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 :-)

:-)