Mnichovo Hradiště

We spent a week at Liba's (Franny's mom) home in Mnichovo Hradiště. According to wikipedia this is

"a town in the Central Bohemian Region in the Czech Republic. Its population is 8,500.
The town was first mentioned in 1279 and contains a Renaissance castle which used to belong to the Wallenstein family. The remains of Albrecht von Wallenstein were moved from Jičín to the castle of Mnichovo Hradiště in 1723."

We were joined by a family, the Edwards', who are friends of Stan and Franny. They too have 6 kids so it was crammed but fun. Luckily the house has a huge garden!

Raph is going to tell about his week's experience:

"When I got there I thought 'this is definitely definitely not as fun as the mill' but it turned out I was completely wrong. The garden was huge and very good for playing 123 block in, a game which we loved to play.

Then we went into town for the first time. It was not the same as Cape Town or any SA city cos of its old buildings and colourful houses. The shops were completely random. They threw in CDs, a bunch of books, and clothing and that was one of their stores. But it was fun to browse and look around. Then we met up with the Edwards family. And then things started to get really fun. So by the time we had finished our stay there I didn't think what I had first thought any more.

There was a big manor house with a clock that struck every hour - very handy for knowing the time. We walked there and it was massive and full of old statues cos I looked through a crack in a door and instead of a hall with seats there was a stage and all these massive statues of animals and people riding them and things like that.

When we left there, Joseph, Daniel and I (the 3 oldest boys) caught a bus without any adults to the metro station. Then we continued on on the underground metro and caught another bus through to Prague. But the metro went really fast! We looked out and all we could see was pipes whizzing by every second.

The place at Prague (Liba's flat) was a bit weird cos when we went into the street everything seemed deserted. (It was in a residential part of Prague, Praha 6). Mom stayed in Prague but I went back to the mill. We're going to Prague again before we leave so I will get to see the proper Prague.

So far I have REALLY enjoyed my stay at the mill and outside of the mill.

Heading off to A Place Near Prague

No idea what it's called... where there won't be internet so will play catchup here once we're back online.

Prague itself, plus the church with the bones, will be visited at some point this week (all being well) so there will be plenty to tell and show next week.

Till then...

Cesky Krumlov

Today was a quiet one at the mill after 2 days ooot and abooot.

Yesterday we visited Cesky Krumlov, which Wikipedia tells us (she said, lazily) "a small city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, best known for the fine architecture and art of the historic old town and Český Krumlov Castle. Old Český Krumlov is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was given this status along with the historic Prague castle district."

I call it a very picturesque and fascinating medieval town crammed with gorgeous original buildings lining winding cobbled streets, loads of shops full of lekker tourist items, books, art supplies and of course marionettes, and a place where I lost Raph for the longest 20 minutes ever. But he wasn't lost, I just thought he was. However it was still scary running through confusing alleys and into every shop looking for that one familiar face in a crowd of non-English speaking weekenders. Big up to Stan & Franny for remaining calm and helping me search...

We enjoyed lunch together and made quite a dent in our 'gift buying' list.

Afterwards we went to collect Emma and Jan from the summer camp they'd been at and watched a play (in Czech, 3 scenes from a CS Lewis book) and ate some roasted pig.

A great day all together :-)

This morning was hot hot hot then we had a wonderful, long thunderstorm with warm rain (i love that) I sat in the garden in the rain watching the chickens.

One of which I later watched being cut open and cooked for broth.

Uhuh. True story.

Aaah country life :-)

:-)

Pilzen, Home of Pilsner :-D

Today we caught a train to Pilzen, where the Pilsner factory holds a prime position. The historic centre of the city has some incredible buildings including a massive synagogue and a large black cathedral that dominates the town square.

After spending time in this part of town we went to the Pilsner factory for a long but mostly interesting tour (in English by an old, very proper gentleman who seemed pretty strict in his suit complete with Pilsner tie, but turned out to be quite sweet.) Parts of the factory were boiling hot but it ended in these long underground tunnels (9 km of them!) where the temperature is kept at 6 deg. C - very cold! The reward of the 90 minute tour was a cup of the amber nectar served straight from the huge barrel.

We then enjoyed sausage with mustard and very strong horseradish and more Pilsner (not for the kids :)) in the courtyard of the factory and made our way back to the train station.

Another 24 hours in paradise...

Highlights of the past 24 hours include a Czech style braai / BBQ which consists of a sitting around a fire in the garden and 'roasting' fat juicy sausages on long thin pointed sticks. These were devoured with Czech mustard, raw garlic (!) blue cheese and cucumbers on bread. Pungent but delicious when enjoyed with a glass or 3 of red wine around the fire.

Today after an early start (Raph and I doing some schoolwork before the others woke up) we had a chilled day at the mill, sitting around in the sun reading, swimming, walking into the village (I took the baby, Gabriel, for his sleep-walk in the pram). There was a sad lost hour spent hunting for my retainer believe it or not but at least Franny found it so catastrophe & trip to the local dentist were avoided.

I played 1-2-3 block myself with Raph and Daniel, reliving my childhood by teaching them the "1 potato 2 potato" method of deciding who was on.

Lunch, made by 'Baba' (Franny's gran) was a traditional dish of ravioli-type pastries made from potato flour and stuffed with a think jam, deepfried and served sprinkled with toasted crumbs. Raph wasn't all that mad about it but I enjoyed it.

Raph, Daniel, Franny and I just came back from a beautiful walk to the 'source' - where the family gets their drinking water - ice cold fresh water gushing from the ground via a handy pipe. Delicious and ice cold.

I saw that woman yesterday.

You know the one - she's old, plump, a little bent over and wearing a red and white checked apron and is always photographed outside cottages with a windowbox of red flowers behind her. You can see her in most photography books of old European towns and sure enough I saw her as we drove from Prague airport yesterday through the enchanting countryside of Bohemia.

In fact the little villages the narrow road wound through with their old, rustic houses looked like they belonged on the set of some movie. But this is a real place, a beautiful, unrealistically charming, yet authentic place that exists like something frozen in time.

The mill where we are staying is just the same - tumbledown, rustic, looks like it was made to appear as it is but it's genuine, not a reasonable facsimile of something from a bygone era.



These are just a few images from where we are staying thanks to Franny's dad and grandmother's hospitality.


ps sadly I didn't get a photo of the red checked apron woman as we drove by too fast.

Catch up time - the flight over ...

So we've been here at the Mill for 24 hours & it's time to catch up on our flight over here. It was as all flights should be - half empty, new & comfortable plane, good inflight entertainment, minimal bumps along the way & even a decent supper (we'll not talk about the breakfast tho). The flight from Frankfurt to Prague was dull and made unpleasant by the man next to me having abominable breath.

Some pics from the trip - inside the plane & waiting at Frankfurt for the interconnecting flight.

As you can see we didn't sleep all night and were VERY tired by the time we got to Germany.