Kroměříž Archbishop's Palace
Our day trip to Kroměříž was a really fun one! Kroměříž is a Moravian town in the Zlin Region of the Czech Republic. The town's main landmark is the Baroque Kroměříž Bishop's Palace, which we got to visit. It was pretty cool because when we got there we were told we had to put these slippers on over our shoes in order to conserve the wooden floors.
When we entered the first room, this is what we saw. Talk about tons of heads everywhere. Imagine waking up to this. It might take a little getting used to. Anyways, apparently each head has the date and who it was hunted by engraved on a plaque.
I thought this wild boar was pretty cool with the birds and deer in the back, so I decided to snap a picture of it.
The entire palace was beautifully decorated. This was one of my favorite rooms. My favorite color is red, and I really liked the contrast with the gold and white.
This was the view from many of the windows in the rooms. I decided that when I have my own house, I want a garden that looks something like this. =)
This room used to be a dining hall. The higher you were in society, the higher you got to seat (there was level seating back then). However, today it is used for fashion runways and concerts for classical music. Also, some scenes from Amadeus and Immortal Beloved were shot here.
We also got to climb the tower of the palace. That was fun...NOT! There was literally a ton of steps. We were all dying half way up, but I'd say the awesome pictures were worth it. I love taking pictures from up high, so I went pretty crazy with my camera.
After lunch, we were able to explore the Flower Garden. Europe is full of beautiful vegetation, but this garden was beyond beautiful. Everywhere we passed by I wanted to snap a picture. Plus, I absolutely love nature. So again, I went picture crazy and put my camera to work.
Stunning trees surrounding this little road.
I really loved this tree. I have no idea what it was about it, but something really drew me to it.
This was a beautiful little bridge that I really liked as well.
Must I say anything about this? I think the picture says it all.
I love the colors here. Makes my heart happy.
This reminded me of Autumn and the beautiful red leaves that are typical on the ground.
I just like this picture..A LOT. Obviously, there was a lot going on in the garden and I made sure to capture lots of it.
Oh you know...just me and Shelby...being us.
To my surprise, there was like a little zoo/farm kind of deal at the garden as well. There were chickens and roosters,
baby goats,
baby dears, geese, and big goats,
baboons,
peacocks,
(here you can see this male peacock trying to impress the females...he did this for a LONG time and sadly, got no responses from the females despite his awesome little dancing skills)
and bunnies! It was awesome to see all these animals in the garden. I loved every second of it.
When we finished touring the amazing garden, we visited the second oldest winery in Moravia. This was my first time ever in a winery, so it was an awesome experience. There was lots of mold everywhere, but our guide told us that it was good mold and it was an indication that the rooms were being conserved at the exact temperature and humidity necessary to produce good wine.
Apparently, you can rent out spots in the winery to store your wine bottles so they can age properly. Here's an empty spot, waiting to be used.
Here's a full spot. Someone really loves their wine.
This is the oldest wine barrel in the winery. It can no longer be used because it leaks, so it's just used for touristic purposes now.
This right here is the "wine watcher." He's in charge of making sure no one takes the wine in this room. However, he's been slacking, because that stack of wine bottles you see to the right, should be all the way to the top.
Once the tour was over, we got to taste four different types of wine. They specialize in white wines (with 80% production) so we tried three white wines and one red. They were all delicious. Cheers!
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