Disclaimer#
This guide is for informational purposes only. The author does NOT encourage any illegal or dangerous activity. Always check local laws and regulations.
Introduction#
Welcome to the new type of blog posts! Don't worry, we won't stop making educational content, but we want to share our trips too!
Last weekend we went on a small one-day trip to visit three different locations, each with breathtaking views.
Viaduct#
First location was the viaduct. Viaduct is a long bridge to carry a road or railway over a valley. In this case, it was a railway viaduct over the valley with the river Jihlava.
Since it was a bit far from our city, we decided to extend this adventure as a full day trip - we geared up, bought some food and took off with a car.
About 40 minutes later, we parked near the first destination. The weather was nice and after a short hike up a hill, we set foot on the right track, the train track.
After a while of walking along the train track, we saw our final destination.
The first half of the viaduct was painted new and the front half was left rusted, as if it was an imaginary border where only more experienced explorers dare to go. But the reason why the viaduct is in this strange condition is quite different:
History#
The history of this bridge dates back to 1870, as it was the first all-iron bridge in Austria-Hungary.
Its operation was terminated in 1978 and from 1979 to 1987 it was taken care of by the Technical Museum in Brno, or at least it should have been. The bridge started to deteriorate and therefore returned to the administration of the railways.
For technical reasons, the bridge started to be demolished in 1991, but the Ministry of Culture declared it a cultural monument and the demolition was stopped. It was not until 1998 when it was removed as a cultural monument and handed over to the town of Ivancice.
The town wanted to preserve the rest of the bridge so they painted it new, which it did, but preserved only 32.5 m. This is about half of the current total length.
Cell tower#
The best thing about urbex is that you do the trip yourself - you don't have to follow any boring, sightseeing routine and the schedule is entirely in your hands. That's exactly what we did when we saw a cell tower sticking out of the trees in the mountains on the way to our next stop.
The road to it was very long and slow for us (it led through a cottage settlement - Google Maps fooled us a bit) but it was definitely worth it.
When we arrived at the place, it was enough to use magic and we found ourselves behind barbed wire.
Our friend tried to document the whole way up with a drone, but the wind was blowing really hard and the drone had a problem flying up.
Above was a beautiful view of the landscape and the viaduct. You can see it in our reel on instagram.
Aqueduct#
After arriving at the place, we refreshed ourselves with a few apricots from a tree here with a view of a big metal ball standing on a pole. It is called an aquaglobus.
Tower water tanks like this one (the Hungarian Aquaglobus type from 1966) are used to maintain pressure in the water supply network where there is no high enough hill for a ground water tank. This particular one is, for reasons still unknown to us, abandoned, as evidenced by its condition, missing equipment and inscriptions.
The way up was not as pleasant as it might have seemed - it was obstructed by bushes at the entrance and a rusty ladder hanging down only on a single wire.
Eventually, we somehow got into the interior, which was obviously not filled with water. We uncovered the top lid and sat on top of the sphere.
Sitting in the wind on top is probably not a pleasant idea for many people. But the view was really great again and one of us was so hungry that he tried to cook some soup on top as you can see in the video below.
Conclusion#
We hope you enjoyed this trip as much as we did!
Remember that it's not always possible to follow the plan and you can find interesting places on the way. Also, you don't have to take the whole squad and wait for everyone to have time, just take those who are available.
Most importantly, enjoy the trip and have fun!
