We got ready to start driving to another lovely Czech town, Zirovnice.
There were so many road blocks and road detours that it took us over 4 hours to get to our destination today. It was rather tiring, but we did see some very lovely countryside.
Zirovnice is an old textile town that also made shell/MOP buttons, and has a museum inside the castle. However, Friday was a national holiday (celebrating 100 years of being Czechoslovakia), and everything was closed. Instead, we drove to our hotel.
Arrived in Jilhava, our hotel was an old monastery dating to 1238, luckily the plumbing and electrical had been updated. According to the brochure, the architecture of the town is Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque. Guy just thinks its old European.
Finishing up the night, we chose Turkish take out for dinner, and walked around the town square eating our food and enjoying the sights.
Finally, into our cloistered room once slept in by medieval monks, soldiers and tourists like us.
This was our last view before turning out the lights.
Goodnight.
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Saturday: we started out early to a wonderful breakfast spread. Guy was ready to start his selection. You an see he is a happy man.
After breakfast, we headed out to see the countryside, along the way we stopped in a forested area.
Guy went mushroom picking and we even found a few apple trees. Such fun!
Now, do you think these mushrooms are edible??? That is a question for the experts. We will ask a few friends here and show the hotel restaurant.
We traveled some more of the countryside to head towards Zirovnice.
We even saw a dragon in a lake.
Onwards we went til we got to the Castle (Zamek) Zirovnice.
Next, we enter into the courtyard area.
Going down into what looks like a dungeon........
This was a side of the wall which was used to fire weapons out from.
If you look up at the water spouts, they look very interesting.
And the water spots allowed the water to fall downwards into this stone area.
and here are some various garden equipment left behind over the many years.
Just imagine tilling you garden with this:
Then we wound our way down to the building which holds the button museum. This shows how the where the mother of pearl buttons were cut and carved.
Imagine going thru these poke boxes!
Items made with mother of pearl buttons:
and some of of the advertisement posters used:
And sorry everyone, there were no buttons for sale to bring back home. We will have to follow the trail for when the Czech moved to the USA. (That will be another story)
There was also a area with many sewing machines in it. I am sure a seamstress would have had a blast seeing all of these wonderful treasures. (there were actually a few of these which are in J-Me's personal sewing room)
The building itself was once a brewery and had some of that history inside another room.
and unfortunately there was no taste testing going on here.
We came back to our hotel, read books and took a mini nap. Then we walking around town to see more buildings and facades.
We had a lovely dinner at our hotel restaurant. While we were having dinner, we met a lovely couple (Stacy & Tony) visiting form Canada.
Guy had venison - amazing. And a beer.
After dinner, bed. Tomorrow we drive to Poland.
