Saturday, January 02, 2010

I Pity The Foolish King Arthur

We spent the New Year's Eve in scary cottage near the Austrian border and we visited a bizarre complex called Excalibur City.

Excalibur City is located exactly at the border of Austria and Czech Republic, the reason probably being that you can pay smaller taxes here, no duties or whatever.

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It looks like some demented hellish post-apocalyptic nighmarish version of Disneyland / U.S. mega mall. See my photos and more photos on their homepage.

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It's evident that whoever built this monstrosity had lots of money but zero taste. There is an airplane restaurant (boasting that Niki Lauda once visited it), imitation of Planet Hollywood globe (without any Planet Hollywood type restaurant nearby), medieval restaurant, lots of super discount shops and an Asian marketplace with Asian-styled wall around it. 10% of the shops are Duty Free type shops (as seen on airports), the remaining 90% are selling unbelievable crap (mostly Vietnamese knockoffs of Chinese knockoffs). There are also some "entertainment options" for kids and adults alike, most of which look very scary or don't work at all.

Amazing.

1 comment:

cubeek said...

Well you are right. This place was build in no man's land between two countries in pre EU era, so they did not have to pay taxes in CZ or AT. Most of the money made there was spent on Znojmo hockey team, which is another interesting story.
Although being local resident, I haven't been inside till last year, and yes, it is god damn awful. The new "freeport" part too.