Vino Vino Vino!

It's the most wonderful time of the year, if you live in Pardubice and you are a big lush; yes, the last weekend in August is the Pardubicky Festival Vina (The Pardubice Wine Festival). This annual event starts Friday afternoon and runs until Saturday afternoon, with a short pause for sleep. The Old Square is packed with local wine growers and vendors selling their best bottles and hosting tastings. There is a band stand, and a separate special tasting that runs until 6pm inside the Chateau. I was told that in years past even the fountains were filled with wine!(I understand this was stopped because Czech just drank "the decorative fountain", rather than spending money at the festival proper).

My company is a sponsor so employees receive free entrance and tasting tokens. I meet up with a colleague and her friend at the entrance, and we went on a hunt for our companies VIP party, we saw everyone up on the second floor balcony, but couldn’t figure out how to get there. We tried many doors, until finally another colleague came and got us. (It was not obvious, and we were sober at that point). We had some food and a couple drinks with our colleagues, but they were all drinking dry white wine- yuck. We decided to set out to find the award winning wines, and taste the most expensive wines we could find. We meandered among the French, Slovenia to Austria rooms and on to the Chilean wines; drinking and sampling all the way. Stopping briefly to buy some delicious cheese to clense the pallete, and down stairs to try New Zealand wine, all in an hour’s time! I spent every token! We actually hide behind one of the booths with some friends we had meet at one of the Chilean booth, as it was passed last call, we squatted behind the booth, and sample a few more bottles, until security tracked us down and shuffled us toward the square.

On the way we got to chatting with various festival goers, a conversation exchange that occurred with much ease as everyone was sloshed. We all made empty promises to each other and declared that we would see each other in the square; promises immediately forgotten along with names, the moment we went our separate ways. My colleagues and I needed to make a stop at the other work party where we heard there was a lot of good food. The way it worked out we ended up spending the rest of the night there and never even made it to the main square festivities. I understand the party continued after I called it quits at midnight. Apparently many others ended up at a dance club until the wee hours of the morning. I, however, woke up feeling remarkably okay, and even went jogging this morning. I was the only person in Pardubice that felt that way I presume, based on the fact that I was the sole runner on the normally high traffic trail.

If you plan to visit Pardubice, I highly reccomend planning your trip around the last weekend in August.