Zlate Hory (23.08.08)

It's a very little town... First, the groove. Or to be precise: its reconstruction. A very picturesque area. Wooden mills on a hill, bridge, stream. It all resembles the Heroes:) Or a similar game:)





Gold was mined here till 18th century, now a lot of tools and machines have been rebuilt, to present how the precious resources were extracted. You can also become a gold-digger, rinsing water from a small container. And each year gold-digging competition are organised here. In 2010 the town will host the World Championship.



The main street of the town is decorated with colourful tenement houses, live revolves slowly around the place, in cafes and little restaurants. There are quite many tourists here, especially cyclists and climbers. No wonder. The area is sourrounded by wonderful cycling routes and trails.

Pomezi caves and Petrikov (23.08.08)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Hindu temple, Roman thermes, Hercules' Club... to see all of this, it's enough to travel to one place only. To a cave in Lipove. A 50-minute-tour surprises step by step with bizarre shapes. Except the mentioned forms, there are also the Fakir Bed, Waterfall Made of Whipped Cream, Small Dog, Rococo Lady, Map of Jesenik with the Praded Mountain, Elephant's Ear, Curtain... There's also a small pond, where tourists throw coins. And a big human heart, which allegedly fulfils our dreams...

The guide said she speaks Polish, but in fact she was speaking a charming mix of the Czech and Polish language.



After the journey deep into the ground it was high time to travel towards the sky. With one word: Petrikov. There' a bobsleigh track in Zlote Hory, which is 800 meters long. First, a lift takes us up, then... plenty of turns through the wood at a high speed. It makes you keep coming back over and over again. So, it's better to buy a combined ticket for 5 drives.

Jesenik (20.08.08)

About a sanatorium, calm town and the Adrenalin Park.



In fact, live revolves here around the sanatorium, which lies on a hill. There are the only shops open till late, and only there is something that might be called a crowd. It seems as if Jesenik was focused on tourism only. Hundreds of guesthouses and hotels stretch along the town. But it doesn’t strike me at all. There are magnificent mountains around the town, decent bicycles paths, charming landscape and health resorts, of course. The most popular one is called Sanatorium Priessnitz and was grounded in 19th century. It boasts a huge number of water healing procedures, some of them seem quite strange to me.


All in all, the place is worth visiting, even for a walk through picturesque little streets around the Sanatorium.



The centre of the town, however, is pretty calm. But it doesn’t lack attractive places. The town hall, church, old destroyed trains and… This is it.
The centre is a little more vibrant in the evening, when young party fans spring up.



And when you get bored with the sanatorium, mountains and cycling there’s still something extraordinary in the vicinity. The Adrenalin Park. The way to the Park is not marked well enough, so getting there might be a problem. But it’s worth visiting. Once you get to the place called Czeska Ves and find Ranco Orel (the Eagle Ranch) you’ll be able to increase your adrenalin level and have fun at the same time. There’s bungee jumping, line-sliding, paintball, quads race, and a small Wild West…

Karlova Studanka (20.08.08)

Few words about the charming place.

It’s quite small and lies quite high above the sea level. It heals and attracts tourists. Boasts a great number of sanatoriums. It’s old, captivating and there’s a pump-room in the center. So I decide to try it. Well, the water stinks and doesn’t taste good , but it’s said to have healing properties. So I fill the whole bottle with it, although I’m afraid I won’t be able to drink it all.




The houses here are decorated with red flowers and the buildings present a variety of colours, shapes, materials... Nice.
And there’s a magnificent trail close to the town, but I’ve already described it in a previous post:)

City hall (10.01.09)

Yesterday we finally visited the Vienna city hall.
There’s a free guided tour at 1 a.m. so we used this opportunity. Actually, I have already been to the city hall, because a reception for foreign students was organized there. But then I only managed to see the ball room and the corridor. What we saw now was even more outstanding…
First the conference room. Quite a small one but richly decorated. There’s a huge chandelier hanging on the ceiling, which weighs several hundred kilos, the walls are decorated with large paintings and windows covered with colourful stained glass.
The next stop was the large banquet room with emblems of all the Austrian Lands on the walls. When we came in, it was being decorated with flowers. And then we went to this part of the building that I already know from the previous visit. Columned hall, stairs with red carpet and finally the ball room. Again we could see people at work, preparing the room for the ball of sport journalists that was to take place in the evening. So the room was really impressive again.
The last room we visited was quite small, with old green fireplace and the paintings of all the previous mayors.



In fact the tour finished quite quickly and maybe the guide did talk about some interesting facts but I was so engrossed in taking photos that I didn’t really listen to her. Well, sometimes it was impossible, because she was speaking too quietly. Doesn’t really matter. Maybe I’ll go there once more and write something more exciting. Oh, and one more thing – the tower is closed for tourists, because it’s too narrow inside. The costs of building it were extremely high, but I don’t remember now how much it was. In fact, the whole building was very expensive - in 14th century the government spent 14 millions Guldens.