Last Day...Nove Straseci

Hello everyone...it has been a while! I have been oddly reluctant to post this one, since it is my last batch of pictures from the Czech Republic. And I have been oddly reluctant to even think about the whole experience. I miss some of it, especially my boys, and especially my baby boy, but I am also so glad to be home. I am very happy I chose to return to the US, and I don't want to go back, yet it is still a little painful to think about it. Not quite sure why. The whole thing seems very surreal. So besides some strange dreams where I have returned to the house in Nove Straseci and suddenly realize, "Oh no, I am back, help me!" I have not been thinking or talking about it much. I haven't made my photo albums (after Venice they were done in a matter of days) or gone through my souvenirs or anything. It is a harder adjustment to make than I anticipated. Very weird to go from Czech Republic to America, from that family to mine, from being a mom every afternoon and night and weekend for seven months to suddenly being the "kid" again in my parents' house. I am confused. But here is my last day in Nove Straseci.

So my Czech family left for Austria on the morning of December 19th. I cried and Vojtisek cried and Lukas cried. Honzik was pretty happy though, I think. Although I had attempted to tell the boys that I was going home to America and that Mike (my replacement from New Jersey) was going to stay with them, Lukas was still very confused. I don't think Eva had talked to them about it, and although he can talk about monkeys all day long, the "leaving" and "not coming back" were more difficult concepts for his four-year-old-learning-English brain. I started to get teary as Eva and her parents began loading the car for the trip. Lukas looked at me, his little face all confused, and asked, "Why are you crying?" He said it hesitantly but perfectly in English, which made me even more upset. I told him that I wasn't going with them to Austria, and I tried to stop crying so he wouldn't get upset, too. I didn't want to freak him out. Eva told me that after Lukas was buckled in his car seat he saw me and asked his grandparents why I wasn't getting in the car, and they told him I wasn't going with them and then he started to cry even more. Apparently Honzik even cried a little.

It was so hard to say goodbye to my baby Vojtisek. It is probably good that I left when I did, because otherwise I would have smuggled him home with me. I wish he was here. He would love my dogs and my family and I have a bunch of fun things planned that we could do. Like play with bubble bath. There wasn't any there, but I think he would like that. He could even sleep in a crib in my room. Whoa, calm down the crazy.

So, they left. Eva's boyfriend actually stayed with me for a little while and we had tea and we talked a little (always an adventure since his English is not great and my Czech is not even terrible it is so awful.) But that was sweet of him.

I wasn't flying home until the next day, so rather than sit around the empty house all day and miss Vojtisek, I headed to Prague to meet Julie. (See the Flora and Prague posts for the first part of the day). She was awesome enough to come back to Nove Straseci with me and go to the airport with me at 6:00 the next morning. We got to the village around 4:30, so of course it was already dark. And so so cold. It had been snowing all day. We shivered to the main square so I could show her the high school and the cukrarna and the clock tower and the Christmas tree.

The whole place was empty, but that was nice in the dark and the snow. Here I am:

Here is the pink clocktower. It rang every quarter hour. I could hear it from my room. And it wasn't as obnoxious as one might think. I rather liked it. As usual, thanks Julie for the pics of me!

I love this picture. I would love it more if the light in the corner was the moon, but it is a street lamp.

A few pictures were all we could stand in the cold. So off we hurried through the snow to my house. A five minute walk. Here I am on the same block with my house. The house is bright blue and they had a Santa and reindeer light on the porch. Which is funny, since in Czech Land the Jesus Baby brings the gifts.

We drank some tea and got warm in the house. Here is the view from the house to the backyard. How lovely does that tree look all lit up and covered in snow?

And look how great this looks. The grandmother made all of these herself. It is a tradition there to make beautiful Christmas cookies, and the more varieties and the more intricate and fussy the better. They were super tasty.

We had a funny dinner. Salads with all kinds of yummy stuff on them, and a frozen garlic bread thing that we popped in the oven, and my last packet of macaroni and cheese that Brittany sent me from America. And some goat cheese, I think. And some more stuff I am forgetting. Delicious.

While Julie watched High Society--she had never seen it so I was so excited when she suggested it!--I tried to pack. It was tricky to fit everything in. I left a lot of tired clothes there and pressed various things on Julie. Finally, she had to step in and save me from myself. I was rather certain one or both bags would be overweight, but shockingly they let me through at the Prague airport without saying a word.

Oh I have skipped some steps. I wasn't sad to pack or to dismantle the few things I had mantled in my room, or to say goodbye to the house or the village. I was ready to get out of there. I was so excited to be coming home. (Perhaps that is why now I am a bit more conflicted--I didn't "grieve" when I was there...oooh) The driver who had taken me to Vienna (three times) picked us up when it was still dark and dropped us at the airport. We checked my bags and headed for some coffee.

I hated saying goodbye to Julie. I miss her so much. I really don't know what I would have done without her. And I cannot wait for her to come visit! Yay!

I changed planes in Munich, my favorite airport in the world. I couldn't sleep on the long flight across the ocean since I was so excited. They played terrible movies and a show about pandas. I was in the very last row on the plane. Customs was easy but I was worried they would detain me since I was just about jumping around, so excited was I to be home and to see my mom and dad. My bags shot off the carousel but since my flight was a little early and my bags were so fast, my parents weren't at the airport yet. But, hurray, they arrived in a few minutes. What a lovely homecoming!

Then it was Christmas, then I sent in my last two grad school applications, then I started work, then I fell back into life in the US. And now we are up to date. Confused, feeling-like-I-lost/dreamed-the-last-seven-months, missing a little Czech boy, loving free water, ice, and refills, back at home. Up to date.

Winter

Winter has come to Czech Land.

Bummer.

On Thursday it snowed big, wet flakes. On Friday I woke up to white ground and even more snow that eventually turned to rain which washed away all the pretty fluff on the trees and houses and grass. Today it snowed in the morning again. It is the middle of October. Come on.

The zinnias on Friday.

A field near the house.

From a window.

And some video so you can see how it was coming down.

I know I am going a little crazy with the snow, but it has snowed more here in the last three days than it usually does all winter at home! My po' 'lil Suh'thun heart is not used to this!

Last week I went ice skating with the boys--first time in probably five years? I can't remember the last time I had been skating. And it was never a very common occurrence. But almost everybody ice skates here--hockey is a popular sport.

Lukas thinks it is hilarious that I am not very good at skating. He and I are about the same level, actually. He is four.

The first time we went I was very cautious and pretty scared of falling and breaking something. Like my face. We went again yesterday and I tried to bend my knees and be a bit more fearless. It was better. Still not great, but better. It is funny to be skating around with all these little kids and to push them out of the way so that I can grab the wall.

Just kidding. I didn't push anyone down. I was very aware, though, that I would not be able to dodge if a five-year-old did start coming at me.

Here are my borrowed skates. I always wanted a white pair! Just like in the Olympics. These are a bit dingy, but they used to be white! I think Eva borrowed them from a friend. As far as I can tell, they don't rent skates at the rink. Because everyone has their own.

Honzik is pretty good. All the kids wear helmets. And it is really, really cold in the rink so we are all bundled up.
Lukas got tired after half-an-hour of trudging along in his adorable miniature skates. So Eva pushed him around in a chair. There are several normal wooden chairs in the rink for kids to push or ride on, as well as the metal goal post things you can see. I used one of the metal contraptions for a little while but I felt guilty. They are for tiny children. I do get some funny looks at the rink since I am the only adult who is not a good skater.

Sorry about my creepy laugh at the end. Scary.

Sally!

I have been a bit more silent than usual--a rotten cold, COLD weather, and the GRE subject test...yuck...have occupied me more than I would like. But my cold is better, it has been snowing for three days so I am sort of getting used to it (but actually not at all), and I took the GRE last Saturday so that is over.

The test wasn't so bad; it was getting to the test center. I took a 6:00 bus from the village, got to Prague at 7:00, walked to the metro, rode on that for a few minutes, then attempted to find the center. It was a building in Prague's Technical University, and fortunately the complex was just by the metro station. I found the correct building, but the man at the door did not speak English and did not know that they were giving the GRE there. I showed him my ticket and we mimed for a little while and then he finally let me in. But I was about an hour early for the 8:30 test and I was the only person there. I didn't know which floor never mind which room the test was in, so I wandered for a while looking for signs. I tried to get a cup of coffee from the Nescafe machine--the coffee came out fine but the plastic cup that usually drops from the dispenser did not fall. So the coffee poured straight from the machine into the drain. Awesome.

I was getting a little desperate and trying to figure out who I could contact to give me the room number, when I heard another desperate sounding American voice downstairs. It was another test-taker, but this time the man at the door was being a real jerk and wouldn't let her in even though she had the same ticket as I did. Luckily, the GRE test givers arrived at that moment with their signs and were able to talk to the door man and figure it out.

There were six other people taking subject tests. Three from America besides myself--two studying abroad and one working in Germany--one person from Bratislava, and then some Czech people. Certainly a unique test taking environment!

After the lovely three hour exam I scooted out of there and met Julie for lunch in the city center. Then it was back to the bus and back to the village for an afternoon of child care.

So that was last weekend. But on Sunday night!!!!

Sally came to visit!

We went to Mala Strana and the Castle on Monday. Here we are by the castle:

By Malostranska Namesti (Lesser Town Square) we saw this awesome man and stag statue, which includes a crucifix in the deer's antlers. What does that mean? It looks like the man is worshipping the deer or expressing his undying love for it.

We walked across the Charles Bridge under a funny grey sky.

We asked a woman to take a picture of us with the river as our backdrop. She did, indeed, take a picture of us. And nothing else. This is the actual photo. I don't know how she found the zoom on my camera.

We walked through Wenceslas Square and Old Town Square before having lunch at my favorite Indian restaurant by my yoga studio. Then it was trdelniks for dessert:

and some shopping (though neither of us bought anything...) We did see an awesome Disney Princess playhouse. Too big for Sally's carry-on, unfortunately.

We took a late afternoon bus to the village. It was a bit too chilly for comfortable strolling in Prague. Sally met the grandmother, which was nice. The boys loved my sister. Even the baby was totally enamored. He gave her lots of hugs.

The boys enjoyed playing Go Fish with her and just hanging out. I think they were confused and excited to see two of us all the sudden. When I came downstairs on Tuesday morning the reply to my "Good Morning!" was "Where is Sally?"

Sally and I went to Karlovy Vary on Tuesday. Another really cold, rainy day. Naturally, Sally wore all my clothes, several layers worth. She does hate the cold. Sally tried the magical spring water and spit it out. It tastes a little like coppery blood. So yuck.

I got a picture with a giant Vodka bottle. Excellent.

We walked to the indoor spring to get warm.

Then it was a stroll to the Hotel Pupp for some excellent and expensive cappuccinos. After we had our fill of Karlovy Vary, which included two hot, fresh spa wafers (delicious!), we headed to Loket, the small castle town I went to a few weeks ago. We took the castle tour, which means we wandered around by ourselves, went into the church, walked around the teeny, tiny town, and then it was off again. I had wanted to go to Karlstejn but we didn't have time to make it there and catch the tour, so it was back to Prague for lunch at Cantina, a good Mexican restaurant. After some rather frenzied calculations (on my part) we hopped on a tram going one direction, got off, got on another one going in the opposite direction, hopped off that, got on the Metro, and made it back to the bus stop just in time for a bus back to the village.

So cold! It started to hail as soon as we were back in the house. That night we played UNO with the kiddies.

Sally took some pics of me and the boys, which is nice because I don't have a lot of those. Usually I am the one taking the pictures.

I went with Sally to the airport on Wednesday morning, cried when she left, kept crying, and then kept crying...the people on the bus looked at me funny. It was so wonderful to see her and to have her here so she could see where I live and meet the family and everything, but gosh it was hard when she left.

Cesky Krumlov II

After several attempts and a great deal of stress I finally found my way back to Cesky Krumlov.

Five hours after leaving the house I arrived at the castle, bought a ticket for Tour 2 and ran up the hill just in time to join the group. As the tourist season has passed, the tour was not offered in English. So I listened to the Czech and read the English off of a sheet of paper in a plastic sleeve. There were two other English speakers and three Czech people, so I was not alone in staring confusedly at the tour guide and glancing searchingly at the paper. It was a bit frustrating since the guide spoke English and so could have given us a little bit of guiding...but it is about 100 crowns more expensive for an English tour and we only paid for the Czech. Bummer. Still cool though. Tour 2 takes you to a different part of the castle where the Schwarzenberg family lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. The rooms were a touch shabbier than the ones on Tour 1, (the main part of the castle with the banquet halls and things) but interesting, nonetheless. The part I remember most was the bedroom of two young princesses, whose mother, Duchess Pauline, died at the ball celebrating Napoleon's engagement to Maria Louisa. A fire broke out in the ballroom but Pauline stayed inside, desperately searching for her young daughters. Horrible. Next to one of the beds was a girl's white dress; a replica of what one of the daughters was wearing at the ball. How awful! Let's show what the child was wearing the night that her mother died in a fire. Terrible.

The Schwarzenbergs acquired a tremendous collection of early 17th century Dutch tapestries. My question: where did they get them? Strange, you never hear about how these noble families got all their stuff. Did they purchase them legally? Steal them from an enemy they destroyed? Pillage someone else's country estate? Go to Holland and take them from the workshop? I don't know. They are beautiful and apparently quite valuable. It surprised me, then, to see the windows open in the rooms where the rare tapestries adorn the walls. We are so strict about climate control and preservation and obsessively monitoring everything special in American museums, so it always amuses me to see the more relaxed attitude over here. Maybe since they have so much old stuff they aren't as concerned about it? I remember my family and I were in a small town in Austria on a tour of a palace, or maybe a town hall? and the tour guide was really strict about "No pictures!" of the tapestries on the walls because the flash would damage them. Then we turned around and saw that all the windows opposite the tapestries were wide open and the sun was rushing in along with dust from the road...We chuckled.

There was a photograph of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) in her wedding dress, I believe. Sissi and the Schwarzenberg Princess Eleonore were contemporaries. It was funny to see Sissi in Cesky Krumlov. The Austrians, or at least Vienna, is obsessed with her. You see Sissi everywhere--on mugs, bags, jewelry, books, postcards, blankets, shirts...etc. She is a sad figure--depression, anorexia, hypochondria, obsession with her own cult-like status...but enormously popular and fascinating in her own time and ours.

The tour ended in the Cloak Bridge, which is a two story passageway from one part of the palace to the gardens farther up on the hill. The passages were begun in the 18th century. They are beautifully decorated with painted walls, lots of windows, cool lanterns, and Baroque maps of Europe. Every 15 feet or so are metal doors folded back against the wall so you can barely see them. They are painted to blend in with the walls, but in case of fire they could be closed to hopefully stop the spread of flames across the passage from one part of the castle to another.

No pictures inside the castle--darn it, but here is the Cloak Bridge from the outside.

The Cloak Bridge is neat, but it seems sort of wasteful to take up all of that space with just a passageway. If I had been their architect in 1706, I would have suggested they build a new wing to connect the castle to the gardens. A long hallway seems to have limited uses when compared to a whole new set of rooms! But no one consulted me.

You can sort of see the white Cloak Bridge on the left of this picture. The main castle is the grey-ish beige block on the right.

I bought a ticket to tour the Baroque Theater later in the afternoon and began walking about the town in search of lunch. I had an excellent pizza at the foot of the castle. But then I started to worry about catching my bus back to Prague. I had the ticket for 3:00, so I knew I had a place. But. There are two bus stops in Cesky Krumlov. I had gotten off at the first one since I could see the castle tower from that one and figured I was less likely to get lost if I could keep the tower in view. But my ticket said the bus left from the second bus stop. I didn't know if the bus would stop at the first one on the way back, and I was also stressed about making it from my 2:00, 45 minute tour of the theater to the bus stop at 3:00. Especially since I didn't know where that bus stop was or how long it would take me to get there. So I let my stress get the better of me and spent the next hour and a half fretting. I did a "practice run" from the castle to the bus stop, which should have taken me 12 minutes but took me forty since of course I got lost. The woman at the bus stop didn't speak any English so my "Does the bus stop at the other bus stop, too?" query did not make it through. I walked back to the castle, figuring I should try to return my theater ticket since I didn't want to get stuck in Cesky Krumlov. I asked the woman at the tourist information desk about the bus and she said that it did stop at the first stop, Spicak. So I felt better. I asked another person, just to be sure, and they said it did, too. So I bought a trdelnik and settled down on a bench by the castle to try to breathe. Welcome to my neuroses.

I had a shopping list from Eva to fulfill so I spent the next few minutes accomplishing that task. When we were in Cesky Krumlov back in July she bought two mugs and some excellent dark chocolate, and she asked me if I could get two more mugs and some more chocolate. I bought myself a squat, chubby blue mug with an elephant on it. I had seen it in July and was very excited to find it again.

Then it was off to the Castle Theater Tour. Which I am so glad I stayed for. It was really cool. There are only two Baroque theaters like this in the world. One in the Royal Palace in Sweden and this one. There are some other stages and things, but only two theaters with their original buildings and stages still intact. Cesky Krumlov was apparently an extraordinarily active place for theater, which is why the occupants of the castle built this one. They had their own theater troupe and professional musicians so they could have performances all the time. The theater was constructed in the 18th century. There is a beautiful royal box and upper level where the nobility would sit.

The tour group (me, three other Americans, and about 25 Japanese people--indeed, when I was here in July the town was packed, but this time it was quite empty except for groups of Japanese people and me,) sat on the long wooden benches while our tour guide told us about the theater. She was in her fifties but she was dresses like a tween in a black plaid mini-skirt and a red sleeveless shirt and lots of big necklaces. Her makeup was something to see, too. She had a pretty thick accent but spoke slowly and loudly so it was okay. And I was just excited that this tour was in English. She was a great tour guide--very enthusiastic and excited about what she was showing us. At one point she said, "Baroque music was extraordinary. (That was her favorite word and she smoothed it out into about ten syllables). Here is a song for you." I assumed she was going to turn on the TV which she was standing next to and show us a taped performance, but instead she began to sing! Awesome.

The stage itself seemed to go on and on.

The coolest thing about the theater is that the 18th century sets and costumes still exist. There are more than 350 backdrops (extremely elaborate and beautiful), almost 600 complete costumes including accessories like shoes and hats and gloves, 2,4oo props, and lighting equipment and stage machinery. The tour guide demonstrated some of the equipment for us, using replicas, naturally. There was a machine that looked like a wooden lawnmower and made a sound like thunder when you rolled it on the floor. Another big circle thing made a rain noise when you moved it. The flying machines still exist that would raise and lower gods or angels or whatever from the stage. We got to go under the stage so see the trapdoors and all the ropes and equipment. Really amazing. They could completely change the stage with all of its backdrops and everything in about ten seconds. Something like 24 boys would be at work beneath the stage pulling ropes and dragging backdrops around and making thunder noises. It seems that the extraordinary quickness of the scene changes and the special effects were the stars of the production, not the actors or the play itself. It would have been magnificent to see it, especially since only candles would have lit the theater so everything would have been sort of mysterious and dim. It would have looked like magic.

The theater reminded me a little bit of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy. Professor Finucci and I went there one of the last weekends I was in Venice. It is older, a 16th century theater, and was designed by Palladio. But it had the same amazing decoration of the building--this is the back of the theater:

...and an incredible stage. Palladio designed it as a Roman theater. Scamozzi designed the set, which is the oldest surviving one in the world. It has remained on the stage since the first performance since it was so beautiful.

The perspective he created makes it look as though the stage keeps going and going into the distance. Apparently, to sustain this illusion, they would hire short people and even midgets to walk around at the back of the set during performances.

I like modern, spare sets as much as the next person, but after seeing these ornate, gorgeous theaters I wish a bare stage with one chair and a bed wasn't so typical today.

Back to the Czech Republic: the Cesky Krumlov theater was in a horrible condition until 1966 when it was closed and they began restoring it. They have a few performances here every year, which are mainly for studying the theater. Since this is basically the only theater like this left (I don't think the one in Sweden has as many props and machines), a lot of people come here to study it. There are some machines and other objects that we still don't understand. So they make replicas and experiment to try and figure out what in the world it was used for. Isn't that cool? The whole thing is an amazingly intact relic from another time.

My trip, including the seven hours in a bus and the stress I needlessly caused myself, was worth it just for the theater. So farewell Cesky Krumlov! I finally made it back and I can check that off of my list.

Loket

So I have been trying to get back to Cesky Krumlov. Last Saturday I made an attempt. I took a 6:00 AM bus into Prague and then a metro ride to the designated bus station. I arrived 45 minutes before the bus left, only to be told that all buses going to Cesky Krumlov that day were full. Awesome. Unfortunately, the adventure did not end there. I had to get back to my village, but the buses are infrequent at best on weekends, and the internet sometimes lies about the schedule. I went all the way back to Zlicin, about a forty minute metro ride, only to find out that the transportation site had indeed betrayed me and there is no 9:30 bus to Nove Stracesi. There is a 10:30 from Hradcanska, a stop by Prague Castle, though, so I hopped back on the metro, cursing just a little, and rode about forty five minutes to that bus stop. That bus actually did exist so I arrived back at my village at 11:40. It was a six hour trip that took me nowhere. I was terribly frustrated. On the bright side, I did get to wander around Prague very early on a Saturday morning. Here is Old Town Square with its adorable autumnal festival stalls. Not quite open yet.

Fortunately, I did get to see a castle that afternoon. Eva and the baby and I (boys were with grandparents) went to Loket, a tiny town with a small castle to the west of Nove Straseci, just past Karlovy Vary. Loket means elbow, and the name refers to the shape of the river.

Here is the castle. It is 800 years old and is one of the oldest stone castles in the country.

Nice, right? I was going to go on a tour, but there weren't any more English tours since the season is over, and we got there thirty minutes before it closed so there weren't any more tours in Czech. But it all worked out, because they handed me a sheet of paper with facts about the castle and I got to wander around. There were a few other people wandering, too, but it felt like it was my private viewing session. It was sort of fun to walk around aimlessly without having to follow a tour guide. I was able to linger in the archaeological room and skip the torture chamber altogether. The castle is pretty teeny so it wasn't like I was going to get lost.

From the handy fact sheet I learned that the castle was originally built in the 12th century, that Queen Eliska and her kids used to hide there from her husband, John of Luxembourg, and that their three-year-old son was imprisoned for several months in the castle dungeon after John conquered the castle. Eliska was imprisoned in a different castle. Sounds like a sweet family.

The Hussites (they are everywhere!) tried to conquer Loket twice but failed. In the 15th century the castle was mortgaged away by the royal family to an aristocratic one, the Sliks. They had the castle for about a hundred years and finally in the 16th century it became the property of the town. It was used as a town hall and a prison, among other things. In the 20th century it was restored and now we are up to date.

In the first courtyard, old old old tombstones were leaning against the wall.

There was one Jewish tombstone, Rabbi Benjamin's, from a now extinct Jewish cemetery that was nearby.

Part of the castle is used as a porcelain museum. I am not very knowledgeable or fascinated by porcelain, but I did like the designs beside the glass cases of dishes and tea sets.

After browsing through the porcelain I wandered up some stairs and found myself by the big tower. It seems like all the Czech castles I go to have one big tower and then little wings all around it. They are a bit, I don't know, haphazard feeling. You can tell that they were added on to and torn down and rebuilt and then this part burned down but this part didn't, etc.

This was a passage to the tower. You can see the town beyond the roof. Everything felt miniature at this castle. And you know how I love miniatures!

I climbed the little tower steps...

up to the little tower top...

Bare but functional.

This scary dragon sculpture was waiting for me at the bottom of the tower. But, according to the plaque (everything was very well labeled at this castle! The English was nicely written and informative) this dragon was nice and used his fire-breath to light the women's stoves.

This is the tower I climbed. I think during the summer they have vendors in the courtyard, but now the stalls were all closed up and empty. Sort of sad. It seems as though archeological research is still going on at the castle. There were three or four rooms filled with bricks and timbers with plaques announcing where they were found in the castle and what will happen to them. Most of the materials will be reconstructed and replaced. There was a headless angel sculpture, some twisted metal bits, roof tiles, and other random things on display, as well as before and after pictures and even a skeleton lying on some sand. There was no English plaque for him/her, so I have no idea what the significance of that person is. Here is some very old wood.

I think it is neat to be able to see the different phases of the castle: the reconstructed part, the touristy torture museum, the rooms of random objects waiting to be fixed and replaced...

Here is a lovely window on the outside of the castle. It was a gorgeous day.

Down the hill from the castle is a red and white candy cane church. A bit garish on the outside, but the inside was wonderful.

I wasn't sure if it was open to visitors, but the door was open...so I walked in. I was the only person there. It was silent and much cooler inside. A small carnival like the one in Nove Straseci a few weeks ago occupied the small town square and the noise from the rides and the children was quite loud. "Eye of the Tiger" was blaring as I entered the church but it all faded away once inside the massive structure.

I expected the inside to be as bright and heavy as the outside but instead it was pale and light.

I like the ceiling. I don't think there was any real marble in the church, just "faux finishes."

The altar was a bit dark. A small sign at the entrance said that the painting on the altar had been damaged by "overpainting." What does that mean? Did someone literally put too much paint on it? Was it painted over?

Unlike some of the churches I have wandered into recently, this one seemed to be still in use. Look at the cushions on the beautiful carved wooden pews.

It was lovely to be able to walk around the church by myself. Castle tour by myself, church tour by myself--I like being able to observe unobserved.

I met Eva and the baby below the castle by the small river. A big creek, really. There is an outdoor amphitheater that boasts a rather stunning backdrop.

Eva has been to some operas performed on this stage. She said it was incredible to see the castle in the background, all lit up. There are huge boulders and various outcroppings around the amphitheater where the singers perch. That would be something to see!

There is a pit for the orchestra and everything. The national opera company comes here during the summer. I am sorry I missed them!

Another view of the castle...

Another view, but with me in it.

Guess who is walking now?

Last weekend he still liked to have a hand, but yesterday and today he strolled around all by himself and loved it! Very exciting!

He has also been playing peek-a-boo with my sister Sally over skype and saying "huff! huff!" (what dogs say in Czech) when one of my dogs is held up to the webcam. Awesome.

We walked around the tiny town some more and I saw this interesting house. A little dreary, but I love the colored doors and window frames! Maybe it is a hotel or something. It is pretty big.

I also saw an elderly woman walking with two elderly friends. They were probably in their 70s. She had on a teal sweatshirt that said "Spring Break 2009" across the chest. Hilarious. But you see a lot of incongruous English here. Sometimes the slogans on the shirts make absolutely no sense.

And this is the coolest gate ever. Ever.

My day started out poorly with my attempt to go to Cesky Krumlov, but it ended well. We stopped in Karlovy Vary for dinner and returned home late that evening. The baby did not wake up during the transfer from car seat to crib. Victory.