Travel Stories - Czech Republic

It is one clock afternoon when I arrive at a large bus station in "Jihlava" where I have to look for the bus-station-building that goes with it. Totally disoriented I go looking for the center of the city. My travel guide is 10 years old and I'm not going to gamble - the plan is to go to the information center and ask for cheap overnight options. I have read that Jihlava is an industrial city (formerly with silver mines) but I don’t see antyhing I’m looking for on the route to the old center. On the other hand I see some beautiful baroque houses on both sides of the road. Via a busy shopping street I end up on a gigantic square ("Masaryk") which unfortunately is interrupted by an ugly modern building. The information center is quickly found only but the lady behind the desk does not speak a word of English. We try it in German and it is not encouraging what I hear. She only has a guest house on offer in the center and she gives me a sheet with options and points out the amount of 350 Kroner per night. I agree and go with my heavy bag looking for the conscious hotel. Once there, the rather surprised lady points to the magazine and assigns me an amount of almost 900 Kroner. But that is WITH breakfast. With or without breakfast I will not pay that amount for a night's sleep; I thank the lady and walk up the street again looking for something else. 

History Jihlava: 

I decide to walk to the "cheap" street mentioned in my travel guide in the hope that I can arrange something myself for tonight knowing that I am wasting my whole afternoon at this moment. Next to the beautiful Medieval "gate of Mother of God" (part of the old city wall) is another information center. Here is a young boy who speaks some English and I'm just pretending to have just entered the city and ask my question about a hostel for tonight again. Unfortunately he comes with the same magazine as I already have in my bag and I ask him if he can make a phone call. One hostel is jam-packed, while another room is free. Meanwhile I read some leaflets and I did not know that "Gustav Mahler" had lived here "- you can visit his house. Advantage of the hostel is that it is located near the bus station which may be handy tomorrow morning and I thank the boy and try to find this place. The street is quickly found but the building is not - I walk up and down the street and ask everyone who comes by without any result. Then suddenly a girl points at a gray block of concrete at the corner of the street. Over there? I walk to the courtyard, which looks like a construction site rather than a hotel, hostel or guest house and walk up the stairs. The window of the door is broken but there is a female behind a kind of desk. Not a word of English but she understands that I am the person who called. Just like the building, the room is also untraceable - there is no logic at all and I end up on the third floor where I finally find my room in a corner of a hallway. I throw my bag in the corner, go to the toilet and take my small bag and walk back into the city. But not before I have first asked if it is possible to stay another night - this must be a cheap and good place!

It is already afternoon when I walk to the zoo on the edge of town – it is surrounded by high cliffs on both sides. Also here the girl from the information center has been sleeping - it is not 60 crowns but 90 entrance and I ask first just in case whether the "snow leopards" are still there today - because for these animals I come here - normally I avoid zoo’s completely. Inside, this opinion changes somewhat - it is a beautiful newly landscaped garden where the animals have enough space and the lofts are clean and the animals look smart. The garden is also much larger than I had thought and runs all the way through the valley. Not all animals are there and they are also busy contructing but this does not matter at all. I walk here in spite of the new rain shower. There is an Australian farm reserved as shelter of a number of cockatoos and it is more an experience than a zoo. At the very end I come to the lofts of the animals I came for. And I'm not disappointed - I'm only standing in front of the cage that you can see from different places and there are two big cats sleeping in front of the window while there are two younger ones on the platforms they build in the back. When I walk around the big cage, I still find more leopards - seperately. There must be at least six in total and that while these cats are almost exterminated. I would have liked to see one in the wild in Kyrgyzstan but in vain.  

Completely in my nod, I do some shopping in the gigantic shopping center and walk back to the hostel. Suddenly I think of something I have read today; it seems that next to "Mahler" also "Seyss-Inquart" was born here - strange because I always thought it was an Austrian.