Lovely Object #6

Tags

Czech Republic, drinks, home, Olomouc

It’s still cold and icy here, and we’ve been keeping warm with lots of tea and soup. One of my favorite ways of keeping warm is heading to the brown cafes of Amsterdam, ordering a shot of something strong, and sipping it by a fire. Of course then you have to face the cold again, so it’s even better to do that at home, which is a perfect lead-in to this week’s Lovely Object post.

What: Set of six crystal cordial glasses

Where: On our bookshelf, next to our Dutch gin

How: Found at an antiques booth at the Christmas market in Cologne, Germany, 2011

This makes me look like an alcoholic, I know. I’m not! I promise. But I love the idea of filling these cordial glasses with something special and sharing it with friends.

I was convinced of the magic of this last August in a little Czech town called Olomouc. Jesse and I were couchsurfing our way through the Czech Republic, and our host for a few nights welcomed us to her living room with beautiful crystal glasses filled with slivovice, a plum brandy. The clear, sweet liqueur was made by her neighbors with plums from her own backyard, and she shared it with us while we talked about traveling, history, and literature. I loved that feeling of intimacy and conviviality!

So I jumped at the chance to have my own set of cordial glasses, though I’m not making my own brandies yet! These are the perfect size for just a dash of something to sip while you sit around a table and nibble at the remains of a meal.

This one is full of a Spanish brandy called Rey de Oro, though I also like to fill them with Dutch jenever, and sometimes aquavit. Not all in one night, though. (Yikes!)

Stinky Cheese and Plague Columns

Tags

art, Czech Republic, Olomouc

We spent about four lovely days in Prague, but any visit to the Czech Republic has to include a smaller city, somewhere ELSE. That’s true for anywhere, I think. The biggest cities are always beautiful and lively, but everyone knows that New York is not the entire US, Paris is not all of France, and London isn’t small-town England.

So we picked Olomouc (Ol-uh-MOATS). We picked it mostly because (I’m slightly embarrassed to admit) it’s famous for a certain kind of smelly cheese, called olomoucké tvarůžky. And I wanted to try it. It’s also a cute university town with an old medieval center surrounded by lovely forests. So it’s legit, past the weird cheese.

The city is the ancient capital of Moravia, the eastern section of the Czech Republic, known for it’s beer and slivovice, a plum brandy. It rained heavily the few days we were there, but we still managed to wander the town, enjoy a cafe, and have a good time.

Olomouc is also famous for having it’s very own astronomical clock, like the popular one in Prague. This one looks drastically different, since the Soviets reconstructed it after WWII in the Soviet Realism style. You can find little homages to Lenin and other party heroes in there, even their birthdays next to the traditional saints’.

The other famous monument in town is the Plague Column, which is the biggest and best example in Europe. I’d never even heard of a Plague Column, but apparently they were common across the continent, built as “thank-you” for surviving the devastating plagues. You learn so much traveling! Olomouc’ column is huge, built in 1716, and even has a chapel built into the bottom. I suppose if my town survived the plague I’d be pretty ecstatic too, and encrust anything I see with gilded copper.

And yes, I got my cheese. It was pretty good, and very smelly. My life is fulfilled. Although, I didn’t think it through because we also ordered another local specialty, garlic soup, at the same time. I’m lucky Jesse loves me, because that combination on a hot day was pretty intense! That’s true love, friends.

Smelly cheese and garlic soup.