The Czech Switzerland

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Do you remember in the blog on going to Dresden that I mentioned the beautiful mountainous country we passed through and I said, "Nancy and I have to learn more about this area. There must be some wonderful hiking in that area." Well ........ when we returned to IBTS we metioned the beauty we saw to several people. Each enouraged us to return and hike there. In fact PP said, "Take two days off. Go there and see the beauty." So, we did. But this trip will take several entries.

We left Prague on Tudsday, going by bus from Prague to Decin, and then by local bus from Decin to Hrensko. Hrensko was our base for hiking. The town is right on the German/Czech border. It is a town with two streets, shaped like a "T". The top of the "T" runs beside the Elbe River. The street that ends here goes through the town. There is just enough room for a street on both sides of a small stream that comes down out of the mounains. During the terrible flooding that took place in the Czech Republic in 2002, the water reached the windows of the second floor of the hotel we stayed in. The town has not totally recovered from that natural disaster. A number of buildings are still being put back into shape to reopen businesses.

This area, called the Czech Switzerland has not been discovered by Americans yet. Almost all the tourists, and there are a lot of them, are either Czech or German. Everyone in pension and the stores and restaurants spoke German as well as Czech, but almost no one spoke English. We found two or three people who spoke some English, but it was by far the exception and not the rule. [Nancy-as I said in another entry our waitress could say 'ham and eggs', the woman in the tourist info center could speak English rather nicely and a man who had ridden on the same bus as we did managed English well- Those were the 3 people in this busy town who had any English at all. It was rather pleasant to be in an out-of-the-way enough place that we didn't hear 'our' language more than we were hearing Czech and German. It is easy in the Czech Republic to feel there is no need to learn anything about the local language since so many people are totally bi or tri or quadra lingual.

On the way, as we approached Decin, we saw the ruins of a castle sitting high on a rocky hill above the Elbe River. I quickly snapped a picture which is not all that great, but will serve better than no picture at all. A very interesting bridge, interesting to Nancy and me anyway, crosses the Elbe within the town. We saw a huge bridge of this same type of design spanning the Yangtze River in China.

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Photos

The Pension Lugano
The Pension Lugano is a very nice, inexpensive place to stay in Hrensko. The breakfast was greas.

Breakfast
After a breakfast we were ready to hike all day ... and we did, from nine in the morning until six in the evening.

Hrensko
Looking down stream through the town.

Nancy and the Pension waitresses
The waitress on the left spoke to us in Czech.
I replied, "No Czech."
She replied, pointing to herself, "No English," and then broke out in a hearty laugh.

Comments

[Martin]

Be careful with the snaps!
Hi, let me make a ´small´ correction of the subtitles to the snaps of the castle and bridge: both of these objects can be found NOT in Děčín, but in another city, in Ústí nad Labem. BTW, I do realize that some 20 kilometers don´t mean a distance for the Americans, but anyway.....