Villa Art 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 ...

... 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 ...

... br>We leave and go to see the colonnades, these are fancy walkways with pillars that have little fountains where the thermal water comes out. People are walking along with fancy china cups. The handles are really spouts to drink the water from. They go to the water taps, fill their cups and stroll along drinking the water. The water is warm and at some stops hot water.

We bought a very tiny cup and tried the water. I ...

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 ...

... 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.

... The standimg room tickets were $4, a hot dog was $1 ad a 1/2 litre of beer was $1.56-CRAZY! The calibre of hockey is high and the atmosphere was awesome-lots of singing and chanting. 80% of the attendees were sporting team colors and the most popular accessory was a scarf with the team colors which was waved wildy after a goal-unfortunately, we scored one lass goal than the other team and lost 2-3 in overtime, but what fun despite standing in concrete ...

... take us to visit the Hrabanek clan (he and his family are the only remaining part of the family in the Czech Republic). It's a beautiful drive from Prague to K.V. but at 120kms from Prague it still takes 2.5 hours. In K.V. we are staying with my great-aunt on my moms side the infamous teta Kvyeta. She is my grandmothers sister but closer in age to my parents so she essentially grew up with them, (she is the aunt you have that is ...

... making lovely bread is one of them! The cycling trip really did show me Germany in a different way, definately more interesting then to use it only as a speeding platform to get to other countries, like most of us Dutchies do. Get off the highway and discover the many lovely towns, its great people and scenic nature like I did! No, I do not get any promotional money from a German tourist agency.... Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland! Dobry Den Ceska Republica...

... y así de amigable la vida por estos lados... y sobre todo es muy fácil apropiarse de la ciudad y conocer todas las calles y todo. Hasta la próxima!!! _______________________________________ _____________________ Hello all!!!! Well, with friend visiting and all last week was quite full of partying, and this is more of the normal life. But one thing doesn't change: the city is absolutely amazing! Nothing like ...