Austria to Czech Republic

Today was a driving day. The goal was to reach Chrudim, Czech Republic - home of the Marionette Museum. Of course, we did not make it that far.  We were on the highway,  but both of us were nearly falling asleep so I told Lonnie to drive the back roads.  I mean the last thing I want is for Lonnie to fall asleep behind the wheel on a road that everyone is doing over 100mph on.

We stopped for lunch at Znojmo, Czech Republic.  We were looking for some tall metal soldiers (possibly water towers), that we had seen before. We never found them, but we found a brand new mall that had a KFC for lunch.  Across the parking lot from the mall was another set of shops with different themes-Dragon Castle, Chinese, Dr. Doolittle's, and Kid Town. We drove around and took pictures, then headed on toward Chrudim.

We drove as far as Havlickuv Brod where we looked for a hotel. We saw a sign for Orange Wings Hotel. The sign looked good, so we followed it to the most bizarre hotel we have seen in our travels. First, let me say that we did not stay there. Now, back to the hotel. We could tell that we were in an industrial area, but that was not a concern because we have stayed in a couple of great hotels in industrial areas (and will do so on our last night here this trip). Somehow this time felt a little different.  And, then,  we saw the hotel. We were so shocked by the way it looked that we didn't even take pictures! The entire hotel was encased in super, heavy duty chain link fencing. It looked like a prison. You could see the doors to the rooms, with a 3' metal walkway,  all behind the fencing. There was even fencing covering the top of the building - like a huge fence box with a hotel inside it. Lonnie said he didn't think even Federal Prisons had any more security than the hotel. He said to clarify that the reason he knows about Federal Prison security is from going in there with the church to hold services there.  We did not see anyone in reception so we drove on. I took out my trusty phone, pulled up TripAdvisor on it and found a great little hotel in town. Afterwards I read some of the reviews about the prison hotel. They were hilarious to read,  and I was so thankful we didn't end up there.  Apparently there is no reception,  you just pay a machine and check yourself in. The rooms have no windows, but may have a small skylight.  One man posted three reasons to stay there: 1.p You just got out of prison after 20 years and you miss it; 2. You want to break up with your girlfriend,  so you offer to take her on a trip to Europe,  then stay there, guaranteeing she will dump you,  3. and I'm not telling the last one.

After checking into our good hotel, we walked into the city to eat,  wandered around a bit, then went back to the hotel to sleep.