Those pictures look little melancholic but the reality is completely different.

Few words about Olomouc: The history of the ancient city of Olomouc streches back to the 10th century and after Prague the city has the second largest and most significant monument reserve in the Czech Republic. Olomouc is the seat of the Moravian Archdiocese. Today's Palacky University, the second oldest institution of higher learning in the country, was fonded here in 1573. Olomouc was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in the year 2000 thaks to the Baroque Holy Trinity Column, which at 35 m is one of the tallest works of its kind in Central Europe. Today Olomouc has a population of over one hundred thousand and is the fifth largest city in the Czech Republic. The city is likewise tha capital of the Olomouc Region.

I spent in my hometown Olomouc two weeks in July, here are some pictures from my stay, think those pictures aren't so melancholic like pictures I made in winter...

I have spent the last two days in a town East of Prague. I had not intention of coming here, but my accomodation for Adraspach-Teplice fell through, so  I had to change last minute. Funny how fate works that way, its been great. Olomouc is a smaller version of Prague without all the tourists. Its been really great just taking things at a slower speed for a couple of days. Olomouc is a bit off the radar for tourists currently, but I can see that changing pretty quickly with Prague being overrun.  Poets Corner, the hostel I am staying in, has been great. So far one the best Hostel experience, its much smaller and everyone is super friendly. The five Scotts that were staying there at the same time probably made the expereince even more enjoyable. Five friends who grew up in a small Scottish town decided to have a holiday together and have been traveling through Europe. It made for an interesting two nights, I will just say that it was pretty funny watching five drunk Scottsman dance at a club to Grease lightening! I am leaving peaceful Olomouc for Krakow this afternoon, a five hour train ride will send me into my third country. I will hopefully post more in the next week or so. I apologize for not having any pictures yet. I need to get to an internet cafe that I can post from.

I met a guy who told me that Olomouc (pronounced Olomonts / Olmutz) was a beer city in a weed country. The reason was that Olomouc comes from Olmutz , which where supposed to mean the some of the raw materials you need from making bear in old german. Moravia was called hana , which also is supposed to mean hemp (weed) in old german.. He was very convincing and I have no reason for not trusting him, unless someone knows the true meaning of those words.

For now im just adding pictures. Text would probably come later.

Out of the nightmare that is Slovakian train travel... and into the Czech Republic. Due to a run-in with a drunkard on a packed full superfast Pendolino train which would have taken me almost straight from Trencin to Olomouc, I ended up jumping off that train as soon as I could (first stop over the border) and settling for the next best thing... a rattling rust bucket of a train which was all but empty. It was a stopping-all-stations sort of thing and hence I took the scenic route to Olomouc and visited most of Moravia's outer lying villages in a four hour journey of epic proportions. At least the Czech signpost their train stations though...

Olomouc (olla-moats, isn't the Czech language great?!) is a smallish city in the Moravian district of the Czech Republic, often billed as being 'Prague without the tourists'. It sort of is, in a way... just far, far smaller, but it's got the same building style, same look, feel, smell. It's even got the only other Czech astronomical clock outside of Prague complete with birthdays of Lenin and Stalin, helpfully added by those nasty communists.

Somehow I found myself staying in a hostel here - anybody who knows me knows that I don't do hostels, I came across this one by accident- they are very recommended by multiple sources and are run by Australians living in Olomouc. Despite being a hostel they said they could do a single room for a very good price (all arranged while I was still in Aus) so figuring I couldn't go wrong, I booked in. And look, it's not at all bad, it's just incredibly embarrassing because a 'single room' has turned out to be an entire dormitory so everyone else who was previously nicely spaced out between three dorms is now squished (and it is a squish) into 2. As all rooms come off a common area it's really, really obvious that I'm just a teeny weeny bit precious and have a massive space all to myself. Cringe.

Nonetheless, I'm doing my very bestest to get used to communal spaces and shared showers and toilets etc... I'm so not cut out for 'hostelling', bring on the Mayfair in London, baby!

Heading to Prague on Friday for a day, then over to Geneva.

January 22

It was a lazy waking, a bit stiff from the previous day walk. But after being ready, Katarina brought me on the way to hitch further in direction of Czech Republic, the shitty thing is that I didn't wait long but the car who stopped only took me few km further then I waited longer. Luckely then someone took and finally brought me to the border town, where the border control is in the middle of the city. So I crossed by foot, and obviously nobody there was used to see a foreigner. The customs were looking for their stamps and I had to wait a little for that. The great thing is that then I got an old style Czech stamp, not the new European one!

Then I walked the Czech part of the city until its end and start hitching at what was a good spot but damn nobody was stopping and the day was advancing pretty fast. I also had no Czech money and no possibility to call then.

Finally, a car stopped to bring me further in one of the major city along the way. He was an american from Chicago living in CZ, it was pretty cool :)
He left me at another good hitching spot and gave me all the remaining coins that was lying in his car... so that I could possibly buy a but ticket and he checked the bus schedule. So I still at least had an hour before the next bus.

Hopefully, I didn't have to use that option as an Austrian car stopped (with obviously Slovak people in it) and they brought me all the way to the outskirt of Olomouc (along the highway). I simply needed to walk until I could find a tram, I got in and tried to find the streets where Hanna (HC: hanuska) lives. It was a little complicated in the dark... and Czech people... are a bit cold at first sight. Luckely after having asked 3 times someone helped me and I did find the street.

Then I met with Hanna and her husband, both doctorate student at Olomouc University (the oldest of CZ). They offered me dinner and then looked a bit at their chinchilla and other guinee pig. Later in the evening, I cleaned a bit the thing in my bag and by 9pm I was so tired that I falled asleep.
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January 23


Wonderful surprise!!!

IT SNOWS!!! At least for the first time for months!
So the whole city is covered by a gentle carpet of snow!
I went out with Hanna by noon to go to the university cafeteria (she couldn't walk out often during the day as she is on sick leaves and in CZ you actually can't leave the house if you are on sick leaves from your job except for like one hour a day).

After this I went for a long afternoon walk all around town, visiting the different monument and parks of the city. Olomouc is an old fortified city who had one of the oldest university of the East. It has a lot of wonderful baroque buildings and some Unesco protected monuments. I enjoyed walking through the little streets.

I even climbed one of the church tower next to the bell to have an overview of the tiles covered with snow. Anyway the whole city was quite majestic and clean then.

I stopped by a little market to get some food by the early evening and finally walked back to Hanna's place later, for a good warm soup some nice talk, finally using the computer to search for hosts in Brno and maybe London too.
It was a lovely day!