Technotrasa: A Trail of the Industrial Beauty of North Moravia

STYLE Technotrasa: A Trail of the Industrial Beauty of North Moravia and Silesia Trace down the savage beauty of a region whose people have struggled to conquer its natural riches for centuries. Let yourself be amazed by the arts and crafts, the results of the hard work of our ancestors who once extracted and worked the natural resources with respect and modesty, or quite ruthlessly at other times. Come and see the timeless sights of a region whose ups and downs have been governed by humans and their activities, where you can actually see history come alive. Follow Technotrasa, a trail connecting unique locations and sights of the stunning technical and industrial heritage of North Moravia and Silesia. Embrace their special charm and unquestionable genius loci with all your senses. You can hear the real stories of industrialists, metallurgists, miners, textile producers, railwaymen, hatters, foresters, or millers told by their children and by witnesses of the past, but you can also enjoy that practical experience on your own. The Synagogue in Krnov (whose cast iron columns were donated by the Rothschilds, the owners of the ironworks in Vítkovice) will offer amazing stories of Jewish industrialists, Rabi singing, kosher food and wine, and you can also produce your own scroll of the Torah. The former Michal Mine (Důl Michal) in Ostrava gives the impression that the miners had never left, that they might join your group any moment: in the chain dressing room, in the lamp room, or in the snack canteen where you too get your snack. You will get a similar feeling on guided tours of the miners’ and metallurgists’ colonies: time has stopped there and so can you to enjoy the atmosphere. A real skip hoist (which used to transport iron ore and coke) will take you to the top of the blast furnace in the Lower Area of Vítkovice at a tour guided by former employees of the Blast Furnaces. A real ammunition hoist is found in the infantry blockhouse “On the Track”, where you feel like a soldier operating a cannon or a switchboard. In Nový Jičín, visitors discover the spell of hat production, and can see hundreds of hats on exhibition. The textile factory Hedva Český Brokát in Rýmařov runs spinning wheels and opens the production hall to visitors. Kosárna Karlovice demonstrates doing laundry with a washboard and making wicker baskets: experience country life routines of the pre-steam era. Steam will take you on a ride from Třemešná to Osoblaha on a narrow gauge railway of Silesian Provincial Railway, and a historic train of the Silesian Railway Alliance will take you round the coal tracks of the Black-Coal-Mining District of Ostrava and Karviná. You can also tour otherwise locked areas, lagoons and noisy machinery of the limestone quarry Kotouč in Štramberk by an offroad vehicle, and then dive your hands in dough and probably burn your fingers just a little when baking your own sweet Štramberk ear. At the Wesselsky water mill you are guided by the miller himself, and you can spin the sorter and may even try to drive a horse-drawn coach. At the mill of Bartošovice they will explain some amusing millers’ vocabulary, and you will see and hear all the machinery at work, and see fruit dried in the traditional method. You can make flour with a hand rotary grinder at the windmill in Nové Dvory. Důl Michal But still this list is far from telling you everything that the Technotrasa includes. Learn more about the sights and beauties of North Moravia and Silesia with all your senses! www.technotrasa.cz Text a foto: Moravian-Silesian Tourism, s.r.o. www.mstourism.cz Vodní mlýn Wesselsky POSITIV 3/2019 ǀ 93