8 October 2008

I forgot to write about my trip to Brno and the Moravian Karst. Oh we had so much fun.

We first dropped by Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, which is about an hour and a half away by train from Olomouc. We didn’t have much time to spare so we just went to see the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, and the Spilberg Castle. Both were quite lovely. And we had a great time just taking photos.

From Brno we went on to Blansko, where Tes had a cottage by a lake. It was dark when we got there so it was a bit scary trekking around the lake in complete darkness with a teeny tiny flashlight to guide us. But the cottage was a delight. It was just small but really cozy.

The next day we went to see the famed Moravian Krast. We walked and walked and walked. My legs almost died getting there but when we got there and I saw the gorge, it was beautiful.

From up the hill we went down again to go to the caves. We first went into Catherine’s cave, which was named after a shepherd girl who got lost and died in the cave after she went looking for one lost sheep. How tragic is that? (I personally would have left that dumb sheep to find its own way home :P ) Anyway, the cave was really nice. The “Bamboo Forest” was really cool. And there was stalagnate called the Turkish Minaret, which I just had to take a picture of, for Jay to appreciate, hehe. But the best formation was the Witch. It was just awesome. Really looked like an old crone with a stick.

After Catherine’s Cave, we were lucky to get tickets for the Punkva Caves. The formations of this one were not as interesting for me. The Mirror Lake was pretty nice but nothing held my attention until we reached the bottom of the Machoca Abyss. Good god, it was jaw-dropping eye-popping amazing breathtaking. Just look at the pictures.

We tore ourselves away from that beautiful sight and hopped onto these small boats for an underground river cruise. There wasn’t much to see, or maybe we didn’t see much because we didn’t have an English-speaking guide to point out things to us. The fun part was the unintentional bumper boat experience we ended up having. Two boats crashed into ours twice in the dark. So much fun. Haha.

That ended our caving experience. We thanked Tes and said goodbye and took the train back to Olomouc. Arriving late at night, we called it home for the first time. :)