Moravian Nights

AIFS had included a lovely weekend outing for us all to the provence of Moravia.  We stayed in this sweet 70's hunting lodge that was pretty swanky but also had a hall of mounted animals, most of which were of the rodent variety.

We visited the town of Brno, the second largest town in the Czech Republic.  Nice town, kind of like Prague but less of a tourist destination, so it had less lame crystal shops and more of an Eastern European feel.  I really liked the feel of the town, but we didn't get to stay in the town itself for very long.  On the second night of the trip we had a "wine tasting."  First of all, Moravian wine is not something you want to taste, and second, I think that AIFS knew that.  They just gave us bottles and bottles of this crappy wine, which of course just led to 15o or so drunk college students running amuck in the mod version of the Bates Hotel.  On the last day in Moravia, after that whole scene of utter madness we got to visit these amazing caves.  They were humongous.  The first section was huge with lots of formations, then in the middle it opened up into this huge open air natural amphitheatre that is simply something you have to see to understand.  After that huge opening the caves kept going in amazing form, but the best part is that we got to end the cave trip with an underground boat ride through these winding tunnels.  Overall this was one of the coolest experiences of my life.  

After leaving the caves we went to see a massive Baroque church known as "the Pearl of Moravia."  This church was huge and the interior was covered wall to wall to wall with beautiful murals.  Oh right, we also went to the battlefield at Austerlitz, where the battle of the three emperors took place.  This is where Napoleon achieved his greatest military victory and essentially crushed the Austrian Empire.  This was neat, but we spent a lot of time there and the museum there had this weird mechanized reenactment of the battle that creeped everyone out.