Prague

In 1989, communism fell in the Czech Republic under the “Velvet Revolution”.  I had recently graduated from college and was focused on getting a better job, getting a bigger apartment, getting a new car, and acquiring all of those things that I thought defined the foundation of a responsible adult life.   At the time, I was also starting to pay a little more attention to the news and followed the story of the massive street protests in Prague with some interest.  But beyond the political intrigue, I couldn’t help but hearing some of the background chatter on Prague itself.  The city was supposed to be fantastic.  Unlike much of the rest of Europe, it had never been bombed in modern warfare and was filled with the original buildings and culture that was at the heart of Bohemia.  And it was completely untrodden by cookie-cutter western commercialism making a perfect launch pad for hip young explorers looking for something authentic in which to find themselves. 

But even though I felt it calling me back then, it was never to be.  Prague has always been a symbol of disappointment for a hip young explorer that never quite got the nerve to just buy the ticket and go.  I never even used my passport until I was over 30.  So, this year’s Christmas market jaunt had special meaning for me…I was finally going to Prague!  And you better believe that I was bound and determined to experience what I should have done more than 20 years ago.    The city has definitely been overrun…but it is also undeniably fantastic!  And that velvet, Bohemian vibe?  Well, you’ve got to have a sharp eye and an open mind, but it’s still there…it’s very, very subtle, but it’s still there.   I can now forgive that younger version of me…I loved Prague.     Here are some pics from the weekend in Bohemia.    

The main Christmas Market - The market itself was a bit below German standards, but the lights and decorations were the best I've ever seen.  

As always, the little squares and out of the way places held the real charm.  

These carolers and Christmas band playing under the bridge were awesome !  The acoustics were unreal.

Street food!  Always a hit with me!

The sausages were very much like Polish Kielbasa...and anyone from Pittsburgh has to love Kielbasa!

These donuts were new for me.  They were wrapped on a wooden dial and then "roasted" over open coals and rolled in sugar before serving.  Excellent!

Pig on a spit!

Pictures of "Classic" Prague

 Old town, from "the" bridge...

Prague Castle

Taking a picture of him taking a picture of them taking a picture of Prague.  Nice perspective!

Lone rower

My favorite guy on the famous clock...this skeleton rang his heart out when the chimes started!

My favorite building - the municipal building.  Art Deco at it's finest!

Just remember if you take your canoe on a commercial flight to Prague, you'll need to pick it up in oversized baggage!  Who does that?!

Wishing you a very Merry, and Bohemian Christmas!

Mission Impossible

The mission, should we decide to accept it, was to get the low-rider, Mini Cooper with summer tires down the mile long driveway to the house at 1898 Herrington Manor Road.  The challenge was that the driveway was blanketed with over three feet of snow and had hundreds of broken branches and downed trees which were left over from Hurricane Sandy.  Our flight into Newark was cancelled due to the storm (of course) and the only destination within several hundred miles of Pittsburgh in the next 5 days was Cincinnati via Chicago.  We had rented the little Mini because we thought it would get good mileage for the long trek over to Deep Creek.  Sometimes we're not so bright.

We couldn't even park at the end of the driveway because the snowplows had pushed a 4 foot mound across the entrance.  So we had to park at a neighbors and trudge over a mile through the snow to get to the house to get the equipment to clear the driveway.  It was thirteen brutal hours with the chainsaw and tractor, over the next three days just to get the driveway passable for the ATV.

Then it was another 4 days of chainsawing and 50 degree weather before we attempted the decent to the house with the Mini.

Success!  Why we felt the need to do this, I'm not sure...but it was the hardest I've ever worked in my life to get the driveway open, so it felt good to have a specific goal.

The heavy snow was particularly hard on the local wildlife and they all seemed to appreciate the corn that we threw out.

We both had a soft spot for this little fawn.  She was very brave in coming close to the house looking for food.  We hope the rest of the winter isn't too tough for her.  BTW, you can see that our apple orchard was devastated by the heavy, wet snow.

There was a bit of time for fun.  I know, this doesn't look like much of a hill, but with the icy crust on the snow in the morning, it made for one hell of a ride.

And when the sun finally came out, there was a wee bit of time to put up our feet and enjoy the brilliance.   Just don't ever introduce me to anyone named Sandy...I'm pretty sure that I won't like her.

Cold Case Haarlem

Some creepy happenings in our neighborhood last week.  The police moved in on our local park, shut down traffic, put up barricades that you couldn't see through and manned it 7x24 with armed guards for three days.  TV crews quickly showed up and it turned into a real circus.

We later learned that they were dredging the canal looking for a body from a 20 year old murder.  According to our friends who lived here, the police botched it in the original search and were somewhat compelled to try again with new technology so many years later.  I still don't know why they had to be so clandestine about everything.  The national defense squad even showed up for a while.  It was definitely creepy...but also interesting to see the "white suites" in action.

Anyone know if they found anything?

All this and Halloween just around the corner...

Road Trip Croatia

It’s been a long time since we’ve taken a good ol’ fashioned American style road trip.  I’ve been jonesin’ to get behind the wheel, crank up the music, and head for the open road for a few years now.   Croatia was a highly unlikely, yet perfect destination.   Sun. Sea. Nature.  Sun.  Culture. Food. Sun. Wine.   It don’t get much better than this!

We decided to take our time on the road and explore some new terrain on the way, not wanting to do a marathon 14-hour drive to our destination.   The driving bit was a mixed bag – I’m not sure I would do it again.   If it wasn’t white-knuckle adrenaline at 200 KM/hour on the Autobahn in the little Audi A3/A label car (extremely fun!) then it was white-knuckle adrenaline at 140 KM/hour in a tiny, 2-meter wide construction lane with a concrete barrier grazing the driver's side-view mirror and double trailer trucks grazing the passenger's side-view mirror (extremely stressful!).   But the destinations were great and as we crossed the Alps into Slovenia the roads emptied out and the real relaxation began.  Here are few pics and stories from the trip.

Our first stop was Regensburg – a picture perfect Bavarian town.  In fact, almost too perfect.  It felt a little bit like Ligonier on steroids - not knocking my home town, but meaning that everything felt a bit too controlled by people with too much money.   (BMW's are built here.) There was a good, health conscious vibe to it which can’t be denied (probably due to the overwhelming presence of the university), but overall it felt a bit “contrived” for lack of a better word.  We managed to find a back room for rent in the local brewery which helped to bring it all back to perspective for us.  Regensburg is nice to visit, but once is enough for us.

What the .... huh?!?!   I love the mountains!  Little mountains.  Big mountains.  Any mountains.  But the Alps are rarely kind to me.   Every time that I drive through this particular mountain range, there seems to be some sort of “incident”.  Sleet.  Fog.  Traffic accident.  Flat tire.  They just don’t seem to want me heading south toward the sun.    We had planned on hiking in Austria, but it just wasn't to be.  This time through the Alps it was snow and fog, slowing us down to a crawl the whole way to the Austrian border crossing with Slovenia.  But the 10 KM tunnel to the southern slopes delivered us from the cold weather (if not from the clouds) and we never looked back!

Slovenia - Wow!  What a country!  The Slovenians are one of the proudest, most friendly people we’ve encountered in all of our travels.   They went out of their way to help and offered juicy tidbits on the sites that only the locals were privy too.   This is a country where I could live…if only I knew which language I had to learn to get by.

First stop, Bled.  One of Slovenia's top tourist destinations...and you can see why.

Off season - only way to go to get hotel rooms with views like this from your terrace!

Hiking in Vintgar Gorge, just outside Bled.  The nature in Slovenia is magnificent.  It rivals, or surpasses, anything that I’ve ever seen – from Stanley Lake in Idaho to the Okavango Delta in Botswana.  The topography goes from high Alpine meadows to Mediterranean coastline in a matter of a few hundred kilometers.  It’s amazing how varied that it is. This river was so polluted with trout, it almost didn't seem real.  This place is special. 

 "Typical" Slovenian village we'd come across hiking in the mountains.

Then it was on to Ljubljana.   We had very high hopes for this city.  One article that we read on the Slovenian capital city said that it could be characterized as mix of the classiness of Prague with the energy of Amsterdam and an Italian lover thrown in for good measure.  Umm, not quite.   But very cool none the less.  For me, the city was very compact and full of great architecture, food, wine, and bohemian vibe.  But it just didn’t scale very well.  It has a population issue…as in just not enough people to really pull it off.   But, if you add in the unprecedented nature that the city is surrounded by then you’ve got one hell of a landing place for a few months or years for the right time in life.  Who knows…it just may happen one of these days.  Any tips Albena?

Ljubljana center

Biking under Ljubljana castle

Ljubljana

Piran, Slovenia

Next was a short stop in one of those coastal Slovenian towns I mentioned...Wow!   But then we headed just a bit further south to the "main" destination....Croatia!  The slogan they use to attract tourists is “The Mediterranean as it once was.”  Let me tell you after many trips to the Mediterranean coasts of Spain, France, and Italy, this slogan is Spot On! 

With over 4000 kilometers of coastline, this country is made for beach lovers.   Yet, it is surprisingly (and refreshingly) underdeveloped.  We never saw a full-blown resort and travelled through miles of unspoiled and undeveloped coastline.  It was very easy to find a two-track, dirt road and follow it to a pristine private beach with not another soul in sight.   And once you got away from the coast?  It got even better.  We did hit a few “tourist bus route” sites that were overrun by the over 60 crowd, but all-in-all, Croatia was an off-the-beaten-track, experience-junkie’s wet dream.   We’ll definitely be back.

We rented a great apartment on the main square of the little village of Vodjnan.   That's Beth looking out the center window of the apartment.   See the church tower in back? 

We had a great rooftop terrace with a magnificent view of the tower and the Adriatic.  Great for breakfast...and a bottle of wine in the evening.








The town came complete with a mascot!  This little girl was incorrectly name "Vladmir" by a group of Russians and the name stuck.  She lived on the main square and was very well cared for by everyone in the village.

There are some interesting stories in the back streets of this country.  Some Yugoslavian/Tito legacy graffiti.   (Sarajevo is next on the list!)

One of those dirt tracks and private beaches that I mentioned...my kind of tailgating!!!

We hit a "developed" beach or two....

...but preferred the more local fare with nothing but water in front of you ....

....and a cool little beach bar behind you.   Perfect!

Fazana - one of our favorite little towns.   Investment opportunity?

Rovinj - classic postcard Croatia!

Living on the water's edge.

Finding a little pub on the water's edge isn't so bad either....watching the boats coming back to harbor with a rich Croatian red...superb!

The interior of Croatia also held many surprises.  Here the hilltop village of Motovun.  A bit tourisitic, but worth a visit.  We hit a "Truffle tasting" event here and I can now say that I finally "get" the hoopla around truffles!

But once again, the side tracks held the best surprises, like this little pizza joint in Saint Vincent.

The biggest disappointment of the trip was Pula.  I'm very much into the Roman ruin stuff, so this city had to be on the list.  If you've never seen ruins before, then I'd say it might be worth it.  But otherwise, it was loud, dirty, and completely overrun by tour buses.  There are many, many better places to see Roman history...I'd recommend a "pass" on Pula if you've seen ruins before.

On the return trip to Holland, we decided to stop once again in Slovenia - this time in the mountain resort town of Kranjska Gora which is the gateway to the countries largest contiguous track of nature, Triglav National Park.  It was beautiful weather, excellent hiking, and once again some of the friendliest people we've met in our travels.

We also stumbled across this little monument on one of the roads out of Slovenia.   Kind of a cool historical tidbit.   But Beth didn't want to stop at the presevered German Panzer Tank along the other mountain pass.  I guess one war "site" is enough for her.

The final stop was the little town of Bad Wimpfen in Germany.  This was a stop of neccessity after we got hung up in nasty traffic and construction between Munich and Stuttgart.  But it also turned into a real gem and rounded out the roadtrip of 2012 nicely.

Until the "itch" hits again...safe travels!