Znojmo Surprises Us

As soon as we knew that we were leaving Warsaw early, we started planning trips for our last year in Europe. For this summer, we debated another hiking vacation in the U.K., as well as a trip to Sweden. Because, in August it makes sense to go north, right?

Guess what? We’re back in Italy. In late summer. Because we love it so. And, despite the heat, we have no regrets! (Anyway, there’s gelato everywhere here, you know…)

Our Epic Italian Road Trip consists of a loop through the Czech Republic, Austria, four cities in northern Italy, and then back up to Warsaw. Our first stop, halfway to Bolzano, was Znojmo, on the Czech/Austrian border. It was a nice surprise!

We’ve driven past Znojmo several times on other road trips. The Znojmo you see from the freeway is a massive outlet mall and truck stop. It’s a hot mess!

A spectacular duty-free mall on the Czech side of the border. (This was a shoot-on-sight no man's land in Communist times.) Giant dragons, dinosaurs, wizards, Vikings, hookers, and a restaurant inside a full-sized parked airplane. Awesome, in its way. — A spectacular duty-free mall on the Czech side of the border. (This was a shoot-on-sight no man’s land in Communist times.) Giant dragons, dinosaurs, wizards, Vikings, hookers, and a restaurant inside a full-sized parked airplane. Awesome, in its way.

So, while we assumed the town itself would not be populated with fiberglass dragons, we weren’t expecting it to be so darn nice. In fact, Znojmo is a lovely Moravian river town, with Austro-Hungarian architecture and vineyards sloping down to the river Dyje (Thaya in German).