Personally, I think was up far too early this morning.
The woman in the ticket office in Brno clearly thought she had a sense of humour when she told me I’d be much better off getting the 07:22 Railjet from Brno to Břeclav rather than the infintely more humane 08:22 EuroCity service because, as she put it, “the EuroCity’s always late.”
She was lying.
Still. I got a little time for exploration in what is, apparently, one of the first railway stations to be built in the world.
The station in Brno was built in 1838 on the edge of the historic city centre and on the site of the old city walls. It entered full commercial operation in 1839 and is the Czech Republic’s second-largest station and the largest railway station in Moravia. The concourse is suitably grand, befitting of the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway it was built to serve, and unlike this weary traveller, had not been to sleep. The ticket office is open nearly 24 hours a day and according to the information board, save for a brief lull around 2am, there are trains running through the station on a near-permanent basis. Some people seemed unnaturally perky. I was not one of them.
This morning’s Railjet encounter lasted for about half an hour, but was very pleasant. I found myself in Břeclav with an hour and some many minutes to power-explore, taking in both a church and a castle which I thought was something of an achievement given I was at this point functioning only (just) on the instant coffee I’d found in the ČD lounge in Brno. I didn’t find anywhere else nearby the station in Břeclav that might have helped with this, and the lounge was nothing more than a room with some seats in it, but I do now know that if you need to send a postcard from somewhere near a railway station in the Czech Republic, Breclav is the place to do it. There is a post office right next to the station. Postcard (of Prague) sent, achievement unlocked.
Completed in 1995, the Church of Saint Wenceslas is the fourth church built on the same site and replaces a baroque church from 1756 which was completely destroyed by Allied bombing at the end of the Second World War. The architectural style probably has a name but in my layman’s terms it is best described as ‘pointy’. I’d have liked to go in but there was a service in progress, so the best I could manage was to peer through the doors at the interior (also unsurprisingly pointy) and hope that nobody saw me (they didn’t).
From the pointy church I crossed the Thaya river and looked at the castle which is looking a little bit poorly, but also rather lovely. According to Wikipedia, though, the castle “was rebuilt into its current neo-Gothic artificial ruins form in the first half of the 19th century” so it’s apparently been distressed. Or perhaps slightly traumatised. Either way, it’s rather nice to look at and I did that, observed some early-morning fishermen enjoying either their morning, their fishing, or both, then realised I only had a limited amount of time to power-march back to the station to catch my train.
I got back to the station with enough time to realise my train was not due to leave until ten minutes after nine, and not before which, to my slightly uncaffeinated chagrin, gave me a perfect opportunity to watch the 08:52 EuroCity from Prague pull in at its appointed time and not, as the woman Brno would’ve had me believe, late. I killed the erroneous twenty minutes by taking photographs of symmetrical things and, somewhat worringly, trains.
It was at that moment I had the terrible realisation that, from a distance and in this nice weather, my very practical Columbia three-season jacket of which I am very proud (with puppet compartment and removable duvet lining) could, in fact, be considered an anorak. I should’ve thrown myself under the next train there and then, but it was the 09:10 EuroCity to Kraków and it contained the caffeine I so desperately needed, so I valiantly resisted the urge to launch myself at it because, remember kids, it’s always nicer to elegantly step off a train at your destination than be power-hosed off the front of it.
Initially I shunned my reserved seat in a compartment of four because there were other people there (rude) who looked as if they might not cherish the sanctity of early-morning quiet, so I instead found myself a seat in another part of the train and sat there for a while, confused as to why the booking system was indicating the carriage full when it was, in fact, completely empty. After a few stops this started to weigh on my mind a little bit and closer inspection of the sign on the window revealed the carriage was not going as far as Kraków. Eventually I checked with the train manager and she confirmed my suspicions, so I decanted back to my compartment, deposited my chattels and headed off to the dining car for a triumphant Kaiser Früstuck and coffee which I consumed while watching the Moravian-Silesian Beskids glide past the window.
There were only a handful of other people in the dining car, which made for a peaceful breakfast but did make me wonder if they’ll continue to be around for long. At some point someone had to be told that it was unacceptable to bring their own food to the table (as if they should need telling) and as I was getting ready to leave after a slightly arduous malfunctioning credit card machine incident, two gentlemen were enjoying a very civilised game of Backgammon and large cups of coffee. I returned to my compartment where the young gentlemen were not noisy at all but enjoying coffee from an Aeorpress (why didn’t I think of that?) for which they had just procured hot water from the obliging man behind the bar.
Shortly after our twelve-minute stop in Bohumin, the American ladies in the adjacent compartment quite vocally but rather inarticulately discovered that the dining car in which their husbands had previously been enjoying a game of Backgammon was no longer attached to the train and had, rather quietly, been replaced with a Polish locomotive which was indifferently hauling us to Kraków, unaware of their husbands’ plight. There was some clamorous back-and-forth with the well-meaning guard who then came to our compartment and joyfully recounted the story to us while checking our tickets, giving me the perfect opportunity to start a conversation with my new-found Austrian friends about the appropriateness of schadenfreude on a Sunday morning. Despite such a strong opening, they seemed reluctant to accept my attempts to impress on them the concept of train slippers even with a demonstration.
We pulled into Kraków on time and it took me a little longer than I’d have liked to orient myself and find out where I was going. I should have asked for a public transport map but I foolishly thought that, having used public transport before, I would immediately understand how it worked. I got there eventually and had a lovely little snooze in the very tidy hostel I’d booked from the train before braving the public transport network again. As the ticket was so cheap I opted for a 24-hour ticket which gave me plenty of time to enjoy getting lost on my way to the Basilica by, I think, going in the wrong direction. Even with the help of Maps I found myself struggling a little but eventually gave into the unfathomable and just hopped on and off a bit until I found myself near the old town at Teatr Słowackiego.
If you like a good church I like do, you’ll be interested to know that I have never been to a place with such a high concentration of churches per kilometre squared. Perhaps there is somewhere else I should explore which will outdo Kraków on this, but it seemed that around every corner lurked another oasis of calm where one could look at the baubles and then sit for a few minutes before heading off somewhere else. From the defensive towers around the old city I made my way to the market square and into the Bazylika Mariacka which is open for visitors through a side door, but also to the faithful through another at the big end. I thought this was because there was a service in progress but it was actually only for mercenary purposes, so I felt little guilt in looking pious enough to slip past the guard and take a few clandestine photographs of the nave. If I had been caught I would at least have been in the right place to be absolved.
From the market square I found a few more churches to wander around and photograph without bursting into flames, and then stumbled upon one whose carillon was happily tinkling on the hour (I forget what time this was, actually) so that lured me inside as well. I then decided I’d like to see some water, and tried to figure out how to get to Jubilat, where I found people, a river, and the Wawel Royal Castle and the Wawel Hill. I was too late to go in, unfortunately, as it looked as if there could have been some good puppet opportunities there, so resolved to get up early tomorrow before my train to Warsaw.
Satisfied with my day’s tourism, and clinging some fridge-tat I’d found in the medieval Sukiennice Cloth Hall, I made my way back. I was happy with my tat-purchase because the ones I’d looked at in some of the shops on streets were silly expensive but mine, one of the classy ones, came from a nice man with a little stall deep in the market. I’d noticed, as I walked, that the further you get into the market the cheaper the tat, so that was a bonus. I think it was four złoty, or about 0,80€. Bargain. I even had the opportunity to witness public urination with simultaneous cigarette smoking with finesse the likes of which I have never seen in France.
My evening falafel from a restaurant next to the tram stop at św Wawrzyńca was expensive and took forever but really worth the expense and the wait. The wrap was fine and the ingredients were of good quality and all in all it was probably the best so far, but I’m docking a point or two for the time I had to wait and the expense. It was by far a more refined falafel than the incumbent winner from Trelleborg but I’d have enjoyed eating it sooner, so it’s difficult.
I had a pint of Tyskie to help it go down, then went back to the hostel to make my travel arrangements for tomorrow, before enjoying my comfy bed in all its comfy glory.
