Autumn in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm

Our new au-pair Tereza was once a travel agent and my first question when I met her was “where should we visit first to the East of CZ?”. She promptly replied “Rožnov pod Radhoštěm”! That was Friday evening, and Saturday morning we were in the car and heading into Moravia (Eastern province of the Czech Republic, as apposed to Bohemia in the West).

It was a long drive and we got there early afternoon on the Saturday and tried to find the information centre to help find us accommodation (for the same night..). Unable to locate it, we decided to continue the site seeing and visit the Wallacian open air museum, showing a typical Moravian village (with original buildings brought in from around Moravia).

We entered the museum and were bowled over by the colour of Autumn! The leaves were pure gold and the girls had way more fun collecting leaves than touring old wooden buildings.

An original church:

A typical burger’s house:

Believe it or not, these are bee hives below – someone must have been really bored!

Amber and Sarah collected fist-fulls of leaves and Sarah stuffed her pockets full. We left with packets overflowing with leaves from Rožnov and they have since been turned into artwork and there are still bags in their bedrooms Sarah was in her element this week-end and has been pining for the forests ever since. After leaving the museum, we strolled through the neighbouring park and tried to find the squirrels that were very elusive.

In the evening we drove around the town and found a hotel for the night.

Sunday morning, armed with a little pamphlet I had downloaded of the “outings and excursions” nearby. There was a castle in the vicinity that beckoned a visit and off we set.

The castle was called “Hradesko” and was situated on a hill overlooking the town. What the brochure did not mention was that there was not a single sign anywhere and that you had to traipse through someone’s yard up past their front door through the gate at the back of their house and then discover the path that led to the top of the hill. Fortunately, I have my nose with me and we all followed it (successfully to my surprise).

Hradesko castle turned out to be a pile of stones where the castle once was, and the girls had a great time clambering about the old ruins.

After the castle, the next item on the itinerary (courtesy of the same pamphlet) was a walk to the Radegast monument at the top of some hill. Again, it failed to mention that you had to ride on the ski lifts over hill and dale and then walk 3 kilometres across the top ridge of the mountain before you got there. Well, it was actually a great outing, but since we only got there around lunch, then the ski lift took up 40 minutes for ascent and descent (and then tummies had to be fed), which left us with exactly no time to go hiking across mountains as we still had a 4 hour drive home ahead of us.

The village at the top of the mountain (Pustevny) was really worth the visit. Again, it was all very traditional and worthy of many photos.

The inside was no less ornate and we discovered the multitudes of patterns on the ceiling while we ate our lunch of Moravian specialities (spot the peacocks in the corners of the ceiling)