As firmly established in my last post, my wife loves to drag my lardy ass out of the house randomly and for no purpose other than to watch me sweat, squeal, bitch and moan. Of course she says she is doing it out of love—and to make me do healthy things in nature to keep me from having a heart attack. But the very nature of these healthy things usually places me at high risk of a heart attack. So it goes.
On this particular day,
the usual bribery was in place: I promised to get my ass out of the
house, walk medium-to-great distances for no reason, then I get to
have fried cheese and beer in a village pub as a reward for my
efforts (if I'm not killed in the process). I had a brilliant plan:
take a 15 minute tram ride over to Hloubětin Chateau (like we did
last week), get pics from the opposite side (for better lighting),
and to retire to the Old Czech Pub in the 18th century
house just down the road. It was easy peasy, no major hiking, and
minimum effort for maximum reward. I'm just going to cut to the
chase: gray skies. Bad lighting. No photography possible. No chateau
walk. No old pub possible as a bribe/reward. Fuck.
Plan B: Is This Where I Get Cheated Out of My Fried Cheese?
Then she pulled a plan out
of the spontaneity hat: 'Let's go to Poděbrady! It's got spas and
springs and blah blah blah.' I tuned out due to a short attention
span. But since the train trip was an hour each way, there would be
no chance for her to finagle her way out of the promised land of beer
and fried cheese.
Poděbrady, like all
Euro-towns, has a history. And it is either unintelligible or
unpronounceable. The hipsters and trustafarians living near Jiřiho z
Poděbrad metro station can only call it JZP. But Jiři is George
and he is from Poděbrady. But he was also the King of Bohemia in
the 1400s, a Hussite (Protestants Against Catholics, or PAC man, if
they'd had acronyms back then). You've gotta give Prague credit for
fighting the Catholic power: Jan Hus (Statue and Church in the Old
Town Square) and Jan Žižka (One-eyed general and
Catholic-ass-kicking patron of the whole Žižkov quarter of Prague).
The Two Honzas (nickname for Jan) won many battles, but lost the war.
Catholicism ended up dominating most of Europe, but the Czechs
settled on good-old-fashioned Atheism as a final result. A most
excellent tie breaker if I do say so myself.
Healing Waters and Horny Old Folks
Poděbrady is also a spa
town. Bohemia has many of these, the more famous of which lie in the
mountain range between Germany and Czech (Karlovy Vary, Mariánské
Lázně, etc.). If you have the geographic blessing of spring water
for drinking and soaking, some of the best beer in the world, and a
history of treating heart patients—well, it was fate that I would
have to go there. If I had a heart attack during the hours of
walking, I would be in the right place.
As we walked down the long
promenade-slash-park from the train station to the Old Town, several
fountains enclosed in glass greeted our gaze. Sadly, most of the
fountains were as dried up as the old ladies milling about aimlessly.
Then my wife said something really frightening: 'This place is
famous for old people getting laid.'
'UGH! Why would you say
that? Now I can't UNHEAR that!'
Then she proceeded with
the tired old 'you prude' argument, saying it was perfectly normal
for crotchety old farts to chase wizened old prunes around in the
sauna. Just because they 'can' do something, doesn't mean that I
need to hear about it. I blame the damn Viagra. It's like Bill
Maher said regarding boner pills for old folks: 'Grandpa! Leave that
old bag of bones in the next room alone!'
So with the awful imagery
of fragile fossils fornicating, we continued on until my first
requisite stop, the old castle. To many Americans, the European
castle is a fantastic remnant of a steel-and-stone history, and a
reminder that America isn't old enough to have castles. So I've
spent the last 20-odd years drifting around Europe catching castle
pics and stomping around stone ruins. My full imagination employs
itself: high stone walls with tiny windows strong against the
barbaric hordes, lofty round towers seemingly made with the sole
purpose of keeping the peasants out of the princess's knickers, and
cold, hard halls filled with the smell of roasting meat and the
sounds of heavy mugs of beers clunking together with HOORAHS and
hey...
...Is that a pub over in
the castle courtyard?! Yes! Maybe they'll have swarthy barmaids
swinging swine clubs amid drunken lords. Or at least have a slab of
sýr for me to slide down my gullet. Sadly, it was only a cafe. But
still. A cafe with a view to a 12 century castle is better than a
sharp lance in the eye. For some strange reason, my babe didn't like
the castle. It was too square and well, too military for her. She
prefers the quaint, frilly castles of the renaissance and baroque
periods. In the 12 century, castles were built for function more
than form. But we wouldn't get to find out what lies in the hallowed
halls of Poděbrady Castle on that day. All castles close to the
public at the end of October. Which is a pity. Just when the cold
and wet air whips clouds into battle formation, filling the skies
with castle clouds (my phrase for heavy, black/gray puffy clouds
which add to the mystery of a castle picture), they close the
fuckers.
A Dram of Whiskey, A Jug of Water, A Slab of Cheese
Well, at least I got a
warm whiskey in the cafe to bolster my spirits. Then we finally
found a working tap which dispenses the famous Poděbrady mineral
water, right there in the castle courtyard below the maiden's tower.
After filling up a jug with the water (which tastes of salt and
iron), we slowly wended our way back through town, stopping for my
(YES!!!) smaženy sýr, hranolky and tartarka, washed down with local
beer.
Carrying a backpack with a
tall jug of water in it can be challenging, and the jug often flopped
over in my backpack, requiring my wife to get into the pack and
wrestle it back into shape, muttering under her breath, “Damn thing
handles like a bag of dicks.”
I am so glad I took the
time to teach her my favorite redneck aphorisms.
Photos by Gabriela Sarževská