This longer trip included, apart from usual sightseeing, several important missions. First one was to obtain a new american entry visa, for which I applied in Vienna, since the issuing there is much faster than in Prague. We landed in Vienna and spent there three days, waiting for the visa, sightseeing. We took a bus from Vienna to Brno on Fri. morning.
The second mission and a most important part of the trip was attending my brother's wedding, on Sat. July 28th. The wedding was in a nearby chateau, here is a bit of more info
Then followed three intensive days spent in the surrounding of my home village, Brťov. On Sunday we visited a castle in Lysice (shortly described here), on Monday spent whole day in the Moravian Karst region, visiting two caves and making a short hike. Pictures with more info are here. We spent the whole Tuesday in Brno, second largest city in the country with a rich history. The town is only about 30 km south of my village. We spent the morning at the castle above the town, which houses several museums, and walked through the town in the later afternoon. Separate page on this is here.
Next three days were devoted to visit to Prague. We walked through the center on Wednesday, visited Betramka (with W.A. Mozart museum) and several monasteries on Thursday and Prague Castle on Friday. Pictures with some details are here .
Saturday and Sunday we spent back at my parent's house, doing a bike trip with a visit to castle Pernštejn on Saturday (described here) and resting on Sunday (it rained whole day).
From Monday to Wednesday we drove to Austria, hiking in the Schladming region of the Alps on Monday and Tuesday and spending most of Wednesday around pictoresque Halstatt Lake. Later in the day, we drove to Vienna in approaching storm system. Here is a more detailed description and fotos.
Dina flew back on Thursday morning while I drove back to Brťov, and got my bike together. I spent the rest of my stay there and did several bike rides, which are described here.
U of U / CHPC / Cuma / Travel / English / Euro 01
URL: http://www.chpc.utah.edu/~mcuma/czech01e.html