Today Tom drove us from our hotel in Telc to the village of Slavonice
to begin our hike. The hike was mainly thru the woods. The most interesting
part was finding old military pillboxes hidden in the woods. They had
been built back before WWII as part of a defense system but had never
been used. They were now heavily overgrown and hard to find. You had
to look thru the trees for a dirt mound. Then as you walked around the
mound one side was exposed concrete with narrow slots for the machine
guns and a heavily fortified door for internal access. The other side
was camouflaged by mounding earth up against the side and over the top.
Of course after a few years the earthen mound was well covered with
grass, bushes and trees making it hard to find the pillbox.
One of the many pillboxes we saw in the woods.
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We found a nice lakeside picnic table for lunch.
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We finally emerged from the woods and walked across this
field to enter the village of Stare Mesto.
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The trail finally exited the woods at the town of Stare Mesto. Then
we were walking along a country lane on our way to Landstejn. It was
along the road that Tom met us with the van and picked us up. He drove
us the remaining mile or so to the castle ruin at Landstejn. Built of
stone in the 13th century, it is one of the oldest castles in the southern
Bohemia area. The exterior walls were all in pretty good condition including
the castle tower that was open to the public. It was a long set of stairs
to the top but the views of the castle below and the surrounding countryside
were great.
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Here we are walking in to Landstejn castle for our self-guided
tour.
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There wasn't much left inside the castle. Just the bare
stone walls.
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From Landstejn, Tom drove us to the small train station in Nova Bystrice.
We were scheduled to take a scenic ride on a narrow-gauge railway to
the town of Jindrichuv Hradec. When we arrived, there was a very ancient
looking steam locomotive with about 4 equally ancient wooden passenger
cars (built around 1906) waiting at the station. Unfortunately, it was
a special train set up for a group of rail fans. We had about an hour
wait for our regularly scheduled train so we went into the village of
Nova Bystrice for a quick sight see. When we returned to the station,
the previous ancient train had been replaced with a slightly newer set
of rolling stock. The diesel locomotive dated back to the late 1950's
and the metal passenger cars had been built around 1966. After about
6 passengers boarded, us four and another couple, the train started
its scenic 1 1/2 hour journey thru the gently rolling countryside. Along
the way we stopped at several tiny stations to pickup and drop off new
passengers. Several times we stopped to pickup large groups of high-school
kids who had been out all day on educational field trips. Unfortunately
for them, it had poured rain earlier in the day and they were all soaking
wet and shivering cold. They all looked anxious to return home and get
into some dry clothes.
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To the left is the old train station at Nova Bystrice.
Below left is the ancient steam engine that was used for the special
"railfan" excursion train.
Below right is the "modern" diesel locomotive and passenger
cars that we rode with the regular scheduled train.
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At the station in Jindrichuv Hradec, Tom met us with the mini-van and
took us into town and our next hotel. The hotel was named Bila Pani
(which means white lady in Czech) after a legendary lady ghost in the
town. According to the legend, the ghost was always seen floating about
in a long white dress, hence the name, White Lady or Bila Pani. We never
saw her during our stay in town. In the evening, we wandered about the
town plaza and the town's chateau.
The train station at Jindrichuv Hradek.
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The Bila Pani (White Lady) hotel we stayed in.
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^ The chateau at Jindrichuv Hradek was surrounded on at
least two sides by lovely tranquil ponds.
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