Riding the rails, redux

Our train pulled out of Vienna only half full. Of the six seats in our compartment, only three were occupied. At Breclav, on the Czech border a few more people boarded. A half hour later at Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the place packed full with people, even standing and sitting in the aisles,. I felt guily that I had a comfy seat while others suffered; not guily enough to surrender my place, but guily enough to avoid eye contact.

Brno looked lika a city worth exploring. Keeping in mind that trains rarely traverse the ritzy sides of town, many of the building I saw could have used a coat of paint and a new window pane or two, but there were hints of an impressive city. A stones throw from the hlavni (train station), high atop a hill was the Brno hrad (castle) with an amazing cathedral. And if you looked carefully, you could spy stately old buildings in fine repair. Sure, there were some of those concrete monstrocities of the communist era mixed in, but frankly the architecture of the 50s, 60s and 70s was unkind worldwide. Brno did not escape the travesty.

We headed north out of Brno through a myriad of villages and towns, both picturesque and not-so-picturesque. (Okay, a couple were butt-ugly.) Some clung to hillsides and others filled valleys. Some had their own hrads on precipices to protect them from the pillaging marauders, others had quaint churches and there were the smokestacks attached to industry. Some towns appeared stagnant and decaying while others were bustling with new construction.

Give me a bicycle, a month and a fistful of Czech Koruna and I will give you a more detailed report!