Olomouc: Side trip to Kromeriz and lunch at Minipivovar Moritz

There are some benefits associated with staying in corporate style hotels.....many of them have pretty hefty, buffet breakfasts included.

The Missus and I went over the plan for the day over breakfast. Being right across the street from the train station also had it's benefits. We had decided to do a day trip to the city of Kroměříž, where the Archbishop's Summer Palace, listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

We caught the train to Hulin, changing to a tiny little train which was more like a single car to Kroměříž. Exiting at the train station, we made our way up to the main square. Things were pretty quiet on this day.....

Except for some music....we followed the notes and were treated with a nice performance in front of the local museum. That kid on the left was really getting down....to traditional Czech Folksongs!

The main reason for coming here was to visit the Archbishop's Chateau and the gardens. Unfortunately, the gardens were closed because of all the rain.

So we decided to just have a short walk around, then head back to Olomouc. It was nice to just get out and about....once out of Prague, we found folks to be much more friendly, laid back, and things were much cheaper.

Then we headed back. The train trip was kind of funny because apparently there was some kind of glitch with our train transfer. The attendant on the train didn't speak any English and he tried so hard to explain to us what was going on. Folks here are friendly....all I had to say was "Olomouc" and one of the other passengers used sign language basically telling us to follow her....which we did, ending back up in Olomouc. We then got on the tram....right tram, wrong direction, to the amusment of the tram operator....who basically told us to just stay on. In other words we got the scenic tour. And ended up at our destination Moritz Microbrewery.

Like many similar type businesses, this was a basement type deal. On a wet, windy, and cold day, this was a cosy deal.

We had been pretty disappointed with the beer in the Czech Republic so far. But since we were at a microbrewery....

And we were pleasantly surprised, the 10° was quite refreshing, clean, mildly hoppy, but with nice floral-citrus to my palate. This was by far the best beer I'd had in the CR so far.

Being in Olomouc, well, we had to have the Hanácká česnečka - Garlic Soup.

Bitter and much too salty.....

Seeing what became one of our favorite items; the Utopenci, basically pickled sausage, one of the things we brought back with us. This was a bit too mild for my taste.

As I mentioned before, at places like this there are "lunch specials" which are really cheap, under five bucks US. The problem being, these specials are never written in English and even more interesting, in Olomouc they specials are written in Hanakian, the local dialect. For the Missus this was a challenge....She decided to randomly order something from the local menu and went ahead and chose something at random.

Which was this:

Basically pork and bread dumplings....... for about four bucks. I'm sure this would surely fill up the hungry local!

Tired of Gulas, I ordered ribs....which seemed so cheap at under ten bucks......kind of scary actually. I was shocked when this hit the table.

Man, this was like 3/4 rack of spareribs........lightly seasoned, but with some smoke flavor. This really wasn't too bad.....could not even come close to finishing this.

We ended up taking most of this back to the room, having it for dinner.

Heading back to the hotel, we stopped by the Lower Square.

Which seemed so quiet....... 

I'm not sure if it was the weather, or if this is normal.....

We'd be leaving in the morning, which is an interesting story itself. We enjoyed our stay in Olomouc, but were looking forward to our next destination.

Stay Tuned!

Comments

[kat]

eerily deserted, still I enjoyed this adventure!

[Cathy]

Your breakfast looks so good, as does everything else (even the garlic soup). The town photos look like they'd make a great jigsaw puzzle. I think this is the best way to learn about a place while on vacation- stay at a (sort of) suburb and meet the people who live there.

[Kirk]

Hi Kat - It was quite strange since the place has a population of over 100k....I guess they were all staying in.

Hi Cathy - It was really great getting out of Prague and checking out some of the other cities.

[caninecologne]

Now those are some ribs! The town square seems so lonely. maybe the townsfolk were watching a sporting event on tv or just wanted to be homebodies for the day.

[Kirk]

Hi CC - I think the rainy weather kept them in......but it was still kind of strange.