Telc (pronounced Tell-ch) sits in the middle of the Czech Republic. It is the halfway point on an eight hour drive between Krakow and Cesky Krumlov, our final destination.
Rosie circled a finger and kind of did a stab on the map for an over night stop to break the journey, plus, she also wanted to stay in a smaller town and have a bit of down time. Rosie and The Operator sure hit the random jackpot with Telc!
This wee enclave of Telc is ‘sleepyhollow’ personified in the winter. Driving through the ancient arch into the town you are just blown away by the size of the cobbley square, the sheer number of exquisite, pastel colored, chocolate box perfect houses….and the ghost town emptiness.
No worries on where we are allowed to park here said The Operator, there is no one about and heaps of room. Rosie and the Operator are staying in Telc for two nights and it looks the perfect place to explore in relaxed solitude.
Telc is a UNESCO town of just under 6,000 inhabitants first established in the 1300s. It sits at the halfway point not only on Rosies journey but was also the halfway point on an ancient provincial road between Vienna and Prague where it was a famous water stop. The lakes around the town not only supplied drinking water to the town and travelers but also fresh water fish for food, which made the town quite wealthy.
The rows of houses looks so beautiful and uniform due to a fire in the 1530s that completely destroyed the square. It was rebuilt in the delicate and extravagant Renaissance and Baroque style that you see today and all are still original from that time period.
The frescoes (sgraffito) on the houses, which were built by ordinary townspeople stand side by side with those of the aristocracy and church, are all original 16th century paintings.
They depict Roman myth and legends and there are also renditions of Roman statues sitting in painted niches. These guys in the day wanted to be classy and up with the fashions of the times….but they couldn’t afford real Roman antiquities…so they painted them instead. Genius!
An arcade runs along the entire length of the houses which offers practical shelter from the sun in summer and the elements in winter to what would have been the front doors of the houses.
Rosie and The Operator are staying in one of the original houses that has been remodeled into a rental apartment…it is huge! Our rooms are the three windows on the middle floor and we have a great view out the back of the house across the lake.
The walls are thick, the windows small and the ceilings amazingly vaulted. It is modern warm and cozy with touches of the ancient. Underneath these rows of houses are a network of old cellars and tunnels that link all of the houses…this is now an underground museum which, like the rest of the towns major sites are shut for winter.
Rosie and The Operator stopped for lunch in the main square at a cafe that brewed its own apple cider and was quite renowned for it. It would certainly be rude not to sample it, and it absolutely lived up to the online hype! They had a great tapas menu so we thought we could spend an hour, sipping, sampling and thawing out from the cold. We ordered a range of tapas, only to be told after the fact they don’t supply the whole menu over winter….they only have ingredients for toasted sandwiches. Lol.
As Rosie and The Operator seemed to be the only people in the town we were able to have a nice long chat with The Cafe Girl while she made our delicious toasties. Her English was exceptional and she made the most perfect kiwi Flat White to finish.
Rosie asked the question about the Old Town and what to see and do around it….The Cafe Girl looked confused. This wasn’t the Old Town she said, this is The New Town. The Old Town is down the end of the square, through the arch, across the lake, follow the path past the statues, past the church and there you are.
Well, well, said Rosie….this sounds like an adventure, and an enjoyable afternoon walk. Off we went picking our way over the treacherous lumpy cobble stones towards the end of the square. Wow! what a sight the semi frozen lake was.
On the bank in a clear spot away from the bull rushes The Operator could see where locals had been testing the thickness of the ice by throwing lakeside rocks onto the surface….how could we not. The ice was pretty thick! The rock clattered, chattered and chipped its way like a bowling ball along the surface. Cool.
What a picturesque view back across the lake to the village! The ducks under the bridge were a little cranky their pond had frozen.
They were sitting in a small liquid channel just under the bridge, it was a cold looking ice slurry mixture and as soon as Rosie paused to take pics, they all started to leave the water and waddle across the ice to us hungrily quaking away….wish we had some bread……
It was so beautiful and tranquil walking this pedestrian path towards the old town. A lady on a bicycle passed us, other than that we never saw another soul.
The actual path we were walking on is the original one that linked the two areas of town in the Middle Ages! Nine holy statues line the path that have been there since the 1750s adding to the sense of the provincial surrealism. They are pitted, mossy and the edges worn smooth from the centuries and exposure to the weather.
The path leads you to the The Church of the Mother of God outside stands a tall column with the Virgin Mary with her resplendent golden halo looking over the church gate and all who enter since 1673.
A big black hearse is backed up to the closed door of the church today. Solemn organ music issues forth as Rosie and The Operator wander around inside the walled graveyard. This was the location of the towns original Gothic Church which was built in the 13th century. It has been remodeled over time and this exterior dates from the 17th Century.
Inside the grounds of the graveyard is the tiny peach and cream striped chapel of St Roch, to the left of the photo, which was built in 1652 to commemorate a plague epidemic. It is surrounded by gravestones, with the earliest in the cemetery dating from 16th century.
Rosie and The Operator didn’t linger long, the singing from inside the church was reaching the zenith and the church doors had just been flung open. Rosie and The Operator made a dash for the gates and squeezed out between the hearse just before the dearly departed was carried out of the church. At that point the heavens opened up and icy sleety tears issued forth from the sky and we were scuttling to find some shelter and wait for the downpour to pass.
The Old Town….was old. These were the original workmen’s houses from the 13th century. Homes owned by the farmers, shoemakers, drapers and brewsters etc. They are squat and solid with huge, curved doors leading into the yards and barns that were flush with the house front and street where the towns folk and their livestock once lived in close quarters.
The old town was just as deserted and its medieval houses in equal states of disrepair and renovation. It certainly looked like there was alot of development underway though. To Rosie it also looked like a place where you could get a lot of bang for your buck housing wise…..Look at this beauty ripe for renovation! The Operator is backing away as Rosie peeps though the windows and cracks.
Rosie loved the old, low doorways, crooked alley ways and peeling paint.
Windows and doors were dressed for the Christmas season plus back in the New Town there was a big pine tree in the Square with a few twinkly lights and sparse decorations.
Telcs Christmas Tree wasn’t plush and elaborate like the other places we have visited but it was well in keeping with the small town feel.
It kind of felt appropriate and cosy that we stay in for the night, cook for ourselves, stay warm and curl up with a bottle of wine. The perfect way to end a totally relaxing day in Telc.
This would normally be where my blog on Telc would end…except…. overnight it snowed, and snowed and snowed! 
Rosie and The Operator woke up to a Czech winter wonderland! You know Rosie….time to retrace her steps and retake every photo she has taken earlier….but with snow! No narrative needed, you know the story, enjoy the pics as much as we enjoyed the snow!
After sweeping the car free of snow we were driving through the magical white landscape to the town Rosie had based this whole holiday around, Cesky Krumlov.
Rosie was supposed to have stayed in this Czech town for a month and met up with her parents there who were stopping over on holiday….it was all cancelled due to a hospital stay whilst in Mexico.
Now, four months later…after hearing how beautiful the town was from her parents Rosie couldn’t wait to get there.
