Storming the castles! A long entry about a short vacation

We took a lovely driving trip out of Prague last week. It was so nice to get out of the city and see the countryside and small towns. I love driving in Bohemia. To be precise, I love being a passenger in Bohemia. David is a wonderful driver in Europe. I do pull my own weight, though, by being a bang-up navigator.

The Bohemian countryside is so CUTE! The small roads are lined with trees on both sides - often cherry, apple, or apricot. The fields are small and varied so the colors change constantly. We saw fields of various grains, corn, some sort of purple flower, and fields and fields of white poppies. The Czechs love their poppy seeds. The rolling fields are interspersed with forests and tiny red-roofed villages.

We have figured out that the girls love visiting castles, but not going on the tours of castles. So we stopped at as many castles as we could for a quick peek around. On our first day we stopped at Zamec Orlik for a picnic lunch under the trees and a crawl around the castle foundations. Then we went to Hrad Zvikov. Zvikov might be my second favorite castle now (after Burg Eltz in Germany). It is semi-ruined, you don't have to take a tour so you can just wander around at will, and they have a hall and chapel decorated with 15th century frescoes! We climbed towers, wandered through the halls, ate ice cream, found the 'dungeons' (or cellars) and took lots of pictures for David's lectures. We also did some little videos of David explaining the different areas of a castle. Those will be fun for him to use in his classes.

We spent two nights in Cesky Krumlov, the jewel of southern Bohemia. We stayed in our favorite little head-bonker inn, Na Louzi. We had a great room - 2 beds in the main room with bathroom, and then a ladder-like stairway up to the attic with 2 kids' beds. The problem was that Claire is afraid of heights and didn't want to go up the stairs and Eleanor was worried about tripping when going to the bathroom at night, so David and I ended up sleeping in the kids' beds the first night. They were ALMOST as long as a twin bed. We also realized that we've never stayed in the hotel during the summer, when it is hot and you have to have the windows open. The girls slept fine, but David and I were repeatedly awoken by LOUD people wandering the streets.

But with a little extra caffeine we still enjoyed Cesky Krumlov. It has changed a lot in the 10 years since I was last there - it is almost a Czech Rothenburg now. Most of the medieval buildings have been fixed up, or at least given a new coat of paint. Almost all the shops are tourist oriented now with prices as bad as in Prague. But it is still wonderful to wander the little windy streets and gaze up at the fanciful pastel castle.

We toured the Eggenberg brewery for the first time. The brewery has just recently upgraded its equipment, changing from an almost-decent craft brew to a much more drinkable mass-produced beer. It was fun to see the old tanks and vats, but the girls got a little bored. They liked seeing the bottling line in action, though. They were bottling lemon soda when we visited and we got to taste 'fresh' pop from unlabeled bottles. Too bad it wasn't 'fresh' beer, though. The tour was in Czech and German and I was reminded that my German is SO much better than my Czech......

The girls loved the castle in Cesky Krumlov. The great attraction was the bears in the moat. The girls had been looking forward to the bears for our whole stay in Prague, and Maria Teresa, Vok, and Katerina did not disappoint. Eleanor loved the tour of the castle too, enjoying the renaissance rooms and figuring out the history of the Rozemberk, Sternberk, and Lichtenstein families. Claire mostly enjoyed finding the Rozemberk rose symbol everywhere and seeing all the bear rugs made from past inhabitants of the moat.

We ate dinner in our hotel one night, where the girls indulged their love of klobasa (Eleanor) and fried cheese (Claire). The second night we ate outside at a fish restaurant on the banks of the Vltava with the castle looming over us - quite possibly the best location, ever, in the whole world. And the girls begged for salmon when they saw it on the menu - that makes parents feel like they are doing something right!

After Cesky Krumlov we headed to the wine-country of Moravia. New territory for us, and full of people on bike holiday. We stopped at the ruined castle of Landstejn and had fun exploring the ruined rooms and up the tower for a view all the way to Austria (about 6 k away...).

We stayed two nights in the little wine village of Pavlov. Pavlov is on the banks of a big lake the Communists made by damming a river. I always think those kinds of lakes are sort of creepy - they just don't look quite right. The things to do in Pavlov are climb to the ruined Hrad Divci (Girls' Castle) and eat in the wine cellar restaurants, both of which we did. The hike to the castle was uphill through a lovely beech forest. The castle was totally ruined so we (and the other Czech hikers) could climb over all the walls, arches, and vaults and could scare David by getting too close to the edge to see the great views. The wine cellar restaurants were in old brick barrel-vaulted cellars built into the hillsides. Sort of dank and musty, but a fun place to eat hearty Moravian food and drink decent Moravian wine. (They should really stick to beer production and leave wine to the experts, but it was fun to sample the local grape.) Saturday was the happening night in Pavlov with live music at the restaurant - a middle-aged guy with a keyboard. We just had to laugh when he sang "Country Roads" in Czech. We never heard him sing "West Virginia", so maybe he just used the tune.....

Our last outing in Moravia was to Zamec Lednice. Rick Steves calls it Moravia's answer to Windsor castle. The palace was lovely to look at - it looked like it was made out of sugar icing (where it was repainted and repaired.) We didn't bother to take a tour as the main attraction was the huge garden complete with follies. We happened upon a birds of prey show - they had about 30 birds of prey on display on little stands, including a bald eagle, and they put some of the birds through their paces and showed them hunting, catching bits of meat, etc. Eleanor was entranced. Claire enjoyed looking for pebbles under the benches. After the show we had the highlight of the day - a horse and carriage ride to the minaret. Eleanor LOVES horses, and therefore Claire LOVES horses because she likes everything Eleanor likes. So we had a half hour ride in a wagon behind a pair of horses and the girls were thrilled.

The minaret is a folly that was designed by Joseph Hardmuth. He is important because he figured out how to mix lead with mud and cover it with wood to make the pencil as we know it. He started the Koh-i-noor pencil company which still makes pencils. We weren't going to climb the minaret as it was late and we had a long walk back to the palace, but Claire really wanted to so I took her 306 steps to the top. It was worth it for the great views - we could see the ruined Girls Castle - and for being able to wave at David and Eleanor WAY down at the bottom....

We learned a couple of lessons on the drive back to Prague. The first was if you say "Oh, we might as well stop at one more castle - it's on the way", you probably shouldn't stop at the castle. You should probably just go home. The second lesson was that cutting cross-country too close to Prague isn't really cutting cross country. It is cutting through too many feeder towns with too much traffic. The third lesson was that if you miss the entrance to the tunnel to Dejvicka, you can't turn around and get back to it and you have to take an hour detour out by the airport. But the girls didn't notice the delays because they were happily listening to kids' music on the ipod (which provided hours of ideal car entertainment. The kids were amused and they looked out the window at what we were passing by - something they don't do with the video machine!).

We also learned a few things about traveling with the girls. First was that 4 nights away from home is just about right (unless we're visiting relatives - then we can stay forever!). The girls are also interested in different things than we are. Just stopping at a cute town square isn't that fun for them, unless the town square has a tower to climb or ice cream to buy. Touring castles is way down on the list now unless it is a VERY special castle, but wandering through castle grounds is much more attractive, especially if there are horses involved in some way.

So now we've had a week of 'real' life before more guests come. After they leave it is just a week or so until we go to Italy, then a few days before we go back to the States! David's not ready to go - he still wants to get more work done. But after climbing a few more towers in Prague the girls and I will have done everything we want to do on this trip and we'll be ready to go home. To our real home in Cincinnati!

(p.s. - you can find links to the pictures from this trip in the bar on the right.)


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