July 26
We left our campsite early, as it was so hot already! We drove north out of Prague to into the area called Bohemia. It is a beautiful area of sandstone rock cliffs, castles and farming.
We are camping at a place called Sedmihorky.
It is a little place just outside of the town of Turnov. It was soooo hot yesterday that after we got to the campground we decided to search out a place to go swimming.
My parents found an awesome place – it was a huge waterpark! The waterpark was so much fun! The pool was really cool – the water it was 18 °C and outside it was 38°C ! what a huge difference! IT was a really big pool, with tonnes of people! There were 4 water slides, Red, Blue, Yellow and Green. The blue was steep and you had to lie on your back and go into a pool, when I went down I hit my head – so I didn’t so that one again! My dad really liked it though.
The Red one was twisty and turny tunnel with animals on the sides! My brothers and I liked this one the best. The Yellow one was really fast and we liked this one because we could all go at the same time and race! If you pushed really hard you could butt slide across the water! The Green one was for little kids and it was really slow.
It was so amazing! A great place to spend a super hot day!
July 27
Last night was really cool (finally!) and we all slept really well. We were able to get our tent in the shade and that made a huge difference. Camping in Europe is not like camping in Canada! The tents and cars are a lot closer together! It is really squishy and it makes it hard to play.
The area we are in is called The Bohemian Paradise. It is an area of sandstone towers and rock blocks that have been eroded over millions of years. It is a beautiful place.
Today we went for a walk found all sorts of cool rock towers, there were rock climbers all over them. My dad was so excited to see the rock climbers, he wanted to climb as well! We all try bouldering on the small boulders a the bottom of the cliffs.
We hiked up this long trail to see Valdstejn castle. It is actually a set of castles built on top of many rock towers. Each stone castle were connected by bridges.
The best past was the people who were dressed in traditional clothing who were acting out life in the medieval castle.
The first people we saw when we got in were woman who were cooking these small round cakes over a fire. You could put jam, sugar, sauerkraut, or garlic on top of the cakes – we all had one – they were soooo good!
Then we saw this amazing guy who was walking a tight rope between the separate castles! It was so amazing!
The next thing was the traditional Czech medieval music concert. It was held in the Chapel of St. John of Nepomeuk. It was incredible.
There were 7 different musicians, two ladies sang, one played a violin, one played a series of flutes and recorders, one played a viola and an old instrument that I couldn’t find the name of. (see the picture – maybe someone can help me identify it!)
One men played the lute and the other played a series of oboes and traditional horns – it had an amazing sound. We felt very special and lucky to get to hear the concert.
If you go to our Czech page we put up recordings that we made of the incredible concert!
Last, but not least, we met the knights who put on a full demonstration of traditional firearms, as well as a full sword fighting show! It was so real that I felt a little scared – I thought that someome might actually get stabbed.
Some of the men wore the protective coat, which was a puffy layered coat so that it will protect them from getting hurt – some men wore full metal armour, which was more protection from the swords! Brendan and Liam each got a toy dagger and we all got to stand with one of the real knights!
We hiked back down the hill towards our campsite and enjoyed our last day in Czechia.
The people are very kind in this country – we found a lot of English speaking people to help us out and everyone was very nice. The Czech republic was a very amazing country, we did such a wide variety of things: rafting, waterpark, camping, zoo, ancient cities, castles. I am so sad to leave – but I’m happy that I got to be here.
Good bye Czechia!
Ciao!
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