Our last day in Zlin was quite nice. After a relaxed breakfast we headed into the town to walk about one last time. This included walking into some of the smaller shops in the square to see the types of things they were selling. Since this is a college town and not a tourist town, we only found one shop with Czech crafts and pottery but nothing that was any different than what we had seen in Prague or the various sites we’ve visited.
After a quick snack in our room, we decided to go back to Kromeriz with the intention to see the Flower Gardens. We arrived t the main square and they had a classic car exhibit taking place. The cars were beautiful and there were quite a few people walking about for a Wednesday afternoon. Many of the car owners were dressed according to the era that their car originated.
It was a cooler afternoon as compared to our last visit so we headed to the Archbishop’s Chateau to get information on the location of the Flower Garden and the Archbishop’s Wine Cellar. The Flower Garden was across town but it appeared that the wine cellar was on the grounds of the Chateau. I purchased tickets and we waited for the tour to start. Well, it appears I purchased tickets for a guided tour of the Chateau’s rooms… in Czech. We were given a printout of what was taking place in each room in English – and due to the classic car exhibit, there were also French, Russian and German speakers. The couple from New Zealand were also on the tour. The tour was a bit slow since we read faster than the guide spoke. Still, there were many impressive rooms. The history was also fascinating and in the end I was quite happy that we got to do the tour. We did eventually find the wine cellar, outside of the Chateau, down the street and around the corner. It was closed…
We then headed to the Flower Gardens. They were pretty impressive. We walked through the palm house where they were growing many of the plants that Aidan hacks out of our garden on weekends. We also visited the maze and wandered around the different areas. We were able to see a portion of the garden from a higher vantage point. It was impressive what the gardeners had done with boxwood and flowers of differing colours.
Our drive back to Zlin took almost 3 times as long. There was an accident somewhere so traffic was backed up. At one point during our wait we heard music and were wondering whether another car or a house was playing their music for all to enjoy. The music was followed by road announcements over a loudspeaker. We then noticed a series of loudspeakers running down the road. We guess it was leftover from a bygone era but still had its uses today.
Since we fly to London on the 10th, we spent the evening packing and clearing out our refrigerator. So yes, compared to our final dinner at the Sunflower Restaurant the night before (and charcoal grilled steak), we had microwave dinners, cold cuts, bread and cheese. They were actually quite good though – the microwave dinners out here aren’t nearly as salty as the US versions. I had a conference call and Aidan did some work as well. We also managed to finish off Ballykissangel while we packed later on in the evening.
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