Czechia trip, Day 11. Our hotel in Děčín is fine but it doesn’t have AC to deal with the oppressive heat. With the windows open at night it’s cool enough to sleep but then there’s occasional road noise from nighttime traffic.
Our original plan for today had been to do a day hike up a wooded river and then return along a ridge that includes a famous rock arch. We’ve heard there was a forest fire in the valley last year, and the hotel receptionist confirms this. Not only will this make the views less interesting, it means there won’t be any shade.
The receptionist suggests hiking up to the Snežňík plateau instead. There’s a way to get there by a morning bus – but there’s no convenient return bus. We’ll have to descend from the plateau and hike to a town to get a bus back. This plan could work, but means that once we get off the bus, we’re committed to hiking, even if it gets uncomfortably hot.
We walk across the town’s bridge to the bus stop, and are relieved the bus’ credit card reader works. The bus winds through forest for half an hour, and we get off at a small crossroads. No one else gets off with us; we’re far off the tourist path at this point.
We start walking through a field up a gentle grade to the plateau, eventually entering a forest. The shade is nice, and we through the trees we see the small cliffs that form the plateau. A short while later we gain the top of the plateau, and stop to look from one of the many viewpoints around the plateau’s edge. We can see across rolling hills and farmland for a long way.
We walk clockwise around the plateau, and enjoy the nice breeze. On the other side of the plateau, we come to a very tall tower. It’s open to the public but we have to pay a fee to a shopkeeper to get a key that unlocks the tower door. We wind up the tower stairs and emerge onto a battlement. We have a great view in all directions.
Jan’s original thought had been to hike to a town called Tisa, but we opt to head towards a closer town called Jílové instead. The trail is marked regularly with a striped blaze of white, green, and white, and we follow these down switchbacks back into the forest.
We come out onto a road to Jílové but the road is less shaded and so warmer. Happily the trail cuts across some bends in the road so we can enjoy the shaded forest for a while longer. Finally the trail ends and we have to walk on the road.
By the time we enter the outskirts of Jílové it’s quite hot. There aren’t many dining options in town, but everyone’s so tired and hungry for lunch that we make straight for the closest restaurant, a vaguely fast food place described as “Pizza Kebab”. Both the pizza and kebab are acceptable but Jan and Liya make the mistake of ordering burgers that prove to be terrible.
We finish lunch just in time to hustle back through the heat to a bus stop in time to catch a bus back to Děčín. The hike wasn’t particularly difficult, but we’re all very happy to get back to the hotel, take a shower, and nap.
For dinner we find a surprisingly nice restaurant called Arrigo. All the indoor seating is taken, but there’s a nice outdoor table on the restaurant’s shaded patio, and the food is quite good.
Czechia trip, Day 12. For breakfast we try a cafe around the corner from the hotel that looks promising – it’s cozy and has a wall of books – but has extremely slow service. Our entrees and drinks come out one or two at a time. Some 40 minutes after ordering, the cashier/waitress comes out to tell us that the waffle iron isn’t working so they can’t make Evan’s order of waffles. It’s over an hour before we’re all finished.
Today’s activity is a bike ride down the Elbe River valley to the town of Bad Schandau, just over the border in Germany. While we’re still eating breakfast, the bike rental company calls us to say that the person delivering the bikes is waiting back at our hotel, so Jan has to run back to accept delivery of the bikes.
To make the bike trip easier and more fun, we’ve rented e-bikes. Bree’s a little apprehensive about the whole endeavor. She’s never been comfortable riding a bike on a street with car traffic, and while there’s a bike path called the Elbeweg along the river, we have to briefly bike over a bridge and down a short stretch of road to reach the path. Once we’re on the path, Bree can relax a bit.
The trip down the Elbe valley is gorgeous: gently curving bends in the river as in snakes between green ridges topped with rocky cliffs. It’s not too hot yet, and the extra speed of the e-bikes provides a nice breeze. Occasionally on the opposite side we can see a break in the ridge that’s been cut by a tributary; there are invariably clusters of buildings at these confluences. We pass one such cluster at the small town of Hrenško, where our original hiking plan for yesterday had called for us to start hiking. That area does indeed have some dead trees left standing after last year’s forest fire.
We cross into Germany. This section of the Elbe has no bridges, so we need to catch a ferry across the river to reach Bad Schandau. They only take cash, and we have just enough euros to pay for the five of us. For some reason, when the ferry reaches the other side, the ferryman spins the ferry a couple of times. Perhaps this maneuver had some purpose, or maybe he just likes to go in circles.
After locking up our bikes near the ferry dock, we walk around the cute town of Bad Schandau. We see a couple of stores we want to explore, but we’re also hungry so we keep looking for a restaurant that’s open for lunch.
We finally find a place with an outdoor courtyard. All the staff are sitting at a table in the shade; they seem a little put out by the fact that customers have arrived and they need to work. It’s hot by now, so most of order salads, all of which are enormous. At one point Angela takes out her water bottle and a staffer comes over to scold her; “It’s not allowed!”
After lunch, Jan goes with Bree to a clothing shop that had a pretty blue skirt for sale, while Angela and Liya go with Evan to a record shop. We meet back up and return to the bikes.
We’re a little confused by when the next ferry across the river is – it might be two hours from now? That would be a problem; we need to get back up the river to Děčín for a train back to Prague. We must be reading the signs incorrectly, because five minutes later a ferry pulls up going the way we want. There’s a bit of panic because we no longer have enough euros to pay for our fare. Thankfully the ferryman sees that we have Czech crowns and says he’ll take those; we have just barely enough.
By now it’s around 90°F so the ride back upriver to Děčín is somewhat less pleasant than the morning ride. We all have plenty of battery power left, so we shift the bikes to Turbo mode and make better speed. Bree is leading the group, and is having such a good time zooming along that she doesn’t realize she’s pulling away from us and she eventually disappears far ahead. At some point she finally notices that no one is behind her. She pulls over and a few minutes later we catch up.
Back in Děčín we swing by our hotel to retrieve our backpacks, then wear them on the bikes to cross over bridge and reach the bike rental shop. We continue on foot into the center of town, and by the time we reach the station everyone’s hot and dying for cold drinks from a station kiosk.
The train back to Prague departs on time but there’s some sort of issue with the track ahead. The train makes an unscheduled stop at a station while the train company works out some alternate route into Prague. This delays our arrival a bit but we eventually reach the main station.
Prague is even hotter than Děčín. We have enough time to return to our apartment, take showers, and then we got out to dinner at an Italian restaurant called La Finestra. It’s very good. One nice touch: Liya’s the only one who doesn’t order a starter, but they bring her a tiny tomato salad so she has something to nibble on for that course.
Czechia trip, Day 13. After another breakfast at Coffee Factory, we take the tram to Malostranská and walk up a long set of stairs to reach the Hradčany castle district. It’s going to be broiling today, so we want to go through this tourist area before it gets really hot.
Our first stop is St. Vitus Cathedral. It has beautiful stained glass windows, including one with an unusual palette of secondary colors. Next we walk through the old palace, which has a reproduction of a famous crown we think looks gaudy and hence ugly; the huge jewels look like the candy in Ring Pops.
The last place we visit is the Golden Lane, a small street with diminutive shops, which turns out to be the most fun part of the castle. We poke into a small building which Franz Kafka briefly used as an office for writing and which today is a shop selling Kafka merch. We finish with drinks at a small cafe. As Americans we’re used to drinks with plenty of ice; none of the drinks here ever come with enough ice to make them really cold.
We walk down another long set of stairs, stopping at a viewpoint to look out over Prague. We make our way to the metro and then to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. It’s an odd place: among the Chinese entrees are burgers and fries. The food’s not bad. A friendly old man (an owner?) keeps stopping by our table to ask if we’re enjoying our meal and to chat. He eventually hounds each of us to open our phones and give the restaurant a review on Google Maps.
After a break at the apartment, Angela, Liya, and Jan walk the short distance to the National Museum of science and history. Liya and Jan take a long time walking through a large exhibit devoted to evolution, with Liya pointing out various creatures she learned about in biology classes in college. The exhibits are extremely well done, with convincing, dynamic taxidermy and models, good staging, and interesting facts and graphs.
One tourist highlight we have yet to witness is the hourly clockwork show in Prague’s Astronomical Clock in the old town square. We have a 7:00 dinner reservation La Veranda near the square, so we walk to the clock just before 7:00, watch its hourly animatronic parade of Apostles, then quickly continue to the restaurant so we can catch our reservation.
After dinner Bree wants to go on a walk with her siblings, so they walk back while Angela and Jan take the tram.
Czechia trip, Day 14. We have to leave early today, and nothing really good is open for breakfast before 8:00 am, so we make do with a quick bite at a Costa Coffee outlet.
We catch the metro to the airport, then board our flight to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam we try to find someplace to get a lunch, but the airline wants to board the flight very early – over an hour before the scheduled departure time – so we only have time for cold to-go sandwich wraps.
Our flight to Seattle goes smoothly, and then a scheduled car takes us back home where we all collapse.
Madison Park has begun hosting a farmer’s market on Saturdays, so when it opens at 10:00 am we walk the short distance to the park to check it out. We end up buying vegetables and salmon for dinner, as well as a bottle of Ethiopian hot sauce. (By the end of the day, Evan will have consumed over half the bottle.) We’re also attracted to the booth selling grilled salmon sandwiches, so we return at lunch time for some of those.
As sometimes happens, we find that one of our cats has left a dead animal on the back patio. The responsibility of cleaning up an animal carcass usually falls on Jan, but he’s away. Angela tells Liya to take care of it.
Liya: “Why should I do it?”
Angela: … “You’re the biologist.”
Mojo is a wonderful cat but also pretty stupid. Whenever we pour cat kibble from the large bag it comes in into a smaller plastic container, Mojo comes running in hopes of kibble. This is true even when he is already in the process of eating kibble.
Each night we give Mojo and Moxie scoops of kibble in separate puzzle feeders in separate rooms. Jan gives Mojo his scoop first, and Mojo eagerly begins eating kibble. The kibble container is almost empty, so Jan goes to the kitchen to top up the container so he can give kibble to Moxie.
When Mojo hears the sound of kibble being poured, he leaves off the kibble he is in the middle of eating and runs to the kitchen. Jan has to lead Mojo back to the front room where his puzzle feeder is. Mojo discovers: there is kibble there! He resumes eating kibble.
Evan and Evrim have been looking at a calendar of upcoming events in Seattle that they’d like to attend. The first event is tonight: the 2025 SeaFair Indian Days Powwow, hosted at the Daybreak Star cultural center in Discovery Park. Jan and Liya join as well.
We arrive around 6:00 so that we have time to buy Rez burgers on fry bread from one of the food booths, then eat on bleachers looking towards the open area where the dancing will take place. The area is packed with groups from all over. We watch a man and teen girl change into their tribal regalia, the girl hastening to finish her preparations in time for the Grand Entry at 7:00.
We watch an honor guard walk around the grounds, followed by a long line of dancers. This is followed by some introductions, and finally an Intertribal dance. There’s a long evening program of competitions ahead (plus more over the next two days), but that’s good enough for us.
Evan organizes another group outing tonight. This time all of us go to the Obon Festival at Wisteria Park and the Seattle Buddhist Temple. Again we buy dinner from food stalls, including grilled corn and yaki onigiri (grilled rice). Bree meets up with her friend Marina who’s wearing a yukata.
We watch a number of taiko drum songs, then the kids participate in a long dance line that stretches up and down the closed street.
Bree feels her age. She and a friend are shopping at a mall when they see a Lego store and go inside. The store has a number of Lego Friends kits on display, many of which are stores (a cafe, a pet store, etc.). Bree fondly remembers assembling earlier editions of these stores.
Examining the store kits more closely, Bree notices that they no longer include a Lego piece to serve as a cash register. Instead, each kit includes a small credit card terminal with a “Tap to Pay” icon on it.
This new-fangled Lego piece makes Bree suddenly feel old.