Happy Easter! (UNESCO Style)

We decided to take advantage of the Easter Weekend to see more of the Czech Republic. It has been a goal of ours to try to see all 12 of the UNESCO sites in this country. It's amazing to think that a country this size holds 12, while the average per country is only 5 or 6. Some of the spots are a bit out of the way, so we rented a car and took a road trip.

Day 1 included the beautiful main square in Telc, whose colorful houses date from the late 14th century. We absolutely adored it! I'm sure from the photos you can easily see why. We also visited the chateau located just off the main square.

From there we drove on to Trebic and just made it to the gothic St. Prokop's Basilica before it closed at sundown...it was a mad race up a very steep path, but we made it! We spent the night in the lovely Hotel Winkler.

Trebic makes it on the UNESCO list because it contains a Benedictine monastery (of which the basilica is a part) that has been there since the 13th century and a well-preserved Jewish quarter. The presence of these two areas within the same town is proof of the coexistence of these cultures from the Middle Ages to the 20th century in Eastern Europe. It is interesting to note that this is the only Jewish UNESCO site outside of Israel. The next morning (Day 2) we woke up and started exploring bright and early. We strolled through the Jewish Quarter, including the Jewish Cemetery.

From Trebic we made our way to Kromeriz and explored the baroque castle grounds, which included all sorts of interesting animals. Ella and Mattias loved the gobbling turkey! Of course, no castle visit is complete without a ride on some flying Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Easter Monday (Day 3) we were very pleased to discover that the Easter Bunny had found us in the less-than-lovely-but-certainly-affordable Hotel Hvezda. The kids were thrilled to have chocolate BEFORE breakfast!

Even though it was raining, we did a quick tour of the Pleasure/Flower Garden (which managed to be pleasant even in the rain) and then ducked into the castle to visit the picture gallery.

From Kromeriz we headed to Prague, stopping at Zdar nad Sazavou along the way. This star-shaped church in honour of St. John of Nepomuk was so architecturally interesting...it was more than worth the stop.

This brings our "been-there-done-that" UNESCO list for the Czech Republic up to 8 out of 12.

HAPPY EASTER!