Bohemia was
our last trip as a group and it was very bittersweet! The two towns we visited were beautiful and
the countryside along the way was just as amazing. We left on Tuesday and made it to Kutna Hora
that same day but made a pit stop along the way at a church and a castle. We have seen quite a few churches and castles
throughout our trip and I especially enjoy when we get tours and can actually
understand what we are looking at while in these places. The church we toured on Tuesday was very
unique because its views on hosting events in the church were much different. Also, the church has been through many fires
and reconstructions. After the church,
we visited a castle. This castle was
very interesting and large. It amazes me
the amount of rooms and detail put into the castles here in Europe, and like
the one we toured on Tuesday, some of them were not even owned by royalty, just
wealthy families.
On
Wednesday we toured three churches, one which had all human bone decorations
inside. This was very creepy at first,
but knowing the history behind it helped me to appreciate it a little
more. It used to be a cemetery of plague
victims and other tragedies during that time period but became too unsanitary,
so they had to dig it up. It still
grosses me out, however, I do see that many things that we’ve seen in Europe
that I cannot imagine why someone would do something like that, usually have a
good reason. I have learned throughout
all of our classes and field trips that it is hard to judge the acts of people
in the past because many were subjected to strange and very difficult decisions
and had to react. I cannot say what I
would do in these situations so it is best that I just try to understand the
reasoning. Later that day we visited a
silver mine. This was a very neat
experience because unlike the last mine, we actually crawled through small
spaces and had dripping water and more of a “miner’s experience.”
The next
day we left for Cesky Krumlov! Along the
way we stopped at a brewery and it was very interesting to see the process of
how the beer is made and distributed. Cesky
Krumlov is a very beautiful town, and the views are breathtaking. I loved the small town feel of it, even
though it technically isn’t a “small town.”
The next day we woke up and visited another beautiful castle. I loved hearing about the history behind each
room and the decorations and reasoning for the style of the room. After that we had a break for lunch and then
got ready for rafting down the river.
This was one of my favorite group experiences of the entire study abroad
trip. It took us several hours to raft
down the river, but the views were beautiful and we got to relax and bond with
our group in the outdoors.
Overall the
trip to Bohemia was one of my favorites because by this time we all know each
other pretty well and we could spend time enjoying each other and having fun
without having to be timid and try to get to know new people. Also, by now we have a lot of other churches
and castles and towns to compare and contrast to the ones we were seeing and it
was fun to be able to recognize some of the time periods and their styles. For example, when we first visited Prague, we
learned about Gothic style architecture and little details like that and now we
can recognize them on our own. I also
appreciate that although we had our hiccups on this last trip, we all came
together to help one another. I think
that shows just how far we have come from being complete strangers to now
helping each other with issues and being able to talk and mingle no matter who
we are sitting next to or walking near.
I am glad we had this last opportunity to bond as a group and learn even
more about the country we have lived in for the past few months. It is crazy to see the differences between
our first group trip to Prague, and this last trip to Bohemia and I am so glad
that this experience could show how much people can grow and learn when
traveling and traveling together!
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