Southern Bohemia! A trip full of great memories

Week 10: Last week in the Czech Republic:(   Group trip to southern Bohemia!

Monday we finished up our finals and on Tuesday we were off to our last group trip to southern Bohemia in the Czech Republic! Time is flying by and it's crazy that this was the last week in the Czech Republic and the last days with everyone on this trip. We all started off as strangers at the beginning of the trip and now we have grown into a family. We made sure make the most of the little time we had left together!

Litomysl

The first place we stopped at was Litomysl. It was such a cute little city full of little hidden treasures. When we arrived they told us that we needed to go check into our hostel first, and they were walking to the castle. I was a little confused at first until I realized that we were going to be staying in a nice, cute hostel that was connected to the castle. I felt like royalty. We only had a day in Litomysl but we were able to see some great things! We were given a presentation about the history of Litomysl, which was quite interesting. Then we were able to see the castle, church, and garden/park. The church was amazing!! It was just renovated and finished last year. We were able to climb to the top of it and see a great view of the town. While we were in Litomysl, we also found a bus with a hole in it (some modern art thing that I don't understand), wandered around the town, and enjoyed some great food. We also had a great time celebrating Jessica's birthday!! The little time we had in Litomysl was perfect. 

Litomyl Castle where we stayed

A beautiful view of Litomysl

Lezaky

Wednesday morning we packed up our things, said goodbye to Litomysl, and was on our way to Kutna Hora. Before arriving at Kutna Hora, we stopped at Lezaky. Words were taken away from me. Lezaky used to be a village and now all that remains is a memorial. On June 24, 1942 this village was wiped out. The Nazi came in and killed every single person from this village because they found connections with a man from here that killed a German Nazi commander. This man committed suicide hoping that if he were dead they wouldn't come after the entire village. However, the Nazis did not care and came in and killed everyone in Lezaky anyways. Here we were able to see many stone memorials and foundations of houses. While we were here I realized that when we study the war in school, we never even mention this. An entire village was killed and I never even heard of it before, and this was happening everywhere to many villages. I was surrounded by what used to be a village full of houses, people, and life, and now all that was left was stones and grass. 

Kutna Hora

When arriving at Kutna Hora, we fist stopped at the bone church. I found this church so interesting!! Every decoration was made out of real human bones. It was amazing to see the different ways they placed each and every bone to make a perfect decoration. These bones came from real people, when they moved the cemetery and didn't have enough room for all of the graves, so they decided to just use the bones inside the church. Along with all of the bone decorations, there were also 4 huge piles of human bones in each corner of the church. In all it is estimated that about 6,000 skeletons are in the church. Back home I recently just took my anatomy class so it was actually very interesting to be looking at the differences in all of the skulls and bones, but yet it was still kinda creepy inside the church. After this we checked into our hotel and had some free time to enjoy some great food and wonder around the cute town of Kutna Hora. Next we made our way to St. Barbara's church. It was such a beauty!! This massive church was so beautiful inside and out. That evening we grabbed some bottles of wine and picked up some pizza and sat in our hotel room just talking with each other about life. It was a nice change up to just play some cards and games and talk with each other! The next morning we enjoyed a delicious breakfast and then made our way to the silver mines! We were told that the Kutna Hora silver mines are the oldest mines in all of Europe. These mines were quite an adventure!! We had to dress up in white coats and hard hats before going into the mines. Before entering we were warned that it is very small and narrow- and they were not lying. After climbing down many stairs, we made it to the tunnels. We had to crouch down low, squeeze through many tight spaces, and pack together in small meeting points. At some points I felt like we might get stuck and be trapped down there forever, but overall it was a blast to be crawling around in this old mine. After the salt mines, we were off to the next town!

Everything was made out of bones!

There were 4 big piles of bones like this one!

So many bones!

Enjoying Kutna Hora!

St. Barbara's Church

Great view of Kutna Hora

The entire group after the silver mines!!

Inside the mines!

All of these people have turned into my second family! 

Thanks for a great semester!!

Cesky Budejovice

On our way to Cesky Krumlov, we made a stop at Ceske Budejovice. We stopped here for one reason only- to have a tour of the Budweiser Budvar Brewery! All of us have found it pretty funny that our professors from the Czech Republic literally have mandatory pub-crawls and tours of breweries in our syllabus- which would never happen back home in the states. It is also very normal here to go get a beer with your professors, and the history department even had an end of year party full of grilling and drinking beer with all of the professors and students on the university property, which is something we are not used to at all back home. Our time at the Budweiser Brewery was a blast! We were able to walk through and observe every single step of the brewery, from the start of plain water to the end product of beer and the bottling. It was so interesting to be able to see each step. We also got to have some samples of the great beer. Everyone in our group has now been converted from American Budweiser to the Czech Budweiser Budvar! :) 

The brewery!

Straight out of the barrel!

Budweiser Budvar

Cesky Krumlov

Cesky Krumlov is a town straight out of a fairy tail book. Everything there was so cute and perfect. The castle sitting at the top of the hill with the river running through the center of town and the beautiful scenery surrounding it all made this town picture perfect. I fell in love with the charm and beauty that this town had. When we first got there a bunch of us girls went roaming around looking at all of the beautiful little shops, and exploring the town. That night a group of us ate at a mid evil restaurant that was delicious. It was such a fun place to eat because it felt like an old castle and there were no lights anywhere, just little candles. The next morning we got a tour of the beautiful castle and the old theatre. Every little detail was so pretty. We also got to see some great views of the entire town, which was just stunning. That afternoon it started raining, but we weren't going to let that ruin our plans of rafting! Even though it was only suppose to take us 2 hours, it actually ended up taking us 4 1/2 hours. I cannot describe how much fun we all had on this rafting trip. Many times we fell (or jumped) into the freezing cold river, which was pry not smart but it was worth it. By the end of it, we were all shivering and miserable, but we all had such a blast and we would have done it all over again in a heartbeat. Rafting in Cesky Krumlov goes down as one of my favorite memories that I have had in Europe. We all had a great time laughing with each other and spending our last time together. It is a memory I will never forget. That evening was bittersweet as our entire group went out to eat together one last time. We enjoyed a delicious feast with all of the group, our 3 professors, and our bus driver. We all ate way too much food and we were in actual pain from how full we all were, but it sure was delicious. Our relationships with each other have grown so much and we have become a family over these last 3 months. The next day we said goodbye to Cesky Krumlov and made a stop at the Hluboka Castle. This was by far the biggest and most beautiful castle we have visited yet. It was just amazing. Then we had a long bus ride back home to Olomouc. It is unbelievable to think that this was our last time in the Czech Republic. 

Cesky Krumlov

Trdelniks:)

Cesky Krumlov- I fell in love with this fairy tail town! 

Best roomie I could have asked for!

yum yum

The rafting crew!!

Memories that will last a lifetime!

Best boat crew around!

Just hanging out at the Hluboka Castle.

It will be weird to not be traveling with everyone from now on. We have seen one another every single day for the past 3 months, and we spend every waking minute with each other. Although many times we have become annoyed with each other, we were all sad when we realized this is the last time that we would all be together. Being on this program and living in the Czech Republic has been one of the best decisions I have made, and I will miss it terribly. I already can't wait to come back and visit it again sometime in the future.