Day 5 - Monday June 13 - Western Bohemia

Returned to Ovesne Kladruby to see the inside of the Church of St. Lawerence. The last renovation was done in 1871 and it was evident. In its day it appeared to have been a beautiful Baroque church. They are beginning to renovate it but have a long, long way to go. The priest resides in Tepla which is about 10 km away. Unfortunately the one Sunday mass only draws 3 or 4 people on a good day. It seems strange to spend lots of money to renovate the church when so few attend, but village mayor´s wife indicated that there was a great deal of attachment to the church, besides it´s being a local historical landmark due to its age. I got some great pictures.

The cemetery next to the church has mostly recent tombstones --- most of the early tombstones from the 1800´s no longer exist in part because the forced removal of the German families after the war and the way burial plots are leased and re-leased to various families.

Leaving Ovesne Kladruby we moved on to Tepla which is about 10 km away. The reason for visiting Tepla is the Premonstratu Monastery which owned almost all the land in Ovesne Kladruby and town of Marianske Lazne. The original monastery was stared in the 12th century and in midevil times they were landowners on which the people of Ovesne Kladruby worked. Very few residents of Ovesne Kladruby actually owned the land on which the lived. The agreement was that you could work your allotted land 5 days a week and the other two days you worked for the benefit of the monastery. Hence, the monastery was in fact very wealthy due to its ownership of the land. Today, the monastery, like the church in Ovesne Kladruby, is in very bad shape and is undergoing a very slow renovation. During the Communist era until 1978 it was used to house Soviet troops. Then it sat empty until 1989 with the fall of Communism. It is a hugh facility with the 2nd largest library in the Czech Republic.

The day ended heading back to Prague in preparation for the flight on Tuesday to Luxembourg. There is no question that Marie Zahn made the trip an extremely interesting excursion by enabling us to talk with the local people, all of whom were most gracious. That, along with her very great historical knowledge of the country and the fact that she has lived in the Czech Republic all of her life, which included the Communist era and post-revolution after 1989.