Ready for the conference

The conference is being hosted by University of Palacky in a building call the Konvikt.  Despite the sound, this is not the place where criminals are locked up.  It is an old Convent, so a church structure.  There are apparently about 25,000 students in this town of 100,000, so it is a university town.  I'm not sure if they are currently on leave or what, because they are definitely not around campus today.

A nice welcome

The meeting space for the conference at the university.  There are supposedly 25,000 students here, but I only saw a handful of them.  I don't know if they were on break or where they all were...

Hallway in the university - quite lovely architecture (doesn't feel much like a university)

There were classrooms all along this hall.  Some very modern, some more classic, most with tables and chairs or fold down seats.  No single desks.

Stairwell at the university.

General Assembly

UNESCO

Check out this amazing chapel where ECOSOC is meeting.

Security Council

Ice Skating

There was a temporary ice rink set up in the small square and several of our students took advantage of it, although it was very rough.  There was no showing off with jumps or twirls on this bumpy ice, but it did please the skater in our group to get to move around the ice. 

Fabulous food day

Followed these chicken tracks to a restaurant "Kikiricki" (I think this must be the sound a chicken makes in Czech)

It was in a basement and was quaint and charming, with about 50 different chicken dishes on the menu.  Delicious! (And no pushy waiter insisted that I order potato dumplings again, as happened in Prague).

After spending the day on the very cold streets, we decided to head in for coffee, or in my case hot chocolate.  It was the consistency of pudding, and absolutely wonderful.  We also sampled our gingerbread cookies that we bought on the square.  I'm told that the PF stands for Por Felicitation - For Celebration (in French).  Why the Czechs have French abbreviations on their gingerbread I'm not sure. 

Local holiday festival

Our arrival and the lighting of the Christmas tree marked the beginning of a month long festival in the square with lots of booths of crafts and food, and especially famous mulled wine.

I did some Christmas shopping for my family.  At one booth the owner did not speak English, so he asked the person next to him how to say in English what the cost was of the items we were buying.  Then he asked her how to say Merry Christmas and wished us a Merry Christmas.  We asked him how to say it in Czech.  He had to repeat it twice before we could repeat it poorly:  Vesele Vanoce!

Loved this merry go round on the main square!

These fancy rolled cakes looked especially intriguing.

These giant woks full of cabbage and sausage smelled absolutely amazing!

St. Wenceslas Cathedral

As we wandered the town this morning, we discovered St. Vaclav (Wenceslas) cathedral.  We just happened to walk in while some organist was practicing.  It was so cool to just listen for a while and soak in the beautiful atmosphere. 

The support columns and ceilings were beautifully painted and kept up.  This worship space is definitely used and well maintained.

The main cathedral dates to the 1600s, but the added bell tower dates to the late 1800s.  There were pictures of the cast bells inside, but I couldn't tell how many were mounted in the tower.

Exploring Olomouc

I decided that I did not need to spend 4+ hours on a bus today to travel to Auschwitz, which I have already visited twice.  Instead I spent the day exploring the town with one of my students who felt the same.

Here is the Plague column from the center square.  Many cities in central Europe have a similar column that was erected to celebrate the end of a plague epidemic. They are three side, marking the Holy Trinity.  This one was quite large, although I'm not sure if its bigger than the one in Vienna.  Being in a smaller square makes it look larger.

Local memorial for the Paris terrorist atttacks.

The lighted Christmas tree in daylight.  It is a large live tree, not one that was cut and brought in.

The astronomical clock on the square.  I haven't been table to arrive close enough to the hour to observe the figures at the top in motion.

The main square in Olomouc

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!