Monday, June 10, 2024

Day 5 - Saxon and Bohemian Switzerland

sunshine on a summers day
sunshine take my blues away
sunshine make me feel alive
sunshine make me wanna live
sun kissing me on my mind
Shine - Finley Quaye

Day 5 was spent taking a day trip hiking. I was a bit nervous about this. It's written as moderate hike, what does that mean? I do not exercise at all. Reading the reviews, people were saying it's not so bad. In the end, I thought let's just do it, it would be a chance to see some nature. Pick up time was 7 AM and when I was picked up, there's already another girl in the car. She was from Paris. It's just a normal car and when I asked the driver how many people there would be, the driver said 9 in total with 2 more coming from Dresden. The driver didn't speak a lot of English. Side note: maybe it's just from my limited interaction, but it seems the young people in the Czech Republic tend to speak very good english. Also another observation, everyone seem to have tattoos, also in Poland, to the point I wonder if these people know anyone who doesn't have any? Anyways, when the driver was out of the car picking another person, me and the French girl chatted and we thought we're just being picked up to meet the rest of the group. The other person that was picked up was a French girl too and after that we just continued on driving, out of Prague. So it seemed the driver would be driving us throughout. As we drove, I think it's kinda cool the 4 of us ladies (the driver being a lady too) just driving along together, strangers with different backgrounds :D

Somewhere along the drive, we crossed into Germany. I didn't notice when that happened, but we did. Throughout this trip I didn't pay attention to what the guide said, so I didn't register anything. This what I learn from the Internet writing this now. The place I was heading that day is the Elbe Sandstone mountain range. It encompasses both Germany and the Czech Republic. In Germany, it's called Saxon Switzerland and in the Czech Republic, it's called Bohemian Switzerland. The Switzerland part is confusing right? I was confused too, the internet told me it's because there was a Swiss artist who was reminded of the geography of Switzerland when he was in the area. So anyways arriving in the parking lot, we found out there's another group in a van; there was a family consisting of parents and 3 adults daughters and a solo Finnish girl. So there's many of us solo girls that day - I'm always happy and supportive to see girls travelling alone :D We also met our guide there and first order of business was him pointing us where the toilet was, but he went even better. He's paying for our toilet use. As someone who has complained too much about paying for toilet, I was very impressed that this service is part of the tour :D Then we also met an American couple from Alaska coming from Dresden. After that we're off to walk around the area. This part of the walk wasn't hard at all.

There are tall rocks in Saxon Switzerland and there were people climbing it. In the last picture below, you could see 2 people on the right. The river running below the rocks is the Elbe river. One of the highlight is the Bastei Bridge (second last picture). Everytime I see the picture, I always feel like the rocks are forming hands holding the bridge - maybe it's just me?

After this, we were leaving Germany and back to the Czech Republic. The guide took a ride with us. It wasn't a long drive, but I got very sleepy that I was fighting sleep. The next thing we're going to do was actually to have lunch, which was included. Seriously this day tour wasn't bad. For lunch, I chose the safest option for me and it was fried camembert cheese with cranberry sauce (if I'm not mistaken) and french fries. It was okay, I can eat fried cheese :D After that we went to our next thing. Again, I wasn't paying attention, I really didn't know where we're going, I was walking where everyone was walking. We were dropped off at the start of the walk and it was a walk down down among the trees. I remember feeling it's great, all the trees being green, but my mind was also telling me it would suck so bad if we have to walk this back up. Somewhere along the way, there's a river running by. The walk then kinda reminded me of the walk in Taroko National Park in Taiwan. I had to google this place when I was uploading my pictures to Flickr and it's the Kamenice Gorge. We're there for a boat ride. The gondolier was giving explanation in Czech and our guide was giving translation; things like how certain rocks look like certain things. The dad in our group was like there's always a story like this in every place, to the embarrssement of his daughter :D His daughter was almost like, dad shut it, but it's true :D The boat ride wasn't very long, but it was nice.

After that the guide was explaining the trail we would be taking. Again I was not paying attention so I didn't know where we're going. I did recall the guide saying it's quite a hike up, so don't focus on getting there fast, we should take our time, and not to worry he would be at the very last. Hearing this my thought was like, don't be the slowest one and don't pass out. The early part of it was not easy, but I was able to keep my pace with the other 4-5 people at the front. I could feel my heart rate slightly elevated, but I thought I did okay. The breathing was okay too. I was actually quite surprised at myself for being not so bad at this. I guess perhaps freaking out would add to the distress and would couse you to breathe more rapidly and that day I was okay. The Finnish girl was paying attention and from her we found out we're actually going back to where our cars were :D It's so funny. A nice thing about this was after some hard climb up, it was pretty much flat. We were greeted with water and snack when we got to the cars. We're really well taken care of in this tour.

Then it was another drive to our last stop which I found out only after reaching that it's the rock arch. It's called Pravčická Brána. It's another walk up and up. First part of the walk was among the trees that were looking quite bare. I heard there was forest fire before so that's why it's looking like that. Quite a long walk but it was okay and I'm sure we're all glad when we could see the arch :D The rock formation is quite the same as in Saxon Switzerland (well they are the same mountain range) and the arch is impressive. Seeing that I couldn't help thinking of earthquake, but I guess this part of the world don't get many earthquakes.

After that we dropped off the guide to his car and we're back to 4 girls driving back to Prague. It was a nice pleasant day and finally getting blue sky and the sun felt good. For pictures from this trip, you can here. My pictures don't do them justice. Back in Prague, I decided to just not walk too far for dinner. I managed to walk the whole day, but the knee wasn't feeling that comfortable when brushing with my jeans that there were moments that I lifted my jeans a bit. I was grateful though that I made through that day and actually had a good time. So for dinner, it was ramen. I ate quite a lot of noodles in the form of ramen or pasta in this trip, but when you want to eat soupy things, the options I could find were not that many. The ramen place was interesting, it's Japanese ramen but seemed to be run by Koreans? Heard Indonesian being spoken by the 2 girls in the other table, contemplated if I should say hi but I didn't because I didn't want to be weird. Another interesting thing in Prague, foreigners do not seem that uncommon; example there's like a small mini mart next to my hotel and it seemed to be run by Vietnamese. Also near my hotel is the Jerusalem Synagogue whose picture I took as I was walking back after dinner. Only days later I found out, you could actually visit it but I was never around the time it's open, so a synagogue is something that I have yet the experience of entering.

:) eKa @ 8:48:00 PM •