April 2022
For my birthday it was decided to go to the town of Hlinsko in the Zdarsk Vrchy region. Going somewhere farther seemed like too much hassle.
Hlinsko is not that far, roughly in the geographic center of Czechia. Despite all this, getting there by transport is quite difficult - about three hours travel. In our case, classically, more.
9 years of living in the country and 31 years of living on the planet won't save you from Czech drags. We needed to go on two trains with a transfer in Pardubice. Suddenly it turned out that part of the route from Pardubice would need to be by bus - track repair.
Well OK, what the hell, I thought, not the first time, same situation was in Telc in the very first year when I hadn't seen either the language or Czech chicks yet.
The schedule said the bus was standing in front of the station on platform 5. And indeed, a bus was standing. We got on, showed our ticket to the CD controller. He was like - all good, let's go. The bus for some reason left 3 minutes early, but whatever. April, I remind you, holidays, bus is full. We need to go to the town Chrudim. And here after 20 minutes of jostling we arrived - at some village (not Chrudim). We, a granny and a young Czech ask the conductor, donde estamos, isn't this Chrudim? It isn't.
The granny and the Czech are unhappy, like, what kind of idiot, checked the ticket but didn't check where the ticket was to.
Okay, we ride this same bus back to Pardubice, this time the bus is packed to the brim with schoolkids, apparently riding with the whole class from a party. Discussing guys, love, who's a fool, all that stuff. Normal.
We arrive in Pardubice, wait for the next bus. Bus is indicated in the schedule. This time the platform isn't indicated. We wait for the platform to appear until the bus departure time. Nope. We go to platform 5. We see on the left an A4 paper sheet that all replacement buses should depart from platform 5. Why specifically this time it's not indicated in the schedule?
On platform 5 some bus was standing, but not ours. That is, it goes to Chrudim, but later. We wait about 20 minutes, we go. Again with a class of schoolkids, lol. Jostling, we see their social hierarchy (the shorter the skirt, the cooler the chick, that's the thing). We get to Chrudim, wait for the train half an hour. We get on, we go. The journey dragged on 5 hours instead of the planned three.
You can live here 3 months, 9 years or your whole life, but there'll always be an "idiot" who'll check your ticket but won't check where it's to. And there'll also be you, who's also an idiot. Stupidity, praise God, doesn't depend on citizenship, in such moments you feel like part of something bigger.
We stayed in a private house called "Apartmán u domečku Hlinsko". Kind hosts gave us a laptop with Netflix. The sink had a window, housewives' dream, by the way (and I didn't know). Top, recommend.
We came for 4 days, but the first two days it snowed, we watched about 10 modern Czech films. Complete shit, same faces. Half of modern Czech actors are yesterday's children. Corruption. The films are good, completely relaxing. What the hell, with global warming, snow was falling in Czechia in April 2022, I have no idea.
Hlinsko is a town with one road through the middle of town, along which everyone drives noisily. There's nothing else there and shouldn't be - the town is located by the Zdarsk Vrchy reserve
Hlinsko is a model of Czech provinces. Parka v rohliku, sekana v žemle.
The very center is cute
The town's audience is easy to understand from stores within the town. If Coop is everywhere, the town is a village. In the town there was an artist named Jan Honza (ironic)
There are no people in town, only cars. Without one you can't manage at all, transport around the region runs once a year.
The very-very center is quite unique for Czechia
Here there's a Skanzen - wooden houses "like in the old days"
Turns out it's still worth visiting Hlinsko once
Otherwise, a town like a town
The main square is indistinguishable from all the others
Sometimes the terrain wakes up with views
On the outskirts stand quality "family" houses (that's what private houses are called in Czechia)
Unique type of street signs - from transparent red plastic. Ugly, though interesting.
If you don't maintain them, it's total trash, would be better from tin
Through town flows the narrow river Chrudimka, which somehow sounds especially beautiful
Color rendering in the photo is correct, signs faded to zero. The business hasn't had new clients in the last 20 years. Pizza heart, Pizza Hut, by the way
Panel building decoration (single case)
Design everywhere is still ideally provincial. Haven't seen it be like this in 95% of a town in a long time.
Street is terribly noisy. Descendants, guess the year from the photo.
3 good boys. Him, me and you.
Unique feature of Hlinsko - ventilation in panel buildings. It's really everywhere in plain sight.
Sticking out of walls
Or near windows as a rectangular grating
Maybe it's not ventilation, but it's almost everywhere and sometimes covered with some soot. Don't know, in short, what it is, but purely Hlinsko's joke
Sometimes beauty peeks through
The most (only) hipster place - the bus station
Here there are even luggage lockers for the 5 Hlinsko bikers
Once the town even got flooded, on this Hlinsko - that's all.
But really, we came here for nature - Zdarsk Vrchy, so Hlinsko can be forgiven for everything.
