I write from Brno, the second city of the Czech Republic. Although I have been staying in dives and hostels during my working vacation, I opt to get a real hotel in Brno. You never know what you'll find in a group-accomodation setting, and the crapshoot seems even more so in an out-of-the-way place with a name that starts--Would you like to buy a vowel?--B-R-N. Bedbugs? A man staring inches from my face when I awake? A 300-pound Eastern European woman having a night-terror at 3:51 a.m.? I avoid all of these discommodious possibilities by securing a room in the Grand Hotel, Brno, which is, as its name implies, quite grand. So grand, in fact, that they leave apples at their reception that I help myself to. Perhaps in response, the reception helps itself to claiming that I made a long-distance call to a number, and a nation, that I have never heard of. I decline to pay, and all is well. Although Brno is not the tourist magnet that Vienna or Prague is (which are not the tourist magnets that London or Paris is), it offers a castle atop a hill and a church atop a bigger hill. Spilberk Castle has been overrun by Habsburg, Jacobin, and Nazi armies, and has protected the locals from Swedes, Hungarians, and Prussians. More stunning, and taxing on the legs to get to, is the Catheral of St. Peter and Paul. Like Spilberk Castle, it dates to the 13th century. Then, it was a castle in its own right--Brno Castle. Now, it's a tall church on a tall hill. My Brno sojourn has ended. I am off to Krakow.

Do they have any cool places in Europe like we do in America. It just seems so redundant. Castles are cool if they have, like a medieval restraunt where they call you wench amd you get to throw food. I am talking about, like, Las Vegas were you can gamble and pay for girls without getting your name in the Herald like it always happens in Arlington.And those girls don't play tricks on you and are really dudes. Or New Orleans were girls flash you for free and you can drink all day and then drive home without getting hassled. Or Providence were they have a ton of relaxation establishments. Thats why our country is better than that Europe country. America...$%$% ya..Home of the mother %#$%$#* brave!

Castle Brno Sammartino?

If Brno is like everyplace else in Europe, Brno Castle would have existed before the town of Brno did. It was typical, throughout medieval Europe, for the people to live in castles and, later on, as the castles became unneccessary, they were abandoned and villages sprang up around them. That's why it's typical to find a castle in or just outside of hundreds of European cities. Just a historical note.