Our departure from Slovakia was bittersweet: bitter because we were sad to leave the beauty of the people and the places we visited, and sweet because we already knew the Czech people would embrace us with open arms.
After stopping for lunch in Zilina, Slovakia, we continued on to another “Z”:
Zlín, Czech Republic.
This unique city provided fascinating places for us to visit and explore.
Located in southeastern Moravia, Zlín is a busy city of about 100,000 people and was established in the early 1300s. Yet, for all the history, the city is famed for one of its more “recent” inhabitants: Tomáš Baťa.
Baťa opened a shoe factory in 1894, and the history of Zlín – as well as fashion-forward footwear – were forever changed. The city grew rapidly under the ingenuity, hard work, and visionary thinking of Tomáš Baťa, as he worked toward creating of the world's largest shoe empire by the mid-20th century.
Beginning with the Tomáš Baťa Villa, which now houses the Bata Foundation and the headquarters of Czech Junior Achievement, we were amazed at the genius of a man who had just 3 years of formal education. Employee benefits included low cost housing, healthcare, maternity leave, schooling for their children, recreation centers, gardens and green space, and profit-sharing. To make this happen, Tomáš Baťa built the institutions needed for these benefits and thus Zlín is "the city Baťa built."Of course, there is much much more to say about our time in Zlín, but for now we’ll just stick with this pair of shoes for this part of the story. We may have bought a pair or two...
