a good place to base yourself for a few days. Check out one of the teahouses and the coffee shop in the upholstery school.

The big attraction of Rožnov pod radhoštěm is its collection of traditional wooden buildings. In the early 20th century there were two brothers who bought any timber building they heard was going to be demolished and somehow got permission to restore and reassemble them in the Rožnov town park on the right bank of the river Bečva. There's a church, a mill, a post office, a couple of working pubs and traditional festivals or events almost every weekend from May through September.

Nový Jičín/Štramberk/Kopřivnice/Příbor/Hukvaldy

Nový Jičín and the towns nearby have plenty to keep anyone interested for few days. Nový Jičín has one of the prettiest main squares in the country, the hat museum and Starý Jičín castle ruins just outside town. Štramberk has good collection of traditional wooden Wallachian houses, the remains of a hilltop castle lookout tower and an excellent microbrewery on the main square. Příbor is Sigmund Freud's birthplace and the family house is now open to the public. Kopřivnice has the wonderfully quirky Tatra car and truck museum and Hukvaldy castle ruins are worth visiting even if you miss the annual Janaček music festival. The #502 trail connects most of these destinations.

Frýdek-Místek

I want to go back to Frýdek-Místek mostly because it has the best teahouse I've ever been to. Frýdek and Místek were originally two towns; Místek on the left, Moravian bank of the Ostravice river, and Frýdek across on the opposite bank in Silesia. The historic centre of Frýdek around the square and chateau is lovely and I'm looking forward to exploring Místek too when I go back with a bicycle.

Český Těšín

Český Těšín is the Czech part of the town that found itself split in two when a new international border between Czechoslovakia and Poland was drawn was drawn along the Olše river in 1920. Czech Těšín was cut off from the historic centre of town, and Polish Těšín lost the important rail connections that were on the western side of the river. Another upheaval came in 1938 when Polish troops annexed Czech Těšín after the Munich betrayal. These days you can just walk down and across the bridge into the neighbouring country and nobody bats an eyelid.

Havířov

You wont find Havířov mentioned in many guidebooks but it seems like a very interesting place. It's an industrial city built in the early 1950s in the style of socialist realism. In those early years the communist party was still dominated by courageous people who joined when it was a persecuted organization and I'm keen to see if I can find differences in their architecture compared to the monstrosities of the 1970s when party membership was a prerequisite for every ambitious and unscrupulous citizen interested in personal power. Even if I'm wrong about the difference in architecture, I think the extensive collection of social-realist public sculpture will make the visit worthwhile.

Ostrava

3rd biggest city of the Czech republic and much-maligned as an ugly industrial sprawl populated by unemployed former miners. But ask anyone who has actually spent time there and the overwhelming response is that they really quite like it. The nightlife is famous but I also enjoyed the cafes, bookshops, the tour of the old steelworks and the museum of mining out in the northern suburbs. From Ostrava there are good train connections to all major cities in the region and Ben would probably finish here, while I'd like to push on to Opava, Krnov and the Jesenik mountains on my way home to Olomouc.

I've probably left this post a bit late to be useful to Ben, but I hope to cycle much of this route between about Mid may and Mid June this year. With tiny villages, towns and large industrial cities; everything from Great Moravian wooden cabins to social-realist reinforced concrete; forested hills, gentle flood plains; Moravian Slovak, Wallachian and Silesian culture and cuisine, it's going to be quite a trip.

Born under a black star

Ostrava has a reputation for being the black heart of the Czech Republic, an ugly, rough coal mining and industrial city and a bastion of support for the former communist regime. While it’s the least historic (bombed heavily in WWII) of the Czech Republic’s larger cities, it’s also the greenest and has a more vibrant energy than places like Brno, Plzeň or Pardubice. It’s actually quite an interesting and pleasant place to visit and has a unique atmosphere that almost makes it seem like it’s in a country of its own. The only place I’ve ever been that gave me even a remotely similar impression is Glasgow.

It’s difficult to describe what makes Ostrava feel so distinct, but I think it has to do with a sense of isolation and of being an underdog. The isolation is easy enough to explain. The international frontier with Poland wraps around the city to the north and east and to the south and west are the Beskyd and Jeseník mountains. The pass between the mountains is so narrow that it’s known as the Moravian Gate, and as you pass through you can see the hilltop castles that once guarded the pass and extracted tolls from travellers. The sense of Ostrava and its people being underdogs is obviously much more subjective, but part of it is being so far from Prague, where all the tax money is administered and the big decisions are made. Perhaps it also stems from being a traditionally working class city in a country with a rapidly growing middle class. Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing? If you have an impression of the city that either agrees or disagrees with mine, please share it by leaving a comment.

So Ostrava’s not as bad as it’s made out to be, but what would you actually do on a visit? Let’s go back to industry for a start. If you came from the south by bus, you’d have passed through the suburb Vitkovice, which is known locally as Ostravská Hradčana (a self-effacing comparison to Prague castle and its unmistakable silhouette). The industrial Vitkovice skyline is just as unmistakable and may soon have another thing in common with the real Hradčany, if UNESCO decides to go ahead and protect the area as a site of world heritage importance. The landscape here is considered unique for its combination of mining, processing and manufacturing on one site. The disused blast furnace towers, tanks and conveyor belts reminded me of a herd of metallic dinosaurs caught in the same rainstorm as the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz.

Since August this year, it’s been possible to walk among the dinosaurs, climb up their legs or tails and scratch their bellies. Tours run by the Ostrava Information Centre run daily, take about an hour and cost 60Kč for adults/30Kč for students. Hardhats are supplied and an English text is available.

The coal mine and blast furnaces have been disused since the early 1990’s when the newly democratic government decided it wasn’t appropriate either socially or environmentally to a have a huge coalfired industrial complex in the middle of a city of 300,000 inhabitants. The steelworks continued to operate but the unemployment caused by the closure of the mines was such a heavy burden that some people felt Ostrava was being punished for being a reliable bastion of support for the former regime. Bringing in busloads of miners was a favourite tactic to intimidate any public gathering leaning towards dissent against the Communist government and Ostrava was a popular location for the imprisonment and edification of political dissidents, including former president Vaclav Havel.

The other interesting industrial site is the Mining Museum, right out behind the train station at the other end of town. The bus trip there is fairly straightforward and then it’s a five minute walk to the museum entrance. There are three tours, each of which takes about an hour to complete. I started at the mine rescue exhibit, which begins with an elegant and understated memorial to local mine rescuers who died doing their jobs. There are displays of breathing and diving equipment and an underground replica of a rescue station and training chamber. The training chamber is mostly for children to try squeezing through tight spaces in the dark, but the whole underground section brings home the horror of being trapped in a mine, especially if there’s flooding involved.

The second tour is of an actual coal mine, focusing on the techniques of extracting coal and the conditions under which miners worked. The guide is an cheerful old miner with a relaxed manner and, while the old wooden part of the mine is a mock up, the modern steel-reinforced section is an authentic disused coal mine. As on most underground tours you’ll have a chance to experience total darkness. The third tour is of the exhibition building, but I didn’t make it in time for this one. It displays mining equipment, the development of mining lamps and illumination and talks about the different professions associated with mining. Each individual tour costs 30Kč.

Its not just work, work, work though. There’s a rich cultural life in Ostrava, and it boasts an energetic nightlife zone that puts Prague, Krakow and Vienna to shame. Along Stodolní Ulice and neighbouring lanes dozens and dozens, perhaps a hundred bars and clubs stand shoulder to shoulder and combined with the exuberance of the locals and the working class ethic of ‘work hard, play hard’ you can imagine the kind of night out you might have. If you’re visiting in June, Colours of Ostrava is one of the country’s best music festivals, with 16 stages, a leaning towards world music and past headliners like Marianne Faithful, Robert Plant and Goran Bregovič. There are also plenty of good cafes in which to pass an hour or two with a coffee and something to read. My two favourites are the café in the multi-floor bookstore on the main square and the Černá Hvězda (Black Star) on the corner of Stodolní and Nadražní.

There’s also the local museum, some interesting churches to visit (including the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour) and the Moravo-Silesian castle, which has remained intact despite sinking an amazing 17 metres due to undermining! The museum of firefighting will be interesting to some and tours of the local Ostravar brewery include tastings. Or you might prefer to try the beer in its native habitat; a Banik football club home game.

So there’s plenty to see and do here, and while Ostrava is far from the country’s top tourist destination, anyone who dismisses it as a worthless industrial wasteland is not being fair, or simply hasn’t been there. The black steel heart has opened up, the rainbow colours of the music festival and Stodolni are outshining the black star and, in contrast to more famous Czech tourist destinations, there’s never been a better time to visit Ostrava than now.

Ostrava 

Jaromir Nohavica, Translation: Roman Kostovski

Ostrava Ostrava
City of all cities
My bittersweet felicity
Ostrava Ostrava
Blackened star above my head
God has given
Beauty to all the other cities
Steamboats on the rivers
And picture perfect ladies
Ostrava Ostrava
Your red heart
A fate sealed from the start
Ostrava Ostrava
Where did I lose my sight
When I rushed towards your light
Ostrava Ostrava
Blackened star above my head
And my rambling legs
Where ever they would bear their load
The birds up in the sky
Would draw me to that single road
Ostrava Ostrava
Your red heart
A fate sealed from the start