Hiking in the Hills .... Adrsprach Teplice Rocks

In the country - decided to mix it up and have some nature days rather than just focus on medieval cities. So headed from Prague northeast about 3 hours to a place called Adrspach Teplices Rock National Preservation area. I had come across in my voluminous reading = sounded interesting, with a bunch of sandstone rock formations and hiking trails snaking through them. Here is a pic from the little 2 car train that I took after a bus ride from Prague to give you a feel for the Czech countryside. It was a nice busride up = a few images to leave with you.... people gardening in their swimsuits (its been hot), a river running rust (must be volcanic soil like Kauia), a dozen people test driving shiny new red rider-mowers (that was a bit odd on a Friday afternoon !).

Here's a shot of the train that I rode = it rattles its way through town about 10 times a day. Also a pic of two cute kids on the train = the girl on the right was reading out loud to herself the whole trip. You can see how pretty the countryside it behind them. APOLOGIES for any weird letters - these Czech keyboards have letters moved around so sometimes I just plain don' t realize I picked the wrong key. What, me proofread?































Ah = scored some Goldens. This is the first evening I landed in town and ran into not one but TWO Goldens. You can see I just dropped all my stuff to love them up. Despite accusations that I qualify only as a dog aunt since what kind of dog mother would leave her baby for 4 months (you know who you are !!!) , I really miss my little man Atty , especially for morning cuddling in bed. Caroline, please give him an extra smooch today, okay?

I came without a hotel reservation but was able to do a walkup room at Hotel Skaly (Rock). For only 220 kc, which is about 11 US dollars (can't figure out how to get the dollar sign to work on this keyboard = arghhhhh). And now I know why..... its clean enough, just enough, and a small very spartan room. But the weird thing is even though there is a bar and restaurant on the first floor, they were closed last night, Saturday night. And so when I got back from dinner at 9:30 = the whole dang building was locked up. I think that there was one other guest there and we are locking and unlocking the front door like it was all ours. Bizarre. But the price was 1/6 what I paid in Prague so I am a happy camper.

Did a very long hike yesterday through the park. Its amazing - I will let the pictures speak for themselves for the most part. It was raining just as I was going in so some pics have a gray sky - things cleared up later in the day. That rain gave me a chance to sit under an umbrella and have a few cups of coffee = its really hard to score an American type of coffee here - they tend to be Turkish style like espresso or like cappacino.



George liked the view from the "Castle" - you had to hike up 300 stairs (the Czechs always tell you how many stairs there are ) to a place that had a real building on it 700 years ago. The pic on the right shows the rocks that I dubbed "Flapjacks".





Stopped for lunch halfway through the day. I'm getting more confident and comfortable navigating - so was able to go to a small grocer in the village and mimed my way to a salami and cheese sandwich. I had to laugh - the name of the salami was something like "tourista" and I am guessing because its the one that looks the safest and most recognizable to tourists. Nice view for lunch, eh? Until the lousy loud Germans came - I swear if its a group yelling at each other - either on a peaceful trail or in the Jewish cemetary - its either Germans or Italians.



Lots of climbers in the park especially as the weather went from rain to sun throughout the afternoon. Mark, I could so see you scoping out climbs here.

The pic below shows some of the MANY stairs and ladders that you have to crawl on to get between the two major areas of the parks. Most people come in light gym shoes or sandals and push baby strollers . If you want to traverse from one section of rocks (Teplice) to Adrsprach you have to cross through the Wolf's Valley = mostly flat but with some white knuckle steps and bridges and ladders and stairs = many with gnarly nails sticking up and missing boards. No Pain, no gain, or in this case, no stairs, no stunning views on the other side. Not many hikers here. This SO would not fly in a US park !!

The sideways pic (sorry, can't figure out how to rotate since the PCs don't have English PC descriptions) is of an area called Siberia since its a long narrow canyon that is cold all the time. Beautiful !!








The last picture below was at a point that I suspected I was lost = but wasn't. So I took a picture of the blue arrow since that was supposed to give me the confidence to know I was on the right trail. I had run into a group of Czech hikers and they were all turned around and didn't think they were on the part of the map that I kept pointing to. Hope that they made it out alive.

Making this an easy day = catching up on email and the blog , lunch and maybe a much shorter hike later today. Its light till 9 here so lots of time. I met a guy from the UK (Kevin) here who has just started a 6 month motorcycle tour of eastern europe, including all those places I am too intimidated to go to like Bulgaria and Macedonia. As far as we can tell, we are the only native English speakers here = so we have glommed on to each other and will have dinner later - mostly to jabber away in English. I suspect (do confirm) that my written English is deteriorating since I don't proofread much and I am not speaking English that much. Funny.

I've decided to skip the spa town in the CZ, Karlovy Vary, since it seems too touristy, albeit German and Russian tourists. Will head to Vienna tomorrow, Monday, May 28 and hope I can get a room !! After that, on to Budapest, with a potential stop in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Its supposedly a town caught between the old Communist ways and the new modern Western ways... its smack dab between the Vienna and Budapest so might drop by.