Day 12---Karlovy Vary

The forecast was for sun but we only saw it for one hour. It was cold but at least no rain. We set out to visit the town of Karlovy Vary (www.karlovyvary.cz), west of Prague. Getting out of Prague the GPS told us to go straight but there was a fork in the road and I took the right fork which immediately went down into an underground garage for the shopping mall. It went on and on and I followed all the signs for exit and when I exited, we were on the right road to Karlovy Vary. It is about 70 miles away through nothing but farm land (a lot of hops are grown here). The town in the middle of nowhere is astonishing. It was started by the Czech king Charles IV in the 14th century and was the premier spa in Europe for many, many years, particularly in the 1800s and the beginning of the 20th century. It was visited by all European nobility. The buildings are amazing; a lot of gorgeous Art Nouveau architecture, which was run down during communist times, but is now restored to its former glory. There are hot springs yielding thermal water with curative powers all over the town. The place is mobbed with tourists (mostly seniors) and 90% of them are Russians. All the shop and restaurant signs are in Russian. People are walking around with special cups with built-in straws and fill them with water from various natural springs all over town. The springs are of varying mineral content and temperature --- from hot (78C) to cold (30C). We bought a spa cup too and tried water from several springs. It’s hard to call it tasty, but it’s drinkable.

On the way back, when we were on the outskirts of Prague, the GPS lady confused us again. She told us to take a sharp right, but it wasn’t there. We followed the road and ended up in a two-mile long tunnel. The GPS lady kept yelling “turn around when possible”, but it was not possible to do anything but keep going. When we emerged from the tunnel, to our shock we found ourselves in our neighborhood, about half a mile from our hotel.

We parked the car and since it was still light, we went to search for Villa Bertramka, a 17th century house, in which Mozart lived while composing Don Giovanni. It now houses a Mozart museum. According to the map it was supposed to be in our neighborhood. We found it easily and it was still open. It is a beautiful villa in a park. When you get through the gate, you would never know that you are in the middle of a city. We walked into the museum and since there was nobody at the entry desk, we walked through the whole place without anybody noticing (we could have left with one of Mozart's manuscripts) and got out.
Tonight we are packing for the trip back home tomorrow.

Day 11- Prague and No Rain

We woke up this morning and there was no rain for the first time in 10 days. It wasn’t exactly sunny, but at least it wasn’t raining. We decided to explore parts of Prague we haven’t seen. First, we walked up up our street to see if we could find the Novy Smichov mall without going through the metro. We did find it, but it seemed further away that way.
Then, we took the metro to Vysehrad, the oldest part of Prague where the first castle of the Czech kings was established in 972. There was nothing left from that time, but there are a bunch of historical buildings there, including a church and a cemetery from the 1870 where most of famous Czechs are buried, including composers Smetana and Dvorak.

From Vysehrad, we took the metro back to the center and walked for four or more hours exploring the city. We visited the magnificent Art Nouveau building of the Municipal House and the Bethlehem Chapel where Jan Hus started Czech Reformation in 1402-1412. We didn’t even sit down to have lunch. Al decided he was in the mood for a hot sausage with sauerkraut that was only sold on Vaclavske Namesti so we walked through half the city to have it. Then, we asked a police woman about a nice place to have coffee and pastry and she sent us to a fabulous pastry coffee shop called Cukrarna Mysak. It was originally established in 1902 and the interior was restored in that style. The pastries were superb and so was the coffee, not to mention the ambiance. An amazing place. Could be addictive.

Day 10 -- House Hunting Near Kutna Hora

We had two house viewing appointments today, one in a little village of Zisov and the other one in the village of Jakub near Kutna Hora.

It was raining on the way to Zisov and we arrived in the village in pouring rain, too. We found the house easily. It was in located on a little pond close to the middle of the village. It looked quite charming. We were suppose to meet the real estate agent in the house at 1 pm and we got there at 12:30 so we walked around it trying to inspect it from all sides. We saw a car parked next to the gate so we figured that the agent was already there. He and his girlfriend were indeed inside so we started the tour. The house was great --- completely renovated downstairs -- with a large eat-in kitchen, a nice living room with a big fireplace, a good-size bedroom, a semi-finished bathroom and lots of storage areas. The best, however, was the unfinished attic above the whole house and the garage and workshop located in the adjacent barn. The attic was huge and high and when finished, it would make fantastic living space which could easily hold a couple of additional bedrooms, a bathroom and a huge open living space. It was really exciting. The house by itself would have been perfect. It also had a very charming front garden overlooking the pond. There was a problem, though --- the lot, which ended right at the back edge of the house. What we originally thought was the house’s backyard was in fact somebody else’s orchard. There was another, much smaller piece of land that belonged to this house on the left side, but it was attached to another house. A very strange land arrangement. That killed it for us.

Then we drove to the village of Jakub, 4 km from Kutna Hora to see a house that I found on the internet months ago and asked Renatka to check out for me. She saw it and gave us positive reviews so it was time for us to see it with our own eyes. It turned out to be a very nice house with two separate apartments -- one downstairs and one upstairs, both completely and quite tastefully redone (with some exceptions). The outdoor area was the best part of the house, though, with three terraces with beautiful stone and brick work and a large field/garden on the highest terrace, which had lovely views of the area. The owners also turned out to be super friendly -- made us great espresso and latte and told us all about the best restaurants in the are as well as tourist attractions and walking and biking trails. We liked this house too, but the price is too high in our opinion and also the house is totally done so there is nothing more to do there --would be boring for Al. (We didn’t take any pictures of the Jakub house because we already have over 100 pictures taken by Renata.)

We took the owners’ recommendation and drove to the palace of Kacina ( http://www.aboutczechia.com/kacina ) , about 4 km from the house. The size of the place took us by surprise. In the middle of nowhere, there was this humongous building in the middle of an enormous park. It was raining again so we couldn’t walk too much. From there we drove another 4-5 km to Kutna Hora to have dinner in a restaurant they also recommended (Dacicky). We got back to Prague after dark. I promised both parties to call them back tomorrow and let them know what we thought about the properties…

Day 9 --- Another rainy Day in Prague

In the morning we took the metro to Mala Strana, the oldest part of Prague. It was raining/drizzling, which is the default it seems, but we still managed to cover a lot of grounds. The number of tourists and tour groups is amazing. After all, this is supposedly low season and the weather is certainly discouraging.
Nevertheless, in certain areas, such as the Charles Bridge or the Old Town market square, you can barely get through.

In the afternoon we went to visit Lada and her 4-year old daughter Verunka (Veronica). We had a lovely time with them.

On the way back from Lada’s we were wondering why the metro train going in our direction was so crowded, and most of the crowds got off at our stop (Andel). Our metro (subway station) is a 3 minute walk from our hotel along two deserted streets. We have returned from town twice and exited from the same way we entered the station to quiet streets. Tonight we followed the crowds and exited the station on a different escalator. To our great surprise, we came up into a place like Times Square -- crowds, shops, and a gigantic mall, at least as big as South Coast Plaza. It was the Novy Smichov shopping mall advertised all over Prague. We spent an hour in the mall and left the same way we entered but could not figure out where our hotel was. In order not to risk getting lost, we went down into the subway station, crossed the platform and exited it our familiar way into the familiar quiet street. .

Day 8 -- Prague

After a huge breakfast in the hotel, we set out for Prague. It was still drizzling, but no snow. It took us less than 30 minutes to get to Prague and find our hotel Angel (Andel). We checked in, got our keys and went to the room, which had a humongous bed and no space for much of anything else. We asked the friendly young receptionist if we could have a bigger room with a smaller bed. He looked in the computer, called the cleaning crew and produced a key to another room on the same floor. We checked it out --- it was about the same size, but the bed was smaller so there was more room to move around. We decided to take it. When I went to return the first key, the friendly receptionist told me that we were such nice guests that he wanted to offer us the best room in the house and so gave me yet another key. We checked out the third room and it was definitely the best --- bigger, nicer furniture, flat screen TV… So we moved our luggage again.

After a short rest and several phone calls to real estate agents, we decided to start exploring Prague even though it was still raining. We took the metro from the Andel station about 100 meters from the hotel -- 3 stops to Vaclavske Namesti. We walked around that area towards the Old Town. The Old Town square was full of tourists and stalls with food. Hot wine was a popular item because it was freezing cold and wet. We had to stop at a store and buy a hat for Al because his ears were freezing. We were again amazed at the number of concerts in the city. It looked like there was a concert in almost every church in the Old Town. We walked to the Charles Bridge, took a few pictures and then proceeded to our favorite restaurant U Medvidku for an early dinner. We knew that if we didn’t get there before 6 pm, the chances of getting a table would be slim to none. We got one of the last tables available and had good hearty Czech food, excellent beer (Al) and great Czech wine (Bo). This gave us enough energy to walk around some more.

Day 7 --- More SNOW

We got up and lookeed out the window and to our horror, everything was white and there was more white stuff coming down. We had breakfast in the downstairs restaurant and asked about road conditions. We were told that we should be able to get through to the nearby (9 km) town of Policka as long as we make the first two miles out of the village. We decided to try. First, Al had to dig the car out of the pile of snow that accumulated overnight and then we started driving. It was rough, but we made it to Policka so we decided to continue via Hlinsko towards Prague. A few miles out of Policka, the road started climbing and it became more and more snowy and icy with blizzard-like conditions. We decided to turn around and go back to Policka to find out if there was a better route out of Vysocina and if not, stay there overnight. We got there, parked the car and found a nice hotel restaurant with wifi. The waiter told us that our best bet would be a road to Litomysl, a little town about 20 miles away. Since we weren’t sure if it was a good idea to try it, we skyped Renata who after some investigation told us that the Litomysl road should be drivable.

We made it to Litomysl and continued towards Prague. It was still snowing, but nowhere near as much as in Vysocina so we felt good. We stopped for lunch in the town of Caslav and from there we had two options --- go to the nearby Kutna Hora (9 km) for the night or drive to a little village of Zisov, where there was a promising house we wanted to see. Because the weather was significantly better, we decided to go to Zisov. Big mistake! After a few miles, the snow storm started again and soon the roads got icy and snowy. We did get to Zisov, but couldn’t find the house and the blizzard was getting worse. Then we made another big mistake. Instead of heading for the main road to Prague, we or actually I (Bo) suggested going to a cute little town of Rataje nad Sazavou for the night. It is a lovely place in the summer, but not in a winter blizzard. The road there was awful and when we got there, there wasn’t even a hotel open so we decided to drive to the main highway towards Prague and look for a hotel closer to Prague. On the map it looked like it was only a few miles to the highway, but they were heart stopping miles on an icy, narrow mountain road with twists and turns and ups and downs. We weren’t sure if we would make it. Luckily we did, but even on the highway the driving conditions were very bad. We found a hotel a little bit outside of Prague and checked in for the night. The hotel is connected to an aqua park so you see lots of people in white robes walking up and down the halls. We didn’t pack our swim suits so no aqua park for us.

DAY 6 --- Snow in Vysocina

After breakfast, we left Renata’s for Olomouc with a stop-over at the Stramberk castle. When we arrived, we were surprised by light snow falling. We walked up the steep hill to the castle. It was freezing cold so we left and headed for Olomouc. GPS took us right to Kami’s apartment in the center of town. Kami spent senior year of high school with Bo in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield. She is now married and has a new ( 9 month old) beautiful daughter Anna. Kami and her husband Mikulas were in the middle of renovating their bathroom and doing some other work in the apartment, but we were still able to have a delicious lunch and play with Anna. Kami recommended their favorite Pension in the village of Kadov, in the middle of the region called Vysocina. It was about 1.5 hours away and we left at 4pm for our evening lodging there. Once out of Olomouc it started to snow. We thought that was quaint and took pictures of snow-covered trees. Unfortunately, soon it got blizzard strength icing the road. At 6 pm we turned off the main road up the mountain to our destination. The road got progressively worse with snow , ice and slush and strong winds blowing even more wet snow from the fields. Five minutes up the hill we got stuck. There was so much snow on the road we had no traction. (The car we rented has summer tires because snow in October just doesn’t happen!) These are narrow 1.5 lane roads. Fortunately we were able to slide down to a turn around and slowly made it down to lower elevation and a tiny village of Borovnice. We said we’d stop in the first hotel or b&b we can find, and around the first corner we saw a pension and a hospoda. We weren’t sure if it was open, but we were in luck. We had to wait because the bartender had to call the owner to come and fix a room for us, but after a glass of local Policka beer (brewery was established in 1517), we got to the room, which was surprisingly nice, spacious and warm and had a very nice brand new bathroom. The only thing that could make it better would be wifi, but one should not expect perfection.