Brno: The "Indecent Little Man" of St James Church, a Mediterranean Festival, and a little self catering

As I mentioned in my previous Brno post, it was drizzling as we walked through Freedom Square. The rather dreary weather really didn't dampen our spirits though as we found the area to be quite interesting.....in that rather odd "Czech" way. Everything had some strange twist to it; an odd story......something would catch our eye that just seemed out of place.

Take for instance, historic St James Church. Along with its long history, going back to the 13th century, it also houses the largest ossuary in the Czech Republic, the second largest in Europe housing the remains of over 50,000 bodies. As I mentioned in my post on Capela dos Ossos in Evora, the Missus really isn't interested in this stuff so we skipped it.

Still, the interior of the church is quite impressive.

Beyond all of this, there was something odd about one of the statues on the exterior of the building.

Can you see it? No? Well, how about a closer look?

Doesn't it look like the little guy is mooning us, with his hand going up his......??? We thought this rather odd, so we did a bit of research and found this little guy is called "Neslušný mužícek" - the Indecent Little Man. Ah yes, the Brno twist. Depending on your source, this is a fairly normal type of sculpture of the late gothic period...or......the statue is facing his butt to the Cathedral on Petrov Hill, due to some rivalry or other colorful story. You know which story we prefer, right?

We walked a bit further, then headed off to Tesco to buy some items for dinner....all of the heavy food we had at lunch needed to be balanced out a bit. 

After a short nap, we headed back out, back up Petrov Hill......it was still misty and damp.

Well, there's the Old Town Hall, so I guess there has to be a New Town Hall, right?

We then headed back down to Freedom Square and some familiar sights.

In what was a bit of good luck, we had noticed tents being set-up as we passed earlier.....

There was now music playing to the sparse crowd.

It turns out this was a food festival......I was told it was the "Mediterranean Food Festival", though all the booths were French. Regardless, this was nice.....

We picked up some cheese, grabbed some charcuterie....

The young man in the booth selling pate was so nice....he took time to chat with us about the various terrines. We ended up buying some rabbit pate that we brought back home to the states with us.

I even got some escargot to snack on.

All under the watchful eyes of the Four Atlantes (athletes).

It's too bad the weather wasn't cooperating as I'm sure the food festival would surely have been a hit.

We decided to head back to our apartment, skirting Petrov Hill and taking the round-about way back, passing the Cathedral of J. A. Comenius, also know as the "Red Church".....

As we walked down the street, the Missus stopped and went, "oh no...Chinese..." Good God, you could hear them talking three blocks away!

Just as when we arrived in Beijing, I heard one of the guys go, "huuuuaaackkk p-tew"..... Yikes! Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you heard someone letting go of a big wet one in the Sistine Chapel....

We made it back to our apartment and put together a nice simple, but satisfying dinner.

After all that meat, we needed some salad and my favorite beer in the CR so far,  Starobrno.

We noticed Utopenci at Tesco, so we just had to try some.....the young lady manning the deli was so nice; she made sure to have some onion and pickle in each of the sausages.

There was all the great stuff we picked up at the food festival.

Of course the Missus needed Her fermented cabbage.....

As I looked out the window of our apartment, I thought we'd had a very nice day in spite of the weather.

And I was looking forward to another fine day.....

Thanks for reading!

Comments

[kat]

impressive church! love the story behind the gargoyle. thanks for sharing!

[Kirk]

Thanks for reading Kat!