Reaching the border of Slovakia at the White Carpathians
(neither white nor Carpathian, discuss...)

8/20 - Valtice (say Val-teese)

We spent two nights in Valtice at our castle. Turns out, the castle was originally a summer residence built by the Wittenbergs in the 13th century. The hotel is actually in buildings adjacent to the castle, but the architecture is the same for the whole complex. In the morning we had a tour of the castle (it's more of a château). We had to wear these little felt slippers over our shoes when we walked through the building - personally, we think they just do this to keep the floors clean (see pictures). 

The whole group dynamic thing is in full swing. Some social psychology doctorate student could have a really deluxe dissertation following these walks. We're all sort of cautiously sniffing each other to see if we like each other's scents. Metaphorically speaking, of course, with the heat and all. We (Rob and Lisa) have established such a strong traveling unit that we're a little cautious about opening up to others. Still, almost everyone seems really great, and we're finding odd life connections: one very nice guy, Doug knows Lisa's jewelry teacher in Seattle (he learned clockhmaking at the same facility). Our Arkansas attorney, W.H., besides being from the same town where Lisa's best friend Scarlett now lives, is also like Lisa's dad's soulmate--same sense of humor, same idea of a good time (not to mention both are self-proclaimed "yellow dog Democrats."). Lisa keeps telling him to go to down to Kentucky to take a spin on the houseboat with his new best friend, and who knows, he just might. Two women, Heather and Allison, both work in the toy business, Heather for Hasbro (where Rob's brother David works--different location, though) and Allison sells consulting services, and has (as we mentioned before) actually spoken to David on the phone. Another Lisa is from Boston. There are four Sagittarians in the group (including Lisa Whipple). Weird.

The afternoon walk was through the hills nearby called the White Carpathians. It was really hot, probably in the mid-nineties, so the 7 mile walk seemed longer. There were two particularly cool things about this walk. It took us back and forth across the border of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the heart of former communist Czechoslovakia, that was a first for us. It also took us through some beautiful meadows and wild fruit orchids, where I tasted about 6 varieties of a very small kind of plum, sort of a cross between a cherry and a plum, in colors from deep purple to bright orange.

The evening was a whole event in itself. We had dinner in the wine cellar of a local restaurant back in Mikolov. The cellar was the coolest place (temperature, not style) that we had been in days, so it was very pleasant. The meal was prepared by the owner and wine maker, a real character, you could tell he loved putting on a show. They served goulash and potato pancakes with wine that was made right there and came out of the cellar. They also had a folk band come in and play some old Czech love songs (solder leaves girl behind when going to war, yadda, yadda, yadda). That's what they told us, anyway--the songs where in Czech and could have been about killing capitalist pigs for all we know. The focal point of the band was the instrument they called the "cymbal", which looks like a cross between a harpsichord and a sitar. By the end of the evening the band was playing American classics like "Old Suzannah", and just as we left they started into some Miles Davis. I could tell they were really jazz guys just dressed up in folk clothes for the tourists, but it was fun any way.  The evening was capped with a tour of the wine cellar, a few barrel tastings, including a couple rounds of the owner's apricot brandy - which he demonstrated was pure by dipping his finger in some and setting it on fire (blue flame good, orange flame bad), and then insisted that we slam them with him. So yes, we ended our second night doing shots in a centuries-old stone cellar.

--Lisa and Rob

W.H. samples the apricot brandy 

Our host explains the Czech origins of baseball

Getting jiggy with the folk band

Igor on the cymbal

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