On to Olomouc

It was a slow start this morning, with meeting our hosts at 12:00 to go to the train station (across the street).  I thought I would manage to find a geocache and add a travel bug to my collection, but the cache was located inside a business that was closed Sunday morning.  So sad.  It doesn't look like there are very many good caches in Olomouc.  Most of them are puzzle caches and written entirely in Czech, so my ability to solve those puzzles is about 0.

The train experience was unlike any I've had in Europe before.  About 200 of us converged on the platform, and then cued for what seemed like forever to hand our luggage over to the travel agent and his staff to load in a special luggage car (the train personnel did not help with this).  This resulted in about a 10 minute delay in departure (and European trains never wait around for people to load!)  Then we boarded our reserved car and traveled to Olomouc (about 2 1/2 hrs).  Then we got off the train, leaving our luggage behind to be unloaded by unknown staff and eventually delivered to our hotels.  When you are socialized to knowing that trains and train stations are where you are mostly likely to fall victim to theft, it was a little hard to relax with this protocol.

(Wish I could have had a view from someone shoulders!)

In the end, we made it into the city with a short bus ride.  I got the students settled in their hotel (mine is 2 blocks up the street).  Then we walked to the town square (around the corner) along with 30,000 locals to witness the lighting of the town Christmas tree.  We were packed in like sardines!  There were tons of kiosks around the square with food and mulled wine and other shopping fun, but with 30,000 people I wasn't much in the mood.  I grabbed a plate of fresh fried donuts and left the square to find my hotel.  No problems.  My luggage arrived 5 mins after I did.

Na Hrade Pension

My room is in the attic and is quite cozy and attractive.  So cozy in fact that I've had to turn off the heat completely and open a window.

Got the group registered at the conference site, just another block up the street.  We are ready for tours tomorrow and the conference on Tuesday afternoon!