Czech Republic to Hungary

A plaque commemorating a pogram or riot from 1437. Old indeed, but the town square still looks the same.

Today was the second day of waking up to the sound of church bells ringing instead of Ricky the Roster crowing.

Unlike Ricky, who is quiet all night long until dawn sets him off again, the bell ringer was up all night counting out the hours and quarter hours for us.

Before breakfast we took a long walk around the town taking the usual photos of colorful houses, interesting buildings and random details, which we seem to be lacking in many of our cities. Fancy old doors and interesting knobs, oddly shaped windows, places where windows used to be still outlined by old frames, sundials attached to the fronts of houses, and sculptures and paintings on buildings, and even the symbols on the manhole covers told stories. We are snapping them all for posterity.

Sundial on building (and a UD phrase we haven’t used yet).

Back at the hotel and ready for breakfast, we sat down at our assigned seats, which was pointed out to us before we went for our walk. That and there was only one table set for breakfast, so that must be us. No one took an order but the usual bread and rolls came out, along with some foil-wrapped cheese triangle, also available in the US, and some jam and nutella were delivered in short order. Next came the OJ and a plate of assorted meats and cheese. Luckily, the word for vegetarian is the same in Czech as English, so that word was understood by our server and she went off to find someone who could speak English to take our order. When he arrived we were offered eggs, with or without onions (without), and the accompanying hand sign for whipped/scrambled/jumbled, which we replied was a fine choice.

After breakfast. we hit the road around 10:30. As we approached our car in the town square, we noticed it was blocked in by a parking police car. Again, the exchange was limited by the lack of shared language, but she only needed her gestures and a few English words at her disposal to give us a lesson on parking in the square. We must have garnered enough sympathy because she let us go unticketed. That’s better luck that we get in Newark.

Although our car takes good care of us, at various point in the trip it will tell us we have been driving too long and need a break. It is a bossy car and can be very insistent at times, sounding off an annoying chime every now and again with a message on the dash. We decided that we would take a coffee and sweets break to trick her into letting us drive longer later in the day. We stopped in the town of Trebon for latte and tea and some photos before heading south to Hungary. (This trick didn’t work by the way, she was still nagging us as we were heading for Austria.)

We landed in Sopron for the evening. Another nice old town, with the peculiar feeling of being a ghost town. It had the pre-requisite town square, along with cafes, churches, old buildings, and even 3 concentric Roman walls around the old center of town. The odd thing was there were no people. It was sort of like showing up at Disney world on a day they are closed. Some of the old curvy streets and alleys were reminiscent of sets from a stage play. Paul walked up to the top of the fire tower for a better look around –still no people in sight. Okay, I guess there were at least a couple people in town because we were able to get dinner and a place to stay.