Kautzky Family Czech
Republic/Austrian Trip
September 11-12, 2001
Tuesday September 11, 2001
After having another wonderful breakfast at the
hotel we boarded our bus for our trip to Kolowrat Castle now called Rychnov nad
Kneznou Chateau. The Picture of Kolowrat Castle on your right was taken by Stephen.
If I understand this, the Kolowrat family deeded this to the town of Rychnov nad
kneznou, but the Count still has offices there. The present Count Kolowrat resided in
Wisconsin during the Russian occupation. He returned after the Czech Republic regained its
sovereignty. He is still busy trying to reclaim the Kolowrat property that was seized by
the Russians. He has started several fish farms.
We left Prague about 9 am aboard our own tour bus. Ing Vaklav Chichovsky was our
translator for our stay in the Czech Republic. I apologize, but I do not know our bus
drivers name. He was quiet but a great navigator and driver.
"We left Prague by bus at 9 a.m., headed to Rycknov and Ricky. This is a three hour drive to the
far Northeastern border with Poland. We arrived at the Kolowrat Castle, where our
great-great-great grandfather’s position was as gunsmith and hunting companion to the
Count.
We toured the grounds and had a guided tour of the castle. The rooms were full of
original paintings, portraits from the 16th Century, ornate furniture and china
from the same era. In the dining room were numerous paintings of fowl and animals bagged
during hunting expeditions and many included guns used to collect their game. The sixth
room we entered had two cases of guns displayed, two of which were dated and inventory
numbered. They were 1802/R1712 and 1803/R1714. These dates coincide with the lifetime of
Joseph Kaucky, father of Adalbert I. He lived from 1797-1842 and Count Franz Kolowrat
lived from 1778-1843" (A.S.)
There were not a lot of visitors there that day. We met with one of caretakers at
the castle and she said that the Count was in residence that day and he may some
down to see us. Momentarily Mr. Husak came out and talked with us. I was ready to ask him
about the archives and the story of the castle, but Vaklav wanted to intercede since he
was our translator. All I know is that after Vaklav got finished talking with Husak it
seemed like he did not want to be bothered with us. Husak claimed that he did not speak or
understand English. When I talked to him on the phone Husak and I understood each other
fine especially with his mastered English.
The count did not come down, they said he was sick
The price of the tours, postcards, memorbilia was quite low. As a form of
hospitality? they gave me an English version of the tour guides notes. I was now an
official Kolowrat castle tour guide. Boy did I massacre the names and Titles of the
exhibits. The self guided tour did not take long and unfortunately they did not
allow taking pictures. I think that ended my life as a professional tour guide in the
Czech Republic.
"After the tour we had lunch at Jidelni Pub in Rychnov. ( I did a word search
for Jidelni to see if I could find any information. Jidelni simply means Diner.)
About 4 p.m. we left for Ricky, which took about one hour. We arrived at the General
Store, walked down the hill across the bridge and walked up the steep hill (mountain) to
the top, and there was the vacant lot where #62 was located. #62, Ricky was the homestead
of Adalbert I, Adalbert II and where our great grandfather, Joseph was born and raised.
The feeling I got standing on this piece of ground and looking at the mountainous view is
indescribable, just knowing our ancestors lived, played, and worked on this land was worth
the trip." (A.S.)
Next door to the "Kautzky Lot" was a home
very similar to the pictures that I had seen of the Kautzky homestead. I wanted very
much to find some more information but I wanted one of the Kautzky family members to go
with me. I managed to get Alice' and Sams attention and they were very willing to go up
with Barb and I along with Vaklav our guide/translator, to the cottage."Dennis
knocked on the door of this residence and a young woman came out. She stated she bought
#72 about 15 years ago from a Koutzky. She let us in the back entry which had large flat
stones as the flooring and stone steps leading to an upstairs. The house was built about
1750 or earlier and was there when #62 was occupied by Adalbert Kauczky I and Adalbert
Kautzky II and his family which included Joseph Kautzky father of Edward, our grandfather.
It was an overwhelming experience to say the least.On the wall of the entrance of #72 is a
painting signed V. Koutzky ’75. The title is "A Prisoner in My Own Body",
which showed an almost animal like figure behind bars. V. Koutzky was a paralyzed man and
a severe alcoholic".A.S. The picture of the cabin was taken and contributed by Sam.
Dennis was intrigued with their irrigation system. There is a small stream that
runs behind there house. Someone had built a rock and wood board irrigation system The
irrigation system had wooden gates that evidently were manually controlled. The irrigation
system serviced their home, garden and above ground swimming pool.
The kind ladies name was katja Kindlovi, she explained that this was their summer
home. I got the impression they were from Prague, but not sure of that.
Barb and I enjoyed picking the mountain lupines on our way down.
"At the conclusion of our visit to Ricky we boarded the bus for a long curvy
mountainous journey that got us to Kromeriz about 9 p.m. However not far from Ricky we
went through the little village of Rokytnice, where our grandfather, Edward Kautzky, was
born and where his parents are buried. Hans Kautsky has visited this cemetery but
din’t find the graves."(A.S.)
We arrived in Kromeriz about 2100, we were all very tired. We Stayed at the Hotel
Hvezda. The Picture of our Hotel was taken by Rita. Our rooms
were small, no TV or phone, no hot water; but anything would have been acceptable, we were
really tired. We went to the Disco (that's what the sign said on the door, it was actually
nothing more than a large room and cafe) I had a cup of espresso 1/3 liquid and 2/3
grounds. Barb and I went to bed immediately.
Note from Alice's Diary"we went with Cecilia and Jary to the café in the
hotel to get something to eat. We ended up ordering scrambled eggs with onions because
this was the only item on the menu we could get the waitress to understand we were talking
about. As we were leaving the café at 11:30 p.m. I saw on the television screen
"TERRORIST ATTACK ON AMERICA". I wondered what that was all about, told Orv
about it after we got to our room, didn’t know what they were talking about and it
never registered how serious it was until the next morning when we saw all the news papers
and pictures on TV. I had a real sense of vulnerability. Our room in the hotel was small,
clean, good bed, no hot water, no heat, no phone, no TV but we slept well."(A.S.)
Wednesday September 12, 2001
All of the group were in the cafe having our breakfast, there was a
television across the room. We could not believe our eyes or anything for that matter. We
saw the recapitulation of the planes going through the World Trade CenterTowers and then
seen President Bush speaking, at that point they thought that anywhere from 1200 to 3400
were missing or killed.
You can not fathom being in a foreign country and having something like this blast
across the screen. Some of us were more confused than frightened, either way it was a life
altering experience. They talked about all foreign flights being canceled, about the
extreme security measures that were being instituted.
Are our families OK? How will we get home with no foreign planes landing? Will there be
problems with the local people? Are we at war? those and many other questions lingered
with us for the rest of the trip. For the rest of our stay we would end up spending many
hours watching CNN and BBC for further news, by the time we got back home there was a long
interval where I would not watch television, I had gotten so overloaded during our trip.
In Kromeriz we had a tour of the Palace which was elegant. Our guides were Petra or
Petreka, and her loving husband, Petra was so very proud of her Town. She is the librarian
for School of Justice. She gave us each a packet from Kromeriz, with booklets, pamphlets
and even a CD about Kromeriz.. The Flora-scapes were marvelous.The furniture, carpets, art
collections, tile stoves, Bohemian crystal chandeliers, gold throughout and the small
chapel were most impressive. The chapel is a private area and not on the tourist tours but
Petra gave us all some time for quiet reflection and it was appreciated.
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| One of the Many beautiful Flora-scapes around the
Palace |
Many Beautiful Artworks were seen throughout the
Palace |
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This is the personal quarters of
the Archbishop |
I believe that this is the Great
Hall |
The
above pictures were by Stephen Reves |
We also toured the School of
Justice and the Gardens of Kromeriz. This is a very nice, clean smaller Czech city, nice shopping areas and appeared to be very prosperous. We had lunch at an
elegant restaurant at paupers prices.The picture on the right is me eating a wild
boar steak.Picture courtesy of Sam or Phyllis. Near the end of the day we boarded
the bus to continue onto Telc, a small community two hours west." (A.S.)
By this time we knew a little bit about the attack on the World Trade Center, but
not a lot. Our guide and interpreter decided not to give us much information so that
"it would not spoil our trip".
On our way to our next stop Telc, Czechia, I had everyone write down there Full
names, passport numbers, addresses, phone numbers and who to notify in case of trouble. A
few of my fellow travelers thought that I was getting a little carried away, but it proved
to be beneficial as you will see.
"During our drive through the country for nine hours the past two days we
noticed: poverty, stucco buildings with tile roofs, lots of flowers, villages every two
miles each with a tall church spire and onion style copper finials, rolling hills in the
south to near mountainous hills in the Northeast with large areas of forest, farm land
where they grow a lot of vegetables, corn, oats and sorghum. We saw very few herds of
cows, very few horses and dogs. I didn’t see any cats. The roads and drivers are
awful – very narrow curvy roads and very fast drivers. Houses are right next to the
street and streets and sidewalks are inlaid with stone or wood squares"(A.S.)
The highways were narrow with trees immediately along the side, very few highway
markers, what few there were , sometimes were simply painted on the trees with white
paint. There were a number of accidents that we seen, one of them involving at least four
cars.
We arrived in Telc after dusk. The Penzion only had 2 rooms available had to split
up the groups, Jary, Stephen, Carville and I shared a room. Some of the group including
Rita, Bill, Marie and the drivers had to go to another Penzion, I found a picture of the
penzion on webshots. This is the one where Rita, Bill,
Marie and the drivers stayed After we got settled in our rooms, several of us walked
up to the Square. I was called Zacharias Square and we ate at the Zacharias Restaurant. It
was a very popular restaurant, it was quite clean and comfortable. It had a nice varied
menu. I don't remember a lot about what we ate, but Sam had a Plumb Dumpling that she
really enjoyed.
We were still very bothered about what is happening in the United States of
America! Barb, Sam, Phyllis and I set out to find a phone but to no avail. Somewhere
along the way we met up with Anna. We walked along the street trying to find somewhere
open to use a phone to call our loved ones back home. We were at wits with our futile
efforts. Out of exasperation, I suggested we go to the Police to see if they could help
us.
The Police station was behind a high chain length fence with an intercom that was
ready to fall apart. After several tries we were able to get the intercom to work, the
Police refused to help us and claimed not to Understand English even though they would
reply to some of the questions they heard from us in English.
Anna was starting to get upset that her countrymen would not help us. As we were
reluctantly going back to the penzion she literally attacked this young man that was
walking up the sidewalk. After he heard her plea's He walked us to his flat. We had to go
through a storeroom or small warehouse and went up a flight of stairs. His flat was a
large single room: kitchen, bath and bedroom included. It was very clean and tidy. He
offered us the free use of his phone. This fantastic individual was MVDr. Zdenek
Vojta. After Barb and I tried to use our card to no avail, Phyllis offered us the
use of her card. We made a decision to make one phone call and then have the receiving
party relay the conversation to all the other family members. After the trip we found out
that the phone bill was over $30.00, Phyllis would not let us pay a cent. Phyllis we love
ya. Sam made the phone call to Julie her eldest daughter, after she assured Julie that we
were fine, she used the list of names and phone numbers that I previously had
everyone write down and requested that she contact all of those on the list. After that
was complete she asked Julie how everything was there in Iowa and the United States of
America. somehow or other Julie was able to rattle off an enormous amount of information
that Sam took down in shorthand. Afterwards the Doctor Vojta offered us shot of whiskey.
He was a wonderful Hospitable person.
The idea that we were able to hear from Iowa made us feel much better.
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