About six months ago when I was dancing around indecisive about booking this trip, I was under the impression (and I think he was under the impression) that this would be his final year in Ostrava and at the end of the school year he would return to Australia. This was a push for me – how many opportunities was I going to get in my life to visit someone who is living in a completely non-touristic area in the east of the Czech Republic, stay for free, be really close to possible day trip opportunities and be perfectly on the way to where I intended to head next? And so, in large part, I credit to Craig that bit of fuel to ‘seize the moment’ and book this trip for sooner rather than later.
Ostrava is actually the third largest city in the Czech Republic, although, your average person doesn’t know much about the Czech Republic other than ‘Prague’ and that it used to be a part of Czechoslovakia. The demographic in Ostrava is driven largely by the volume of factories – it is an industrial city, built around its factory industry. It’s known for its incredibly high levels of pollution, which I didn’t really notice but I am told that some days you really feel it, and that one day last year pollution levels were so high the city declared a free public transport day, to get people off the roads to try to reduce the car pollution. Geographically it was situated in a great position for me – on my check list of ‘must visit’ cities for this trip, included Bratislava, Krakow and then the Baltic capital cities. Ostrava is right near the Polish border and is on the main line of trains coming from Prague heading east so it worked really well.
Welcome to Ostrava!
Craig met me at the train station and we hugged and I wanted
to cry and blah di blah. When you’re backpacking, sure you meet people and in
my case I met up with friends, but there’s something so lovely and familiar
about seeing someone from home, someone who would be placed better in your
local shopping centre than in this foreign land. I’ve struggled a little this
trip, wrapping my head around being immersed in this ‘backpacker’ scene when I
don’t really feel like a backpacker – I’m slightly more grown up. Anyway, it’s
just sort of had me in a weird emotional state and I think seeing Craig when I
saw him was exactly what I needed to ensure I could make it through this trip.
He got me back to his place and we talked the whole way, I don’t think we
hardly stopped talking all night, from the train station, the tram to his
place, when we got dinner, going out for a beer. I don’t think I really had
time to take in my surroundings that first night, it was just kind of too
surreal being in the Czech Republic with my friend from Australia while he
orders food and beer speaking in Czech. Since we studied Japanese together the
same scenario in say, Tokyo, would not have felt as surreal. However it felt
almost like a dream that I was doing any of what I was doing.
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| So lovely eating 'real' food instead of crap from the supermarket! |
The next day, my first full day in Ostrava, I was left to my
own devices while Craig was at work, and it was this day that I really had the
opportunity to observe and reflect upon the city which he now calls home. Ostrava
is not a tourist town. There is a tourist information office and there are
tourist like attractions – museums and the like - but it isn’t like just about
every other city I’ve visited in Europe where your city centre is overrun by
tourists. Some young people speak limited English, especially people who work
in customer service, but there isn’t an overabundance of restaurants with
English menus and signs in the windows of pharmacies saying “We speak English!”
I did a wander around the city centre, the ‘town square’, across the river to
the city hall and then through the city down the other end to the town hall
where there is a tower you can pay to go up a lift to a lookout. At the time
the weather was extremely cloudy so I decided to not do this now, but I knew
where it was for later.
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After grabbing some lunch I headed to ‘Miniuni’ which is a
museum with small replicas of various monuments and buildings from around
Europe, as well as the seven ancient wonders. So for example, they have a
miniature Eiffel Tower, one of the Pyramids of Giza, and so on. I walked to the
“castle” (a loose word) which had a sign up in Czech and the ticket box was
closed. I think the sign may have been saying it was closed for some reason,
but you could get into the courtyard for a look around.
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| Sure, I went to Paris this trip... |
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| Town Hall and the tower |
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| Ostrava, Czech Republic |
I guess my overall reflection of the city after day 1 was
this overall feel of Soviet influence. You might say, ‘duh’ but honestly, this
is my first time being hit by an overwhelming feeling that you’re somewhere that
once was very different, systematically. I’ve been to a number of cities who
were Soviet occupied, and never quite had that feeling before. The closest was
in Pilsen, Czech Republic, but in Ostrava it was rather in your face. The communist flats re among the city centre, there is no segregation. I think
it is amplified because of the industrial, factory driven economy – it’s just a
connotation with all the factories looming in the distance. This was also my
first time living in and seeing what Communist flats are like – I mean, the
buildings have been renovated a little but the skin and bones of flat after
flat after flat of identical nature exists. It was interesting, and more than
any other history lesson or walking tour I’ve attended, it makes me want to study
more and learn more about the reality of life under Communist rule.
Friday I dedicated time to laundry and doing some trip
planning – I hadn’t booked anything beyond Ostrava so I really needed to sort
out where I was headed next! It’s so lovely having proper wi-fi and just being
able to lie back and chill and not worry about someone else wanting the power
outlet or if you’re typing too loudly in the dorm at night or having drunk people
distracting you. I wasn’t all being boring – I did go to the brand new mall in
Ostrava, which actually smells kind of new. They have these funky plush chairs,
self-service scanners at the Albert supermarket and wi-fi. Very modern!
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| An awesome navigational point - right outside Craig's building! |
Over the weekend, we took an overnight trip to Bratislava,
Slovakia. Now, I’m not much of a movie
watcher but evidently Bratislava is ‘famous’ in backpacking circles for two
reasons – firstly, it is featured in Eurotrip and secondly, it is where the
horror film ‘Hostel’ is set. Craig has been to Bratislava during the day for
the purpose of visiting the embassy to sort out his work visa but hadn’t been overnight and
certainly hadn’t stayed in a hostel. He said he was a little terrified, I’m not
sure how serious he was about this!
Bratislava is the kind of city you can do in 24 hours – I’m
sure there’s plenty we didn’t see, but I felt like we saw a lot without having to run around madly. We arrived in the early afternoon so on our first day, we got
iced coffee and cake, went for a solid wander around the centre and along the
river, watched some traditional song and dance show in a stage erected in one
of the squares, had dinner and went on a pub crawl.
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| These random statues were all around the city old town |
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| Some traditional Slovak performance |
After sleeping and checking out of the
hostel about twenty seconds before check out time, we got breakfast, wandered the
castle area and some food fair that was happening, found lunch and did a
walking tour in the afternoon. We didn’t feel particularly rushed at any point,
we were able to take it easy and yet still see a really solid amount of the
city, and have a great time doing so. We spent a good portion of the time with
Timmy the Australian tour guide (who ran the pub crawl and the walking tour)
and the hostel manager was American so I can’t say I got up and close with
Slovak culture. I can however say that I had an awesome time, and that I
survived Bratislava!
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| One of many ornate, stunning buildings in Bratislava old town |
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| The castle looming above a castle shaped jumping castle - brought to you by Coca Cola! |
I had been really looking forward to my day trip to Omolouc.
I normally really love the little cities that are hailed as being like a
smaller version of the capital city, and Omolouc is exactly that to Prague.
It’s set on a river, with a picturesque town square, an imitation astronomical
clock and even a church which looks almost identical to one of the Prague
churches. I can’t tell you much more because the day I chose to go was a day
that started blue in Ostrava, and turned black and violent storm in Omolouc! I’ve
never actually been stuck out in a storm while travelling before, but it wasn’t
a fun experience, I can tell you that. My umbrella was no defence, I was far
away from any kind of cover when the heavens opened, and by the time I reached
an alleyway to crowd under with a bunch of other people, I was absolutely
saturated, sopping wet, from head to toe. The storm blew over but it’s pretty
miserable walking around drenched and it wasn’t dry enough for me to dry out by
walking around in the sun. So pretty much after doing a decent wander of the
area I described above, I trudged back to the train station – and of course,
arrived back to a slightly overcast but nonetheless dry day in Ostrava.
Typical. I’m glad I made the trip, it was a cute place from what I saw and I
found it interesting to take a look because Craig and I had had a discussion
about how so much money is put into maintaining Omolouc and installing things
that aren’t ‘necessary’ like electronic signs at the tram stops, the ones that
tell you how many minutes away the next tram is, when there are cities in Moravia
that could use the money for more useful things. I was able to see this in
person and it opens a whole other area of discussion.
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| Look at the nasty sky... the heavens opened about ten minutes after taking this photo |
Monday night we went out for dinner with a few of Craig’s
friends for my ‘farewell’ – a pleasant and enjoyable night and a nice way to
finish my time in Ostrava. Leaving Craig’s was so hard, and it was like a sign
from some higher force when the train was detoured and I missed my connection
and had dramas galore getting to my next destination – the universe wanted me
to just go back and stay with him for a while longer, but unfortunately, I
needed to move on.
Thank you to all of the people in his world who I had the
opportunity to meet, chat to and hang out with – Drew, Dasa, Jessica, Teresa,
Vanessa and so many others. Thank you to
Craig for his hospitality, generosity and for being a friendly face in a world
which sometimes can be pretty lonely – backpacking alone. And thank you for
being that driving force to have me make the decision to travel this year. Since
Craig has now decided to stay in the Czech Republic for another year so, who
knows, maybe I’ll be back!
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