Austerlitz (Slavkov u Brnu), Moravia, Czech Republic

We spent one night in Mikulov, at the Templ Pensione. Charming town, lovely pensione, no pictures . . . Our timing was off, circumstances mitigated our efforts . . . It WAS the national Holiday, 28 OCT, Statni Svata, the date of Czech state independence from Austria-Hungary Empire, so a lot of shops were closed. Many restaurants have a special menu that day, which name of I didn't write down . . . But at the temple we had a lunch of Mushroom ball soup and venison pate baguettes . . . W-e-i-r-d, with a capital W . . . 8^D . . . After brekky we hastened over to Valtice & Lednice just to see what there was to see . . . The whole area is a UNESCO world Heritage Site, dotted with Lichtenstein castles and what-not. . . . We went thru the National Wine Centre Museum, which odd to say, our favorite part was the bird rooms, where you could push a button to hear the bird calls -- so we pushed 'em all at the same time. . . Magic! . . . Then we toppled over to a tasting room, and went over the hurdles once around. I was careful to spit out my tastings since I was driving, but Mrs got her buzz on . . . 8^D . . . We took 8 bottles with us, and called it a success.

We had been worried about our timeline, but we were only 45 minutes from Brno in Valtice, and we got to Golf Club Austerlitz before noon -- I had a 1 pm tee time, and didn't want to miss it . . . As far as I was concerned THAT was the whole point of the trip. . . 8^D . . .

Turns out GCA is a social mecca for the whole of Brno . . . All but two of the tables were reserved, and as the English-fluent manager showed us to a table he apologetically mentioned that they had only fish this day, but we tried to console him: WE LOVe fish! They had salmon, tuna, haddock, red fish and some other on the menu today, described very interestingly. Mrs took the tuna, prawns, & scallops with potato stuffed zucchini; I took the haddock with parmesan crust and grilled fennel & carrots. It was a chore to wolf down such a feast so that I could still make my tee-time, and it seemed a shame, too, it was that good.

So I played my round http://bohemianduffer.blogspot.com/2011/11/golf-club-austerlitzmoravia-czech.html, then we huddled in the cottage for a picnic of goodies Mrs had gotten at the Potraviny on our way out of Valtice, plus a couple of bottles of wine. The Restaurant and the cottages are just wonderful . . . Very new, clean, and cozy. The WiFi worked verywell, too, so we spontaneously watched a couple of NatGeo programs, about European cannibals and Early European settlers.

After Brekky, with custom made eggs (scrambled with leeks) and wurst, in addition to all the normal accoutrements, it was an easy drive back to Prague . . .
We first stopped by the battlefield Museum in Pracen (deutsche PRATZEN), just to survey . . . the scope of the battle was kinda huge, needed to be for 200,000 men, I guess . . . it's wooded now, but then it was just bald fields, for better vision . . . I bot a book a bout the battle, but what I know now is that I need to re-read War & Peace . . . I assume that's why I even ever heard of Austerlitz, but I couldná told you on a bet.

We returned the car, bot an IHT, and strolled into Las Adelitas for lunch just at 2pm. The parradilla con queso (sort of like fajitas) with a double-margarita made the rest of the day seem to go by really fast . . . .8^D . . .