Orea Hotel Palace Zvon Marianske Lazne

Time for a short one after that mammoth of a blog for Prague. Ha that rhymes.

Well we left Prague and had 2 choices. Down towards the town of Plzen, and the home of Pilsner beer, or up towards Karlovy Vary, famous for its natural healing waters and its spas. We chose Karlovy Vary since Chris had had his fill of beer in Prague and Plzen was a little out of the way. We also hoped to maybe get some Spa time in but unfortunately fate was against us there ...

we finally arrive, after twisting jules arm relentlessly, but too late for the bus, cannot wait for two more hours, so we jump in a taxi only to find we have booked ourselves into the gulag, no i mean it. we are staying in prisoner cell block F. we think of crying, but dont want to show fear to the locals.

we do manage to find a ...

We stop for the day in this small town. We look at hotels on the local information board and pick out a hotel. It is just around the corner. We go to the front door and it is locked, so I try a side door and ring the bell. A woman comes and says to go to the hotel door. We go back and she lets us in! She has a room ...

... other complaints.

We enjoyed our stop even though it wasn’t what we were expecting. We have a cute little china cup for our Christmas tree decoration.

We are close to the German border so we use all our Krouns for diesel and leave Czech Republic. It most certainly is a beautiful country along the west side. We passed fields and fields of poppyflower heads. It must have been beautiful when they were all in bloom!

... sausages for lunch. Was half cut - half a litre of beer with jetlagg...interesting combination.

Flew from Prague on the dodgiest little plane, Jarrad was pulling sticky tape off the cabin and announcing outloud that we might not make it alive. Hmmmmm they also made the mistake of asking him to complete the customer survey...

Went out on the bikes yesterday to explore town. Amazing - bus loads of tourists arrive here daily. Photos don't do it justice.

... then enjoyed a lunch of duck,dumplings and sweet and sour cabbage. I swear Greece and Czech Republic have the best food in the world. I am going to miss it. We will return tomorrow to Amsterdam to connect with our flight home. We are hoping to make the Anne Frank museum if the lines are not too long.

... region is also known for the quality of it's porcelein and we also went to one of the factories to get some porcelein dishes as well, needless to say, our suitcases will be heavy and fragile on the way home!-but it's worth it :) We head back to Prague tomorrow, so we are spending the day seeing a few more things here and getting organized for the trip back, luckily we have a ride back with Mirek's uncle. We'll update from there..... Celina and Mirek Pollos Libres

... are flat crisp wafers filled with a hazlenut/sugar flavoring about 10" round. They are exported around the world but here is the only place you can have one fresh hot off the press, so we did, several in fact. (my parents used to buy them for my sisters and I on the promanade, and the same shops still exists) We'll continue with more exploits from Karlovy Vary in the next update. Nashledanow (Goodbye in Czech) Celina and Mirek/Pollos Libres

... war, build on the original site. Been there and learned lots more. Until now never realized that so many different nationalities other then German Jews where taken prisoner. All preventive actions to rule out any opposition, gays, politicians, laymen, priests, anybody really. As in other camps the people were treated terrible here. It really should be remembered. Sad to know that at present day lots of people are still maltreated in many ...

... is a disappointment considering that there are some attractions at the summit that operate independent of the ski field and the only other way of getting there is by road or the bus that runs only 6 times a day. By this time it was getting quite dark anyway and we were beginning to freeze so it was best we head back to the hotel to warm up and think about making arrangements for dinner. I typed some of this blog update to fill the time before the hotel's restaurant ...