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lidice’s midnight fog and all that jazz

@Aria Bennett3/6/2026blog
lidice’s midnight fog and all that jazz

i didn’t set out to write a poem about a broken toaster but here we are. lidice woke me up at 2:17 a.m. with the sound of someone trying to start a lawnmower in a shed. i opened my window wide enough to fit a roll of duct tape through and immediately regretted it. the wind said hello to my face at 9.06°c, which is fine if you’re a plant but not so much if you’re me. i just checked and it’s that damp business, 10.27 celsius, hope you’re into hiking in the fog. or not. i’m not judging.


there’s this place called café 1924 where locals swear the espresso is served in a wine barrel. sounds crazy, right? i’d believe it if i weren’t also 99% sure they run out of coffee beans every other day. someone told me that last week at a hostel bar. another someone claimed the nearby forest is haunted by a man in a suit who asks for directions to somewhere you don’t care about. either way, it’s the kind of town where everyone knows everyone’s business. if you get bored, lindan is just a tenner walk and you’ll find ghosts there. i didn’t stick around to confirm if this is a thing or a local libel.

i walked through the town square and bumped into a guy selling used vinyl. he had a poster for a defunct punk band printed on what looked like a cereal box. i asked why he hadn’t recycled it. he said, ‘it’s art now,’ and proceeded to play a crackling 45rpm. i left with a new favorite descriptor: ‘geeky existential.’ the square itself is tiny but full of character. i saw a kid on a skateboard do a manual over a puddle and a woman in a dog costume arguing with a lamppost about property rights. maybe they were both wrong. who knows?

‘if you can’t find the joy in lidice, you’re not looking hard enough,’ someone yelled through a megaphone during a festival last year. i don’t remember what festival. maybe it was a funeral? maybe it was a flatulency awareness march? HEADPHONES, PEOPLE, HEADPHONES.

‘don’t touch the statues,’ a tourist warned me while pointing at a group of bronze figures in the park. i touched one anyway. it was cold. also, the guy looked angry. i’ll never know the truth because he walked away before i could ask if this counts as vandalism.


i ended up at that clock tower everyone talks about. 6.6197 longitude, 51.4592 latitude-yes, i memorized it because i’m a mess. the tower had a light on, like it was trying to tell me something. i pressed my ear to it and heard a whisper in french. turned out it was just wind. or maybe the tower was pranking me. either way, it’s a spot worth chasing. here’s a photo of it at night:

a clock tower lit up at night with the moon in the background


and here’s a tomboy swinging in a tree somewhere:

a tall tower with a light on top of it

‘lidice’s weather is a mood,’ a local told me while handing me a free pastry. they also told me not to trust the döner place. turns out, the meat is 73% humidity and 27% existential dread. sound about right?


i didn’t sleep again. instead, I wandered to this yarn shop where the owner was knitting a sweater for a seal. it was dark. very dark. i asked if seals actually exist in this part of europe. she nodded, smiled, and offered me a skein of wool. i took it. i don’t know why. maybe i needed something soft. or maybe i wanted to pretend i was in a Rolex commercial. either way, the texture is now in my apartment. it feels like a metaphor.

‘don’t let the weather win,’ someone yelled outside a window. i thought it was a dog at first. turned out to be a teenager trying to get us to leave. i stayed anyway. we ended up sharing a sandwich. i think. maybe i imagined that part.


reviews? i heard that the local band did a secret gig at the bus station. i also heard that the bus station is actually a bomb shelter. some people say it’s both. i tried to verify but the only source was a drunk guy at a gas station. he kept muttering in code. maybe it was a cult. maybe not. who knows?

‘the best part of lidice is the smell,’ a review claimed on a dusty message board. it smelled like wet concrete and nostalgia. i disagreed. i think it smelled like someone forgot to clean their boots before buying a pretzel.


i left lidice with a sock full of moss, a packet of questionable yarn, and a stomach full of secondhand regret. neighbors? if you’re still here, waves from kranj are just a short drive away. 1276257182 was the last number i texted before leaving. don’t ask what it means. it probably doesn’t.

links:
- tripadvisor: lidice ratings
- yelp: café 1924 reviews
- reddit lidice travel thread
- unsplash: more clock towers

tags: ['travel', 'lidice', 'human', 'vibe', 'messy']

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About the author: Aria Bennett

Believer in lifelong learning (and unlearning).

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