Castle Hunting: Bojnice

Bojnice Castle is impressive, of course, because its huge and many-turreted bulk is so captivating from afar. After visiting and doing a little research, I wasn't as impressed. This building is essentially a large, late 19th century mansion built to look like a Loire valley chateau. The second to last owner (before the Czechoslovak communist party appropriated the property in 1945), John Palffy, oversaw a twenty-two year renovation that converted Bojnice from a 16th century, semi-fortified residence into a piece of golden age romanticism. In the process, the castle lost much of what might have been interesting about it.
Originally a defensive structure dating from the early 11th century, Bojnice (pronounced "boy-neets-eh") was originally remodeled in 1528, losing much of the defenses that had previously been in place. The town benefited from a relatively safe location in the northern Hungarian empire, and was controlled by a string of very wealthy families who were based in Vienna and Budapest. Because it was rarely threatened by attacking forces, the castle became much more a country seat than a military outpost. Even before the current structure was completed, the outer walls were adorned with a slew of indefensible windows and balconies.
The result of Palffy's redesign (he was actually the principle architect) is an excessive, castle-themed framework surrounding a brooding collection of bland, Victorian rooms. There are a few highlights inside, but most of the family's extensive collection of art was sold by Palffy's children - the rooms are generally barely furnished, with the remaining knick-knacks fleshed out by reproductions. Passages and rooms open up into more rooms and bigger spaces in a confusing jumble of caverns and dark-wood opulence. It comes down to this: the architecture is generally unimpressive, unless size in itself is impressive.
Still, it's fun to look at Bojnice and imagine that it's real. When we first caught sight of it, driving up the valley from the south, it was magnificent. It was disappointing to find that the history of the place was more mirage than fact, and offputting to see people so impressed by such a grand monument to ego and wealth.
Perhaps I've become jaded, though, and should accept buildings like this for what they are, instead of what they've covered up. It's probably true that Bojnice's previous form was less livable and more uncomfortable than the present one, and it's hard to fault someone for wanting to update their home. The scope of history must become a frustrating part of owning a castle, and Palffy can be excused for looking more to the future than the past. After all, most surviving castles have been changed many times over the years, and the crime in this case seems to be not that it was renovated, but that it happened so recently.

Gypsy Kitchens: Slovak Lentil Salad

This recipe is not authentic. In fact, we're not even sure if there is such a thing as Slovak lentil salad - lentils are popular here, but are usually cooked in the ubiquitous soup, "sosovicova polievka." It's a hearty, meaty dish that would be more appealing if there were snow on the ground. We wanted something simpler and lighter for a summer evening at our campsite, and we wanted to forgo the soaking and lengthy cooking time that lentils can require. Also, after finding some great, local cheese at the market, it seemed like a good idea to incorporate it into the mixture along with a lot of fresh herbs and a good dose of paprika. We're not in Hungary yet, but paprika's appeal has definitely crossed the border into the northern forests.

This salad would work terrifically as an accompaniment to shrimp or chicken, but it served us well as a main course. When cooking with one burner on a tiny camp table, meals tend to be more satisfying the less complex they are.
Start with the lentils, which are much easier than anybody ever gives them credit for. Red lentils don't need to be soaked, and they have a great, delicate flavor that's a great base for a dish like this. The problem with them, often, is that they turn to mush when they're cooked - especially when they're split, like these were. The solution is simple: instead of cooking the lentils with a small, measured amount of water until they'd soaked it all up, we just dumped them into a large pot of boiling water and cooked them until the flesh was soft, but the individual beans were still whole. It takes about twelve minutes, which is not much time compared with traditional methods. It's kind of like making pasta. When they were tender and were really starting to float in the water, we strained out the liquid and ran the lentils under cold water to stop the cooking.
There's a strange store in this part of Slovakia. It's called "Sheep Cheese" (the name is in English), and they sell all kinds of sheep dairy products as well as a surprising variety of frozen fish. We're pretty sure it's some kind of cooperative, but the woman who helped us at the Bojnice location didn't dispense information or smiles very freely. We bought a big chunk of "bryndza," which we were curious about because of a similar cheese that we'd eaten a lot of in Ukraine (called "brynza"). The Slovak cheese was softer and less crumbly than its eastern cousin, and it didn't really suit the plan for the salad - still, the sharp, milky tang was great and it was nice to have on the table.
This is a more specifically local cheese, called "niva," which is made in these mountains around the town of Nitra. It's only mildly blue, but with strong cheesy flavors, and it's advanced age (six months in this case) makes it easy to break up and mix into a salad. Obviously, this would be pretty difficult to find in most supermarkets, but any crumbly blue cheese would work just as well - though a dryer sheep's cheese, like Roquefort, is probably more evocative of Slovakia.
In a large bowl, combine about a cup of chopped parsley and another half cup of basil, plus two large cloves of pasted garlic, half a red onion and the cheese. At another market we found wonderful, unsalted, raw pistachios - we broke them up a little and added them for a soft crunch and some nuttiness. Pine nuts could serve the same role, or one could use walnuts for even more texture. Add a good dose of olive oil and mix it all up until everything is evenly spaced - this is important because the lentils are dense and it might be hard to distribute some of the lighter elements in them without a lot of mixing, which would brake up the individual beans.
Not much salt needs to be added if you have a salty enough cheese, but it helps bring out flavor in the lentils. Real, Slovakian paprika is great if you can find the stuff, but don't expend a lot of energy looking for it. We added the spice to the lentils before mixing, and then dusted a little on top to make the dish look prettier.

Here's the recipe, though you could do this just about any old way:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups red lentils (uncooked)

1/2 cup crumbled blue sheep's cheese

1 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup chopped basil

1/3 cup chopped, raw pistachios

2 large garlic cloves, smushed

Half a red onion, minced

1 tablespoon paprika

Olive oil

Salt

- Rinse the lentils in cold water. Bring a large pot of water to a boil with olive oil and generous salt. Add the lentils and cook until tender, about ten to twelve (to fifteen?) minutes. Strain out the liquid and run lentils under cold water until cool. Let drain.

- Combine the rest of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl with a generous pour of olive oil. Mix well so that all ingredients (namely garlic and paprika) are well distributed.

- Gently fold lentils into the herbs until everything looks well-mixed and pretty.

- Serve dusted with a little Paprika.

Things Czech People Like

City strolls on waterways. There seemed to be a river running through every town or city on which people in rented kayaks, rowboats and paddleboats milled around. It was something I always enjoyed seeing and which felt so unique and quaint after the more commercially used Danube of Austria and more literally inhabited Amstel of the Netherlands.
It was like the liquid equivalent of bikers and Frisbee golfers in Central Park. Urban blue space. Utterly charming. The men most often coupled this activity with another thing (male) Czech people like: going shirtless
Guided tours in vintage cars. This was Prague-specific, but still worth mentioning. At first, we thought some sort of automobile convention was going on, but then we noticed all were packed like clown cars. When we saw a sign advertising this sort of experience, it made sense. Sort of. I guess it's a two-in-one experience, but in such a walkable city it felt like just another contrivance for tourist dough. Still, it was fun seeing them put around.
Business names with unfortunate English translations. It happens all the time, but in the Czech Republic, signs just kept popping up that made us go, "Oh... that's unfortunate." Aside from Eurotramp, the chain minimarket Flop was a personal favorite. There was also a clothing store with a terrible slur (or British word for "cigarette") as its name. Very unfortunate indeed.
Rollerblades. It was like I was back in in 1994, wishing I could roll around on those sleek, futuristic things everyone else had strapped to their feet, but all I could do was shuffle my outdated (but stylin') red suede roller skates. People here rollerbladed like the whole world was a Floridian boardwalk. Most nature trails had more bladers than bikers or walkers. At the Štramberk fair, it was nice to see shoed friends pitch in to help when the cobblestone going got tough.
Hyperbolic Advertisements. Yes, it's true, folks. At Portefena Husa you can have the "best beer selection and cuisine you have ever tasted." Especially in Prague, businesses really brought out the linguistic big guns in praise of what they had to offer. I can't know for sure if this was false advertising or not. I never actually dined or drank at Portefena Husa, but I think it's safe to say that there may have been a little bit of exaggeration involved.
Maybe this one was actually true, but I tend to doubt it. The small print reads "5 Clubs for price of the 1," which further confuses things. Can you really be up for the title of "Biggest Music Club in Central Europe" if you are, in fact, 5 clubs? Jury's still out.
Microbreweries. There seemed to be one in every sizable town, bustling with locals and serving beer that far outshone any bottled or canned Czech variety. Most microbreweries were proudly outfitted with glassware and coasters touting their pivo. For some reason, I enjoyed it more when the glasses weren't branded. I think when you travel this much, you become attached to some details that you consider marks of authenticity, little things that make you feel like your experience is unique, of the moment and not culturally mass-produced.
Themed Class Portraits. This was both the strangest and most recurring thing Czech people liked. From Prague to Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, store windows displayed photo collages of a graduating class. These weren't your average hold-a-rose-and-look-to-the-right portraits. There were some really elaborate set-ups and a number of risque ones that we just didn't feel right photographing. (A lot of girls appearing nude except for a chair or a tuba or something covering their sensitive parts). Students recreated famous works of art, took expensive on location shots with jets and motorcycles, presented themselves as Simpsons characters.
My personal favorite was this gangster motif, featuring $100 US bills. I'm not sure if my parents would have been less happy footing the bill for a professional portrait of me straddling a backwards chair or holding a handgun. A lot of these made you wonder what the teacher (always displayed in the corner, keeping with the theme) was thinking.

Skansen

Everywhere, people are afraid that an irreversible and pervasive modernity has swept the world. People simply walk away from old ways of life, heading in the direction of the future, leisure and comfort. The things that get left behind are unloved for being old, it’s thought, and they crumble and fall in on themselves. This is the driving idea behind the “skansen.” Unlike clocks or tin boxes or rocking chairs, old houses often find themselves without a collector; the least loved of all are the small, hovel-like buildings that once covered much of the European countryside. Also unloved, many of the labor-intensive tools and machines that haven’t got much aesthetic value and take up more room than modern life affords them.
Skansens bring these buildings and things together in a kind of rambling museum. They crop up everywhere and have many different names – in America, “colonial villages” are a kind of version. Here in Rožnov pod Radhoštĕm, a little town famous mostly for its three skansens, relocated and recreated wooden buildings abound. They huddle like a flock of sheep clustered together by prowling dogs. Gas stations and hotels slink around the outskirts offering free wi-fi and coffee to go. There is a sense, here, that this museum world has been completely cut off from history and from the land around it – but that it also depends on a certain external benevolence to continue. This man obediently pounded at a horseshoe when the guide told him to, then sat and stared at us as we were urged to look at the display of iron objects for sale.
The three skansens are really part of one, big complex, so going through the whole thing is easy. The first and most visited is an orderly little town square, ringed mostly with replica buildings including a post office, butcher, mayor’s house and a functioning “hospoda,” or pub. People have set up stands where they sell carved wooden trinkets and lollipops. Unlike the wonderful Polish skansen in Ciechanowiec, which felt as though it were shutting down for the winter, this place had an expectant, springtime air. Though relatively quiet while we were there, the people were setting up for summer hordes. This is the interior of the church, which is one of the original buildings in that section and was ringed with actual graves.
We took a tour – conducted in Czech and accompanied by an English booklet for us – of the adjacent water mill skansen, which is closed to visitors not on a tour. This was definitely the most interesting of the three because most of the mills were functional and the guide proudly showed them off. An oil crusher, a felt mill, a sawmill and a flour mill and bakery all ran on a complex system of ponds and sluices. We were fascinated by the sawmill and loved this little box flourmill and sifter. It was much smaller than other ones we’ve seen, and especially elegant.
There were a number of these ancient beehives, carved from large tree trunks. Some of them, in a peculiar Wallach style, were decorated with human faces – the bees enter through the open mouths of the figures. It’s unclear how the honey is then extracted, but we’re guessing that it’s through the top.
The urge to compile these collections of buildings is spurred by loss, as the landscape of development and employment shifts. In some parts of the world, the change happened much earlier than it did here, where some of the structures were inhabited up to the nineteen sixties. The Czech countryside was kept as it was for a long time, and I think the people who visit Rožnov pod Radhoštĕm aren’t as impressed by the difference in lifestyle as the typical American might be. There are still folk festivals on many summer weekends, and they involve a lot of people. On Sunday, as we were arriving in town, busloads of teenagers milled about near the exit. Some wore traditional dress, some had already changed back into their street clothes. Last night, from the outdoor bar near our campsite, we fell asleep listening to a group of men sing folk songs accompanied by a guitar. A smattering of recognizable, modern tunes were mixed in, and we talked about how close the old ways seem here.
We never finished seeing the third skansen, which is where most of the oldest buildings are located and which features a complimentary collection of farm animals. It’s up in a nice clearing behind some trees, where the sound of traffic is faint and the schlocky souvenir feeling of the first museum isn’t so strong. As we walked we got caught in a downpour, which the sky had been threatening us with for hours. This is the porch where we took cover – dry, but held captive. It is part of a building built in the 1780's and was once home to a glass-cutter named Petr Jochc.

Czech Food

Pork, soup and smažený sýr (which I’ll get to in a bit) were basically the only things we ever saw Czech people ordering out. And, of course, pizza. However, most places had menus that included at least two other types of meat, most often chicken and duck, and there was always some liver on offer. Merlin ordered “liver and pancake” assuming that the meat would be served alongside small, dense potato pancakes. Such was the case with his goulash a few nights earlier. However, it came wrapped in an enormous version that we soon-after realized was the norm.
Bramborák are pretty ubiquitous in the Czech Republic and seeing them being fried up at every other stand of a street fair does not make them more appetizing. Unlike latkes, they don’t seem to be made with any actual potato, just potato flour and lots of spices and onion. Their name translates literally to "potato," but also used to be the word for "pancake." So, you can be pretty sure these are the original Czech flatcakes. Equally common were houkové knedlíky, bramborák’s dainty sister. They are white flour dumplings, boiled and sliced into thick discs. Apparently they're light and fluffy, but being as they always serve the purpose of sopping up thick gravy, neither of us tried them out.
A different sort of pancake, small fluffy buttermilk, was served at a vegetarian buffet where we lunched. It’s under the grey and dilly mushroom gravy on the right. Most people forewent the salads altogether, filling their plates with grains, potatoes and falafel. Something we’ve noticed a lot here in Europe: “vegetarian” definitely means the exclusion of meat more than the inclusion of vegetables.

While carp was big in certain areas, trout was widely available. Here it is “grilled.” Fish was always served with slices of herb butter, which made sense in this case, but seemed strange alongside my smoked salmon salad.

The only street food we ate in Štramberk was the town’s namesake specialty štramberské uši or Štramberk ears. People walked around with what looked like vertical cannolis, brimming with whipped cream. Canisters of the cookies, long and skinny like pringles, were sold in vending machines. When we went to what seemed like the go-to place for fresh 'ears,' we ordered a “classic.” Somehow, this meant a plain one with nothing in it. It looked pitiful next to everyone else’s cone of festivity. The upside was that, unadulterated, the cookie’s flavor really popped out. It was intensely gingery and softer than expected.
Inside the “Little Wooden Village” skansen Merlin’s “dumplings with meat and sauerkraut” were pretty much what we both expected. They were a lot like Lithuanian cepelinai in that they were large masses of dough with meat at their center and more meat, cracklings, on top. This dough was much sweeter though and tasted like the lovechild of potato flour and polenta. They may look fluffy, but Merlin assures me that they were more “dense and sticky.” I had the below pile of food. Neither of us had any grains for dinner that night.
It was our very first menu that didn’t have a single fish option or some sort of broccoli dish. (Broccoli with cream, cheese or both popped up a lot as a non-meat main course). I felt lucky to be having kasha, as I knew what the other option would be. Smažený sýr, fried cheese, was available everywhere. When we first spotted it, we assumed it was fish. It resembles the golden sqaure in a Fillet o Fish from McDonalds. Nope. It was just a large, flat mozzarella stick. We successfully avoided trying one – focusing our cheese attentions in another direction.
As soon as we read one teeny tiny sentence about “stinky Olomouc cheese,” we made it our mission to search the stuff out. Our chase led us to a bar that was said to serve it. We were warned about the gaming machines inside, but apparently there was a porch out back. Neither of us could bring ourselves to walk through the black and fluorescent interior midday to investigate. When we saw a cheese shop, we figured that was a much better choice – but they told us that the only Olomouc cheese amongst their selection of mostly French, Italian and Swiss ones were a parmasen and some big bland one. We got both, wondering if “stinky” had been an overstatement. Then, at our last meal in the city, we saw “pungent Olomouc cheese” on the menu! It came sprinkled with paprika, plopped on a heavily buttered piece of rye and slathered with raw onion. Of course, we hadn’t brought out camera. Here it is from a package at the grocery store. It was definitely stinky, almost in a limburger way and had a bizarre consistency that could best be described as thick, gelatinous cheese on cold pizza.To cleanse your visual palate, I offer you this bowl of salad. Merlin would like me to mention that it was mostly leek, which is true. But being as I can still taste onion from something or other, it is a truth I would rather ignore right now. Let’s just bask in the summer freshness of this coleslaw, shall we?

A Fair in Štramberk

Fairs are the same everywhere - they are never attractive, they are spectacle and noise, they twist humanity into a strange mess and they almost never have anything to do with the town that hosts them. When we arrived in Štramberk, a town in the far eastern reaches of Moravia, it was immediately apparent that something out of the ordinary was happening. Cars and families on foot were streaming up the hill towards the center. We almost turned around, but decided to see what was going on.
The pretty, medieval town of timber houses and pretty churches had been converted into a playground of tinny music and whirling rides. We hoped, when it became evident that there was a fair in town, that there would be some flavor of the pretty surrounding countryside, or of the Wallach culture we'd read about. Instead, there was only the heavy smell of grease and a whirl of artificial motion.
The food was particularly unappealing. Deep-fried pancakes were plentiful, as was marzipan. There was no fresh fruit nor any green vegetables, but plenty of packaged sausages and a slew of stands selling alcohol. The local Medovina liquor presented itself in many varieties, and we should have tried it, but we are less brave about the zero tolerance drunk-driving law than most Czechs.
The local brewery was packed, of course, and offered us a nice respite - not from the crowds, but from the artifice. It was cool and dark inside, with a hushed clientele and nice (small) glasses of dark and light unfiltered brew. For a moment, it felt like any other Sunday, with only drunk locals for company.
From the top of the Trúba tower, a single pillar rising above the town, the crowds seemed even further away, though the music and amplified barking still drifted up from the carnival depths. It seems a shame to feel chased away from such an appealing place, but it's also not our town. Carnivals and fairs aren't for tourists, they're for the people of the place, who don't mind having their town transformed for a few days. The sleepy village is still there, of course, even if we didn't get to see it.

The Wonders of Horní Náměstí

There are a lot of interesting things in Olomoac's main square, but two objects get the majority of the attention. Dominating the horní náměstí, or upper square, the Holy Trinity Column is the largest Baroque sculpture in central Europe and has become the symbol of this sleepy town. Erected between 1716 and 1754, it was built entirely by local craftsmen and features sculptures of eighteen Olomouc saints. There's a little chapel inside, even, big enough for four or five people to stand in.
Nearby, an elaborate, heliocentric astronomical clock occupies a nook in the side of the town hall. Built in 1420, it chimes out strange jingles on the hour and shows the phases of the moon and the progression of the sun and stars. At noon, the figures in the top recesses revolve and pound out the notes of the bell on a little anvil. There's a crowd at twelve o'clock, but it's probably not as interesting as people expect it to be.
The saints that used to populate the scene were replaced in the wake of WWII, when retreating Nazi soldiers destroyed much of the clock's face. Now, communist era volleyball players and workers represent diligence and the strength of the fatherland. I have absolutely no idea about the chicken.
In the nearby Archdiocesan Museum, a painting depicting the arrival in town of cardinal Ferdinand Troyer in a grand procession. The whole scene takes up a fifteen foot long chunk of wall, but this portion includes the cardinal's coach, the clock and the pillar in very stylized fashion.

Beating the Heat in Olomouc

It was hot during our stay in Olomouc. Very, very hot - at least for early June. It seems too hot for the peonies and roses to be so fully in bloom, as they are. We visited the botanic garden's "rozarium," bizarrely - sovietly? - planted in cement blocks. Two people sat in the shade and this woman toured the grounds with her summer umbrella. Before and after the garden, we drank iced coffees, cobbled together with ice and espresso by some particularly game baristas who had only ever made an ice cream variety.
As we sat at an outdoor table, under an umbrella, we saw a little girl leading her mother down the sidewalk wearing only sunglasses, a tank top, bathing suit bottom and crocs. "What pool is she going to?" we wondered allowed, sweating. When finished with our lunch, we walked to the square and saw the little girl, now wearing even less (tank top in mom's hand) splashing around in one of Olomouc's six baroque fountains. We felt it was more appropriate to post a photo of some more clothed children (in a more modern fountain).
Near the outdoor market, which was half closing and half closed, a few men displayed the sad effects of trying to cool down with too many beers. They sat slumped up against the train station turned casino, which touted slot machines and air conditioning. This little boy led us in the more admirable route of ice cream consumption. I'm pretty sure he's spooning his cone with a lollipop.
I guess the cool kids prefer grape to grain in this city. Groups of two, three or four, ducked down into the cooler climates for a glass of white. All around Olomouc are "vinotekas," which are basically wine shops with a table or two and a tap. Moravian wine is big here and the wine shop/bars seem to attract the college aged crowd.
We decided to do the honorable thing and escape the heat by visiting a museum. The Archdiocesan Museum was a labyrinth, which we were directed through by seated older women in each and every room. They would put down their crosswords, stand and point us in the correct direction. The more suspicious or bored ones would follow us around as we checked out the impressive collection (which included this completely over-the-top bishop's carriage). It kept us out of the heat for a good long while...but we still envied that little girl in the fountain.