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| Denisa, Adam & Dominik |
While collecting Vanni from Klara’s place in Ceske
Budejovice, we had a good long break.
We just relaxed, took a couple of bus
trips into Ceske Budejovice which has an attractive old town centre, walked to
the local village shop, and had a meal with our friend Denisa who was minding
Adam and Dominik, her sister Kara’s boys.
We met Denisa and her partner Anita,
in Wellington in 2010. Denisa introduced us to the rest of her family who have
all been a tremendous help with our travel venture.
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| Village May Pole |
While at Klara’s, we also checked out the village
May Pole being erected for the 1 May celebrations. This is a national holiday
in the Czech Republic.
The May Pole is a tall tree that has only the top
branches left on it and it is decorated with ribbons. It is guarded for the
night before 1 May by the local villagers because apparently people from other
villages may try to chop it down! This did not happen in our village and the
next day it was there, high in the sky with the breeze blowing through it
gently, for all to see.
Ten days later, we headed north to visit some
campervan places around the Prague area to investigate selling Vanni.
We stopped for a night at a Prague camping ground
that was on an island in the middle of the Vltava River, before driving across
the Czech Republic to Olomouc in the east.
Olomouc (pronounced olamoatz) has a delightful old
town built around a main square with an interesting collection of fountains and
statues.
It was very cold so we wrapped up with our padded
jackets that we used in the north of Norway last year. After wandering around
sightseeing we stopped at a café for a hot chocolate.
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| Olomouc monument & Marg |
That was the most amazing
chocolate ever. It was thick and luscious – in fact it was too thick to drink
so you had to spoon it up. We instantly found ourselves feeling so much warmer!
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| Czech scenery |
We had two campsites to choose from for that night,
but neither was close to town so we set off seeking the first on our list.
We
found our way along small roads with fabulous scenery and little villages, to a
camping sign - but no campsite! ‘He’s closed’ said a local so we did a 55 point
turn to get out and then zigzagged our way over more very small and bumpy roads
to where the second camp was supposed to be.
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| Czech golden rapeseed |
Once again, we saw signs but we could not find the
camp. After driving for what seemed like absolutely ages through a forest, we
were getting rather tired and it was late, so we decided to head back to
Olomouc.
In the end, we stayed the night in the car park we had used earlier
for our sightseeing! Talk about a roundabout way to get back to where we
started!
It was Saturday night and we thought it might be
noisy. Fortunately, the car park emptied very early and it became quiet.
However, every so often, a group of loud speaking people would wend their way
past us. That made for a night of broken sleep, but we felt quite safe there.
The next morning we made a quick trip to the
supermarket, just across the car park, to stock up with a few more provisions.
We then headed across country towards Katowice in southern Poland.