Spa Hotel Labe Marianske Lazne

... head….goooodddd jobbb!!! That’s my rant for the day!

Well after that we looked for the spas and couldn’t find where to go and then we looked for the tourist office and couldn’t find where to go and we looked for parking and couldn’t find where to go….overall Karlovy Vary was a bust for us so before the frustration set in we decided to head on out to our next destination. Life’s too short to look for parking!

... pan and cook our first dinner this week, so not all bad.

in karlovy vary we buy the teeniest tiniest cup and try some water from every fountain. some taste like blood and we wonder if we have reached dracula country early. oh well, at least we will probably live a few extra years according to the, ah hem, medical advice.

... the whole hotel is empty! We get room 16 on the 3rd floor. We go up to see it and when we open the door it smells of smoke, so we go back down to ask for a non-smoking room. We are now on the 1st floor in a non-smoking room. It is huge. All the furniture looks hand-crafted.

We notice the man has several large ...

Back in Canada in the Province of Saskatchewan there is Lake Manitou. The water in this lake has lots of minerals, similar to the Dead Sea properties. You float in it. We have been to the Manitou Spa several times and enjoyed the uniqueness of free floating. At the spa they advertise there are only three places of water in the world with the same properties, one being Manitou, the Dead Sea and the waters at Karlovy Vary, Czech ...

Sitting in the living room of the house that will be 'homebase' for the next few months. Weird to think that this time last week we were just pootling around Sydney doing our thing!

Trip via HongKong was great - 2 nights and two days of shopping overwhelm and yummy food. We managed to cram in quite a bit pulling a marathon 12 hour day seeing the sights. Jarrad had the benefit of my shopping expertise and made some good purchases!

Arrived in Munich on my ...

We took a day trip to this beautiful crystal and spa town. It is noted for its water. People come from all over. It is suppose to help ailments of all kinds. There are several places in town that sell ceramic vases to use to drink from the fountains throughout the city. We strolled around for several ...

... where we marvelled at the gorgeous mouth-blown and hand made creations and finally realized the beauty and value of the glasses we had received from Mirek's parents. Despite the high cost, we treated ourselves to a set of glasses like the one's they had gotten us years before and will use and enjoy them even more now. Mirek's extremely generous and sweet Aunt, Uncle and cousin also bought us some so we are looking forward to drinking in style from now on ...

... craftworks. We spent a day walking through the town center the highlight of which is drinking from the 11 natural hot springs (each said to have it's own medicinal properties, but all of which taste gross just at different temperatures.). The center piece to the hot springs is the Hlavni Vridlo(main spring) which is more like a gyser that shoots some 9 meters into the air. K.V. also is the home of the spa wafer or Oplatky ...

... email check and breakfast in the morning! This is first-star wild camping really! The homemade jam is delicious. That day I take one of the most beautiful routes of this trip, taking me through the Fränkische Schweiz. I am following the river to Pottenstein. Higher hills, great views, just amazing! I might also have found my mode or transport for the next travel adventure: The Kayak. Seen people passing by, remembered my own peddling ...

... this entry although Mum and Dad have headed off to check out the southern end of town toward the station in more detail. Tomorrow Charles and I take the train to Plzen, the home of Pilsner Urquell, while Mum and Dad stay here. For those of you wanting to get a feel for some of the quality music that's big over here at the moment, here are a few artists for you to look up: Jimi Blue, Tokio Hotel (yes, they are all guys) and Cinema Bizarre (yes, these are supposedly all guys as well...)