Jitka's parents live in Jicin, a delightful historic town at the boundary between a verdant agricultural plain dotted with picturesque villages and the "Czech Paradise" of mountain parks, lakes, castles and fantastic rock formations. During the summer they move to Jitka's mother's ancestral home in a nearby village, Hubalov, and it's here that we stay during our summer visits.
This year we rode bikes, hiked, swam in the rivers and backpacked in various parts of Bohemia and Moravia (the northwestern and southeastern parts of the Czech Republic). The photo album highlights the beautiful places we saw.
On our next to the last day we went on a day-long excursion to a region in the Czech Paradise around the village of Mala Skala. Our 13-km route climbed a ridge where we visited 2 castles, then down through a valley, through several forests to the Jizera River, where we took a break, putting on our swimming suits and buying some cold brews (NA for me, of course).
Czech are sporting types. There are always many hikers of all ages out on the trails, and here there were canoes and nearby camps for kids with rope courses. Where we had stopped someone had run a cable between two tall riverside trees and in the middle affixed a climbing rope hanging above a stump. The rope had a knot on the very end, for shorter people to grab, and a wooden bar about 2 feet higher for taller people to hold onto while swinging out over the river. Barbora and I took turns swinging and dropping into the river. What I didn't realize was that since the rope was very elastic, there was a tremendous recoil when I let go and on my final swing I was facing the shore when I let go, as opposed to facing away, and when the knotted end of the rope whipped up it hit me violently in the eye. It was left in a great deal of pain and later that night, with no abatement in the pain, we decided that I had scratched my cornea and needed to visit a doctor, because infection is danger in such cases. The hospital in Jicin did not have an eye specialist so Jitka's dad drove us to the nearest large city, Hradec Kralove, where there is a teaching hospital with an emergency room for eye injuries. Not only were we admitted immediately, but the lead doctor examined and treated me. The best part: total cost (no insurance), including antibiotic eye ointment, was around $30.
Photos from our time in Czech are here.
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