Today was the day to visit Auschwitz - one of those days that are not enjoyable, but essential to do when travelling - when we come into contact with the physical reality of an historical event, we can get a glimpse of the human reality - and come out the end of it different people. We have learned about the holocaust at school, through films and movies, but it was always a bit theoretical - over there. Seeing the physical buildings, standing in the gas chamber, seeing the sheer physical size of Birkenau, trying to comprehend the numbers, seeing the two [View Full Entry]

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Rostov - well woke up this am in a lovely camping ground and then went to see the Wallachian Folk Museum. This is a village made up of original and reconstructions of old country houses—it’s amazing what tiny spaces these large families lived in. The stoves are huge—capturing every bit of heat it can produce. Several ovens and the chimneys run inside the rooms and tunnels take the heat to another room. The beds are little and packed with voluminous duvets and huge pillows, and even in the most posh houses they always share the living rooms with no separation of [View Full Entry]

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Now for a total change we have gone to a rock city - Adrspach-Teplice Rocks. This is near the northern border of the Czech Republic with Poland. Sandstone has been eroded leaving valleys bounded by towers of sandstone. There are a number of walking trails - with lots of people on them. At first it looked pretty tame and then the towers got higher and the valley narrower, until we were walking along a stream bed and able to touch the valley walls on both sides with the towers going up 50+metres. The temperature dropped a lot as well. It is [View Full Entry]

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Lots of driving with a stop at a hyper market—think of the Auckland malls then double it, Ken made me rush though, so only got groceries. (I did offer to sit in the van and read while Alison shopped) Then we went to the Sedlec Ossuary—a chapel and a cemetery have been there for many 100s of years, and many were buried there. Then there was the plague and the 30 year war and many more were buried. Then the bishop went and scattered some earth from the holy land on the cemetery and this made it super popular for interment. [View Full Entry]

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Karlstejn castle—they say this castle looks like it is from Disneyland, and it does. Turrets and walls and ramparts, high above a village. We had to walk up to the castle first thing in the morning and it was very interesting a beautiful. Bought a picture from an art gallery and proprietor clicked his heels and bowed at us—the Czech manners make you feel very ladylike. We then rushed back to Prague, and did some more sightseeing and finally went to the concert in the golden church. We went to see the Hussite chapel—they were very early Protestants even before Luther [View Full Entry]

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We had discovered that the water pump that supplies the sink and toilet etc was leaking - after finding a pool of water spreading across the floor on a couple of occasions. We had tried to get around it by only switching it on whenever we needed to pump water but this was a nuisance and we would forget to turn it off again. So we decided to try to get it fixed. Making a phone call to someone who was going to answer in a foreign language was a daunting prospect and we put it off for a bit - [View Full Entry]

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The plan was to have a leisurely lunch in the beautiful gardens at Prague Castle. The day started off fine and then was a bit cloudy. We sat down surrounded by the lovely flowers and smells of the lilac trees, and started to eat. And of course it bucketed down - lightning directly over head and thunder. We retreated to the balcony of the summer palace and watched and waited. St Nicholas church in Male Strana (the lesser town) was a must not miss according to Lonely Planet. It’s a Baroque Church - boy had they gone over the top with [View Full Entry]

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Music—music around every corner in Prague. A wonderful rustic band on the bridge-the violin had a brass thing attached like a tuba, which I think was just a megaphone to make him sound louder. They were playing jazz and folk songs. Then a bit further on we heard a faint trumpet, and looked over, a lone trumpeter was just playing all by himself on the river bank—probably practicing. Then we were nabbed by a person in the street who was advertising a concert—there were literally about 10 concerts that day being advertised in various places—all the lovely palaces and churc [View Full Entry]

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There are a number of castles and other sites around the area, so we took off early to avoid the crowds. First stop Trosky castle. There has been some volcanic activity in the distant past. The surrounding sandstone had eroded away leaving two spikes of basalt sitting high above the surrounding countryside. A good defensive position so a tower was built on each spike and living quarters on the section of ridge between. The castle was never defeated. We decided we could navigate a short distance to our next destination without using the computer - just the map in the Lonely [View Full Entry]

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Harrachov today - usual problems with parking - there was no parks! Nearest official parking was 3km from where we wanted to be, so we parked on a dirt patch just before the town. The glass works was in full swing making wine goblets today. They have a large furnace with several openings to get the glass, and 4 teams of workers. Each glass is hand made, but it is a production line. Two glass blowers make the bowl of the glass - blowing it into a wooden mould. This then gets passed to another worker, who fashions the stem, and [View Full Entry]

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