We arrived at the Francovi apartment in Prague about a week after leaving London,
the plan being to use Prague as a base to do wedding planning.. and a few side trips.
the plan being to use Prague as a base to do wedding planning.. and a few side trips.
Our first week flew by with a daily schedule that went something like *gym | eat | lay on the hill in the sun | eat*. After about a week of that and feeling like we had recharged from London Life, we hired a car and set off to explore some of the rest of the countryside.
Trip one was down to the extremely picturesque town of Český Krumlov in the south of the country. It was a 3 hr bus ride past golden canola fields to get there, on our new favourite mode of transport, Student Agency Busses. We spent a couple of nights, took loads of photos and spent way too long watching the ducks battle each other for the best spot in the pond. Life is pretty chill in that part of the world, one of those places that is amazing to visit but always leaves you wondering what it is exactly that keeps the locals busy.
Trip two was a little less relaxing and a little more spooky. We hired a car and basically spent the day chasing ghosts and bones. Our journey started with a visit to the Ossuary in Kuntá Hora, famous for one creepy thing- bones used to decorate the interior of a church. The story goes that the 'decorator' (who was a blind monk) began his hobby way back in the 1400's. Due to various wars and epidemics, graveyards were full, and due to resizing, many thousands of bones had to be moved. He used the excavated bones from the cemetery to begin his rare craft of bone decorating. The resulting chandeliers, towers and piles of bones is as unsettling as it is intriguing.
Second stop was none less creepy, although a little less discovered on the main tourist trail. Our destination was a
dilapidated church in the tiny town of Lukova, and the reason we wanted to visit was to seek out a little known exhibition designed by a local student artist, Jakub Hadrava, to raise funds for the repair of the crumbling church. Using plaster, Jakub has created delicately eerie figures lining the church pews.
It wasn't the easiest place to find, we took a tiny little road off the main highway, passed a man on a tractor who looked like a snapshot out of 80's rural Czech, and looked worriedly at each other as the road twisted into a dirt track, until branches snapped off and scraped the side of our poor little rental car. But we turned a corner and arrived at our destination - the dilapidated Lukova Church in the middle of nowhere.
We were also pretty lucky to get in. As we pulled up to the church, we were greeted with a locked gate and no sign of life in the 4 house village. There was a scrap of torn paper loosely stuck to the gate with a number scrawled on it. We looked at each other, figured it was our only option, and Pete dialled away. In his limited Czech, he managed to get across the caretaker that we were here to see the church. When he heard we were Australians he was more than welcoming...'ahhh...Australie!! I'll be there in 10 minutes!!" He arrived swinging an empty paint bucket for donations and keys to the place, opened up the church and let us have the run of it, climbing up rotting stair wells and rickety ladders to get the best shots.
Of course nothing beat our last week in Prague though, our wedding day. We had an amazing day celebrating with everyone who could be there with us, and are looking forward to celebrating again with everyone back home when we finally get there.
Amusingly, in Czech when a woman marries, she adds 'ova' to her new surname to signify that she is a married woman. So, as I'm not going through the process of changing my surname at the moment, I am now officially Emma van Lintova on our wedding certificate! As a compromise, we've decided to become Mr & Mrs van Francova :)
~ The van Francovas
Trip one was down to the extremely picturesque town of Český Krumlov in the south of the country. It was a 3 hr bus ride past golden canola fields to get there, on our new favourite mode of transport, Student Agency Busses. We spent a couple of nights, took loads of photos and spent way too long watching the ducks battle each other for the best spot in the pond. Life is pretty chill in that part of the world, one of those places that is amazing to visit but always leaves you wondering what it is exactly that keeps the locals busy.
Trip two was a little less relaxing and a little more spooky. We hired a car and basically spent the day chasing ghosts and bones. Our journey started with a visit to the Ossuary in Kuntá Hora, famous for one creepy thing- bones used to decorate the interior of a church. The story goes that the 'decorator' (who was a blind monk) began his hobby way back in the 1400's. Due to various wars and epidemics, graveyards were full, and due to resizing, many thousands of bones had to be moved. He used the excavated bones from the cemetery to begin his rare craft of bone decorating. The resulting chandeliers, towers and piles of bones is as unsettling as it is intriguing.
Second stop was none less creepy, although a little less discovered on the main tourist trail. Our destination was a
dilapidated church in the tiny town of Lukova, and the reason we wanted to visit was to seek out a little known exhibition designed by a local student artist, Jakub Hadrava, to raise funds for the repair of the crumbling church. Using plaster, Jakub has created delicately eerie figures lining the church pews.
It wasn't the easiest place to find, we took a tiny little road off the main highway, passed a man on a tractor who looked like a snapshot out of 80's rural Czech, and looked worriedly at each other as the road twisted into a dirt track, until branches snapped off and scraped the side of our poor little rental car. But we turned a corner and arrived at our destination - the dilapidated Lukova Church in the middle of nowhere.
We were also pretty lucky to get in. As we pulled up to the church, we were greeted with a locked gate and no sign of life in the 4 house village. There was a scrap of torn paper loosely stuck to the gate with a number scrawled on it. We looked at each other, figured it was our only option, and Pete dialled away. In his limited Czech, he managed to get across the caretaker that we were here to see the church. When he heard we were Australians he was more than welcoming...'ahhh...Australie!! I'll be there in 10 minutes!!" He arrived swinging an empty paint bucket for donations and keys to the place, opened up the church and let us have the run of it, climbing up rotting stair wells and rickety ladders to get the best shots.
Of course nothing beat our last week in Prague though, our wedding day. We had an amazing day celebrating with everyone who could be there with us, and are looking forward to celebrating again with everyone back home when we finally get there.
Amusingly, in Czech when a woman marries, she adds 'ova' to her new surname to signify that she is a married woman. So, as I'm not going through the process of changing my surname at the moment, I am now officially Emma van Lintova on our wedding certificate! As a compromise, we've decided to become Mr & Mrs van Francova :)
~ The van Francovas
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