On our way back from dinner one night in Horní Bečva we found a narrow little path down a steep hill that made for an amazing sledding run. The next night after a bit more snow, he headed out again for some aggressive night sledding.

After 3 days on the road we arrived in Horní Bečva, one of the funniest towns in the world if you say the name in English. I was really hoping for a big “Welcome to Horní Bečva” sign, but as there wasn’t one, we had to settle for taking pictures in front of all the businesses that named themselves after the town. Unfortunatly we seemed to be the only ones who found the name funny, when renting skies the rental guy didn’t seem phased at all by the fact that we said we were staying in Horny Bitchfu.

We spent our time in Horní Bečva eating our brains out, skiing, and sledding. Our first day skiing was shrouded in clouds. Very dense clouds. The picture here isn’t darkened, it was just that dark and cloudy. Made for some slow and interesting skiing. It also made for some snowy skiing. We got dumped on, more than a foot of snow in the few days we were there.

Road trips usually have good food along the way, and the road to Horní Bečva was no different. We ate out way through each stop, stuffing ourselves with local meats, pastries, and fried goodies. I put on a good 5 pounds on the trip, which makes sense since half of what we ate deserves to be on This is Why You’re Fat.

Some of the highlights were:

• Smažený sýr – fried cheese. I’m surprised that Americans haven’t come up with this. The meal consists of a giant lump of deep fried cheese and french fries. I’d roughly estimate that it’s 2000 calories of solid grease with starch on the side. It’s hard to get a sense of scale from the picture, but it’s a ton of cheese.
• Polish hot dogs – a hot dog in a crispy and chewy bun that’s basically a hot dog sleeping bag. You fill the sleeping bag with sauces before putting in the hot dog. The result is similar to a corn dog, but with sauce between the dog and dough.
• Grundle – ok, so the food is quite different than the link I provided would imply. It’s actually little fish. Fried up and well spiced they go very well with beer. They look like this.
• Winter jelly – it’s lard. Plain and simple lard. Just spread over bread, eaten as an appetizer or with beer. I can’t say I recommend it.