Czech Republic: August 24, 2009

Our first order of the day was a visit to the Zlin Zoo and Chateau Lesna. It was originally set up as a private zoo and gardens by a local family in the late 1800s. There are many walking trails which lead to the various exhibits. The rainforest exibit was exceptional as everything happened in a greenhouse, with misters etc. You then walked on three levels, one to get you into the upper trees, the second at ground level and a section which essentially put you under the river to look at the fish (piranhas and the like). The monkeys were a bit disinterested in the onlookers, but were generally running around in the trees around us. There were several other walk through aviaries as well.

One of the great things we have found in the Czech Republic is that they create a lot of areas for the kids. In shopping malls they have play areas where you can dump the kids with a minder and go shopping uninhibited. At the zoo for instance, there was a play area with camel and donkey rides and a really cool treehouse with ropes and ladders and a zip line. In fact, we were thinking of trying to bribe the person in charge into letting us have a go.

The tiger was as usual it’s lazy self. In fact, this one even had CCTV in its home, so I guess it has a history of not getting out much. All we saw was 2 hind legs and a tail on the monitor. The lion was a bit more lively and put on a show by roaring the place down. One of the last areas was the lemur exhibit. This was quite interesting as they had an area enclosed by an electric fence and the lemurs ran about amongst the visitors. Even the mother with three babies didn’t seem to have a problem darting in and out of peoples’ feet .

The Chateau Lesna was a beautifully appointed building and with its surrounding gardens makes a superb complement to the zoo. We plan to go back to take a closer look at the Chateau.

Following the zoo visit we decided to take a drive to the spa town of Luhacovice. The underground wells produce mineralized water which is supposed to good for treating diseases of the digestive tract, diabetes and the respiratory system. Can’t say it did anything for us, but it was a very pretty town. We had lunch at a café, in fact lunch for two, which probably should have been billed as lunch for about 7. When it came out, it consisted of two sword skewers containing (each) ½ tomato, ½ red pepper, 2 chicken breasts (each marinated differently), a piece of steak, a pork cut and a slice of gammon. On top of this was a 9-10” platter of salad and a similar size of mixed vegetables, complete with 3 hash brown patties and a mountain of fried potato pieces. Needless to say, we packed one of the skewers in a Ziploc bag and it is presently in our fridge.

We then drove out to Uhersky Brod, before heading back to Zlin. I tested a route which I hope will serve as an alternative route to Vienna (and probably quicker too) as it leads to a major highway in Slovakia.

We had another quiet evening. Didn’t need to have dinner after that lunch. We caught up on emails and then watched a few more episodes of True Blood.

Czech Republic: August 23, 2009

Well, I think I am going to stop talking about the breakfasts. Unless I write otherwise, just assume that they are great. This is Alexis’ birthday in Malaysia and would have been my Granny’s 99th. After breakfast we went for a walk up the hill behind the hotel. It looks like high end housing estate is being built on the hill overlooking Zlin (zleen). Marisa took many pictures of the flowers and fruits that we saw this morning. We plan to walk another route after breakfast tomorrow morning.We went to Tescos to get a few provisions and also managed to get a card for the cell phone. So we now have a Czech number.

In the afternoon we drove to Brno (pronounced Broon). Using the GPS made things so easy. We got to the Spilberk castle in about an hour. We walked around the grounds firstly and then bought tickets for entry. We toured the dungeons, which were used from everything from state prisons to barracks for Nazi soldiers. In fact, there was even the remains of the Nazi telephone exchange. Then we went to the main part of the castle, where we climbed the lookout tower, which gave a great view of the city below and also to the main exhibition halls. Marisa, I think, liked the 19th Century Baroque Apothecary best. The castle has seen a lot of history and this was documented in detail within the exhibition halls, from wars with the Swedish and Prussians to the history of the different additions to the castle itself by its various occupiers.

There was also a rehearsal by the European Youth Orchestra for a concert to be held this evening. Unfortunately, we were unable to stay, but it was an incredible sound. The conductor was Vladimir Ashkenazy. We then headed home, via a very different route, which ended up entering Zlin from the east, which was very interesting. It avoided driving through the town, which appeared to be quicker. At one point I thought I would try my own way, but ended up adding 10 mins to our journey via a detour, but at least I proved the system worked as it found me back on the right road very quickly.

We had another quiet dinner in our room and another relaxing evening.

Czech Republic: August 22, 2009

Another very nice breakfast. Quite a lot of variety again this morning - cereal, bread and toast, fried eggs and bacon, beans and then a plate of cold meats and cheeses. Excellent.

Oonaugh & Randy and the boys came over by about 11:30 and we headed out into Zlin. I was interested in observing how seasoned veterans dealt with the country, but it was pretty much the same as me, point, grunt, gesticulate wildly and eventually you get what you want. The only difference was that they had quite a few more words under their belts. We visited a rather good mall and had lunch. I had fajitas, which were very good indeed. Oonaugh and Marisa went shopping and Randy and I took care of the boys. Quinton is a bit of a daredevil and climbing on the railing with a 3 storey drop did not seem to bother him, however, we managed to keep him on the correct side.


We then attempted to get to another mall, but we ran into a traffic jam, probably due to the rally, so we turned back to the hotel. R & O had a 3.5-4 hour drive back, so we said our goodbyes. We did get to see a number of cars who are participating in the Rally race.

We then spent the rest of the day rather lazily as it had begun to rain outside. We checked in on family and friends to see how they got through what was Hurricane Bill. We also watched the last two episodes of season 5 of Angel while we ate fresh bread and some fruit. I think we’re finally starting to relax a bit…

Czech Republic: August 21, 2009

The breakfast was very good in the morning and we met a couple from the US who are stationed in Germany. Marisa discovered that she had forgotten some of her meds, so we had to visit a pharmacy. We visited a small shopping mall to pick up a few items for meals, as our room conveniently has a kitchenette. The Zlin motor car rally is this weekend, so there were lots of supporters lining the streets ready for the evening race, when we went for our afternoon walk. Also there were lots of apples and pears (not stairs) on trees all along our route. People just seem to ignore them, which is quite amazing as they are ripe and look like they might be very good. We managed to order pizza for dinner and settled down for another night.

London - Austria - Slovkia - Czech Republic: August 20, 2009

Still on BA, we had a breakfast snack. We landed about 6:45 and made our way through Immigration & Customs etc and to the South Terminal. It was crowded with the usual British discount holiday goers and we pushed our way through to the Aer Lingus check in. We were pleasantly surprised as Aer Lingus has a separate check-in area away from the mele of the main concourse. From here we spent a few hours in the duty free area until our flight at 11:35. I slept on a bench with our hand luggage.

We had quite an uneventful flight over to Vienna. At one point I recognized the Rhine river below. We landed in Vienna and collected our luggage and our car. There was some scrabbling to find things we needed for our drive, as we didn’t pack very well and we finally set off at about 4pm. Due to our not having a charging cable for our GPS, we had to save battery power, but it finally died around the Slovakian border. We bought a couple of maps at a gas station and continued manually.

Our travels took us just to the west of Bratislava and then north towards Brno. We then branched off on a more direct route to Zlin. More direct, but perhaps slower as it was a country road. We finally arrived in Zlin at about 9pm (about 2.5 hours after estimate) and somehow managed to find our hotel rather easily. We checked in and went to sleep.

Bermuda - London: August 19, 2009

After both of us raced to get work done before we left and final meetings, inspections etc. we arrived home, did our final packing, moved the kayak and equipment to higher ground and raced out of the house at about 5:15. We checked in at the Airport and made our way onto the plane (G-VIIB – the “Bermuda 777” as it appears to be permanently assigned to our route). The evening meal was very nice and we settled down to get as much rest as we could.

Off We Go (Sorry We Can't Stay to Meet You Bill)

We're almost packed to start our Eastern European Adventure. Needless to say, we were not expecting that we'd also be preparing for a hurricane in the midst of packing. Hurricane Bill's closest point of approach to the island is currently calculated at 12 pm Sat, Aug 22, 2009. Distance: 184 nm to the west. So that means we're getting the house prepared so that William and Emily don't have to worry about it as much as they might.

Anyhow, we're on BA tonight and will land at London Gatwick in the morning... and then off to Vienna and then into the Czech Republic!