Melnik Musings

Saturday we started off on an early morning trip to Melnik, a town about forty-five minutes north of Prague. Melnik is perched high on an escarpment and is surrounded by vineyards. It is positioned at the confluence of the Vltava and Elbe rivers. The major attraction in Melnik is a Chateau , referred to in English as Melnik Castle, but it is not called a castle in Czech or German.

We met Rebekah, our travelling companion and guide, at the church at Namesti Miru, at 7:15 AM and then walked to the Metro to go to the Holesovice bus station. There we boarded a nice bus for the forty-five minute trip to Melnik. We walked from the Melnik bus station to the town center which contains the striking features of a market square, a Renaissance town hall and a clock tower. Once there our major quest was for coffee. We circled the square and settled on a little café which had only six tables, five of which were filled with what seemed to be locals. We ordered on cappuccino, two lattes and two small pastries – one of which was a total mystery to us but which was really delightful to the palate.

From the café we set out to do some serious searching of the shops in the market square. I suggested we go into the sporting goods shop we came across first on our wandering. This proved to be an excellent first choice as Rebekah found a Hi-Tek vest on sale and purchased it without hesitation. John bought four whistles for the school, as we don’t have enough for all the teachers to use to gather their flock. We then perused several other shops while successfully avoiding any further purchases. After tiring of shopping we headed for the Chateau. The tours there are self-guided. We received a printout in English to aid our journey through time in the Chateau.

This tour was especially charming as we were able to be up close and personal with furniture, paintings, mirrors, and other smaller artifacts from the 1500s and 1600s. We were able to touch, smell and see several of these. Highlights included the massive bedroom, the ballroom, the map room and the concert hall. Each room contained many original or near original furnishings. The map room featured maps from Amsterdam in the 1600s. There were intricately hand-drawn maps of more than twenty European cities. This was indeed impressive. We saw the tables set with service pieces in the large dining room, and the grand drawing room is the perfect spot to have tea with twenty or thirty of your close friends – very impressive indeed. One room and staircase contained a multitude of guns and hunting trophies.

Enough of the Chateau except to say it has become my favorite historical site to visit in the CR. It was better than Karlstyn Castle and other places we have seen. It was now time for the serious business of lunch. Liz and I were yearning for pizza and Rebekah agreed with our desire. We found a nice inner courtyard restaurant and were completely satisfied with the choice. The food was good, the service was foreigner friendly and the restrooms were clean – how could it get any better? We ate all we could and left some slices for under US$20 for the three of us.

Speaking of serious business, it was now time to return to the Chateau for wine tasting. This is no Sonoma Valley wine tasting experience. We walked all alone down a fairly dark, stone staircase into history. This was all likely from the 1600s. The entry door was about five and a half feet high so I had to duck to get in - I felt really tall! After navigating down the dark, dank stairs we came to a large open space. There were nine ancient barrels sitting upright in a u shape. On each barrel were two bottles, one opened and one yet-to-be-opened, of a variety of wine. We had been given a basket of typical Czech rye bread before we started our descent in order to partially cleanse our palates between samplings.

We were alone in this dimly lit cellar for most of the time. Suddenly a charming, young redheaded Czech man came down carrying a few bottles of wine. He spoke English with a most delightful accent. He had come to replenish the empty bottles with new bottles. We decided as we went around the u shaped area that we needed to reduce the amount of wine we poured ourselves as samples if we were to make it back up the stairs and return home. About our seventh tasting, a group of Czech or Germans descended to join us. We finished up and made it up the stairs to daylight, returned our glasses and basket of bread and exited the Chateau grounds.

The afternoon was gloriously sunny and in temperature was in the mid sixties – a great improvement over the cloudy week we had just experienced. Hence we walked toward the river – winding our way through the vineyards below. We walked across a highway bridge to get better views of the surrounding and the Chateau as it stood elegantly high on the escarpment. The tree leaves on the hillside were beginning to shimmer in their fall colors of yellow and red and we were treated to superb sights of nature. The river water was moving very slowly and was a murky brown just like the Missouri and Kansas rivers. The view across into the agricultural valley was splendid indeed, marred only by the immense, coal burning power generating station in the background of our view. But we are thankful that it was there as it undoubtedly supplies vast amounts of electrical power to Prague.

We made was last stop for pictures in the market square before meandering back to the bus station – about a twenty minute walk from the old town. The temperature was now nearing seventy and we shed our outer garments as we returned. Only last Saturday on a cloudy, cold day we were being chilled by the Czech weather and Liz had to buy a scarf to remain close to comfortable – today it was the opposite.

When we reached the bus station we were warm and thirsty. We found that we had about thirty minutes to wait for the next bus, so we strolled over to a nearby grocery store. A little chocolate, a little coke, a little bottled water were our purchases. We return and wait for the bus to take us back to Prague eating and drinking and carrying on teachers’ favorite pastime – talking about our students – who are all so interesting. In the distance we hear quite a racket coming our way. To our consternation it is our bust making a terrible clatter. Liz verbalizes, “That does not sound good.” We all agree and wait to see what happens.

We buy our tickets and board the bus. But then the driver gets off and begins making phone calls. Some passengers get off to smoke – the ubiquitous sport of many Czechs. We get off as it is warm on the bus. The driver continues to make phone calls. More people get off the bus. Then the driver tells everyone to get off. About thirty minutes have now passed since our initial failed boarding. Everyone starts walking to a bus that just pulled up at a different boarding gate. This bus is about half full. Our bus was three quarters full. The numbers don’t look good.

There is a monster queue as we all try and board. Since we never really knew what was being said, we are about the last people on the bus. There are no unoccupied seats and there are people standing in the aisles. We make our way down the aisle toward the back of the bus. I am confident that some young person will give us his/her seat. As Liz leads us down the aisle, a nice young lady graciously give up her seat to Liz. I look at the other youth in seats, but my hopes fades as I see their demeanors. I was right. Rebekah and I are among the lucky ones who will stand on the forty-five minute journey back to Prague. I am somewhat disgusted with the youth as several times in Prague I had been give a seat by a polite young person. But by standing, I see the countryside better and Rebekah and I swap traveling stories most of the way back to make the time go faster. I try and crown the seated young man I am closest to make him painfully aware that I should be in that seat according to Czech custom and law. It does not work. We arrive back at Holesvice station and board the metro to return to our flat. Rebekah comes with to use the internet at our place.

Unfortunately the Internet is badly misbehaving and nearly unusable. We had planned to eat together, but Rebekah is now thinking of all the school work she needs to do and decides to head home. Liz fixes a dinner of tuna and noodles that is good. I make a quick journey to the Polska Potraviny to pick up a few items for tomorrow’s meals. We are disappointed that MLB is on our TV sports channel instead of a college football game. We try a few more phone calls to the USA (over the internet) and are only marginally successful. We surf a bit, do a bit of school work, and watch some TV before retiring for the night. It was a very good day.