"The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain" by Peter Sis

Yesterday I read a children's picture book that took me right back to the nine months I spent in Prague, Czech Republic.

Peter Sis, a Czechoslovak immigrant to America in the 1980s, wrote about what it was like to be born at the start of the Communist regime and grow up in a totalitarian system.

When I lived in Prague, I had listened with extraordinary intent to Czech friends who had gone through this history. I loved hearing their experiences, their wisdom from what they had been through, and learning from them how people and families cope with a dystopian reality.

Peter Sis has compressed his own history and his nations' history into this graphical history that can be read in less than an hour. He bore witness! He warned! It's as if he is handing the reader at home the conversations we expats got to have in Prague with our Czech friends about what it was like.

I can't recommend the book enough. It would make a wonderful book to read together as a family for an intergenerational discussion about freedom.

This book has been widely acclaimed both as a Caldecott Honor book for distinguished illustration (the author's wonderful drawings help tell the story), and as the winner of the Siebert award for the most distinguished informational title in America, for children, in the year it was published.

Here is a short interview with the author.

From "The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain"

“When my American family goes to visit my Czech family in the colorful city of Prague, it is hard to convince them it was ever a dark place full of fear, suspicion, and lies. I find it difficult to explain my childhood; it’s hard to put it into words, and since I have always drawn everything, I have tried to draw my life— before America—for them.”                 —Peter Sis

You may be interested in these other reads:

The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia" by Milan Simecka

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulic

In Prague, You Can Enjoy Reading "Café Europa" at the Café Europa

WWII was worse for Central Europe than even our histories and memories tell us

Heda Kovaly, Czech Who Wrote of Totalitarianism, Is Dead at 91  

Understanding Iran: The Power of One Graphic Novel named "Persepolis"


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Touring the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas

A typical Ozark road sign

We took a scenic route

It wouldn't do to fly back to America without spending more time with my girls than just graduation weekend. I picked their brains about what we could do that was in the area because who knew when we would be back in the center of America again.

Should we go to St. Louis and see the Arch? One of them had already done it. Go to Hannibal, Missouri and celebrate Mark Twain? My girls failed to see how that would be interesting (obviously, they need to read more Twain as he's hilariously funny). Drive the river road along the Mississippi? Go see the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Salina, Kansas?

The gorgeous Ozark Mountains

on the way to Little Rock, Arkansas.

They reminded me of the Lubéron in Provence.

All they need is their own Cézanne to paint them.

Of course, then the real estate prices would quintuple.

We settled on driving down to Little Rock, Arkansas to see the Willliam Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library. All three of us love American presidential libraries because they are so evocative of the times and teach us so much about the American political experience.

Small town riverside dinner view

in Allison, Arkansas

When I first visited my youngest daughter at Mizzou her freshman year, I couchsurfed with a fun couple in Columbia, Walt and Mary. I joked then that I would be back in four years when my child graduated. I was!

Mammoth Spring

See how the water springs up out of nowhere?

My girls and I took the route Walt recommended down to Arkansas because he had suggested such outstanding local history sites during my last visit.

One of the highlights on the trip down was stopping just across the Arkansas border to see Mammoth Spring State Park with a beautiful natural spring. My girls had both loved their geology courses in college and so it was fun for them to see the water come pouring out of the ground there.

The beautiful Arkansas river trail

perfect for runners and walkers.

Eventually it will be 17 miles long.

Isn't it beautiful?

Blessed to share

American democratic heritage with my girls -

like my Mom and Dad did with me

The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library -
First Federal building certified by the
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) program

The next day we woke up bright and early to devote the day to the museum and library. I remember when the museum was first built, critics derided it for having the appearance of a 'double wide' mobile home. I snickered when I saw pictures of it on TV because it did sort of look like one.

Having been to it in person now, I consider that a cheap shot. President Clinton wanted the old historic railroad bridge, built in the 19th century, to represent the bridge to the 20th century. His library and museum, right next to it, represented his administration of America as a bridge to the 21st century. The metaphor works. Listening to him explain it on the audioguide, I was grateful for politicians who think in 100-year cycles rather than to the next quarter or election. Where can we find more of those?

There's that 100-year cycle again.

Diagonally across from the museum

is this magnificent old railroad station

where the University of Arkansas

Clinton School of Public Service

is housed.

Let's all say this gorgeous phrase together

from the building:

"The Choctaw Route."

Even more gorgeous,

the name of the passenger train

that did this route was:

"The Choctaw Rocket."

A glorious view of the Railroad Bridge

from "42,"

the elegant cafe in the library.

A pretend shiny dime to whomever can guess

why the cafe is named '42!'

Clinton's stump speech

What's not to like?

I was Bob Dole's Story County, Iowa campaign co-chair in one of his presidential campaigns. I admired Dole's wartime service to his country, his moderate Main Street Republican views, and his biting sense of humor. It was fun to host Elizabeth Dole for a coffee at my mother's home. That was when I was still a Republican.

Even though Gov. Bill Clinton beat Senator Dole in the presidential campaign, Bob Dole was later asked to give the Inaugural Lecture at the University of Arkansas Bill Clinton School of Public Service. I love that about American politics. I admire the stature of Bill Clinton inviting him to do so, and the equal virtue of Bob Dole accepting. As citizens, we should demand our politicians not polarize us and find the common ground.

It's easy to understand why librarians

would support Clinton.

He is a famous practitoner

of recreational reading

(reading for the fun of it).

The library showcased the books that influenced him.

One of them was "Creating a Nation of Readers."

A nation of readers can continually renew themselves.

I came around a corner

 and had my breath taken away

by this fine assemblage

of young American talent.

How can we not have hope for the future, America?

Their teacher told me they were the

"The Gentleman's Club,"

2nd and 3rd grade

from Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Norman Rockwell, did I

"do good" with this picture?

Look at those faces!

Two future leaders

thoughtfully take in

a reproduction of the Cabinet Meeting Room.

The pace of change can seem so slow in America that I forget how much things can change in one generation. Examples from the library include: it was during the Clinton Administration that gay people were first eligible for security clearances. The introduction and benediction to Clinton's inauguration seemed so overtly Christian. America would be much more inclusive now. There were photos from the Little Rock school desegregation episode that said, "race mixing is communism." Laughable. Everything seems to get labeled communism or socialism these days. This is a long tradition of over-the-top political rhetoric.

Three stellar staff members at the museum.

The lady on the right told me

that she was halfway through a PhD

but never graduated from high school

because she was a member of the senior class

of Central High School that lost their senior year

when the Governor chose to shut the high school down

rather than integrate.

 2,914 other seniors lost their senior year as well.

Zany gifts to the Presidential family

 are always a popular exhibit at these libraries.

Hillary Clinton and Socks...as a bench!

One of the things you could look up

 was the Presidential Daily Schedule

and see what the President did on any given day.

I looked up the days surrounding Vaclav Havel's State Visit.

The menu for the Czech Republic State Dinner

with President Vaclav Havel

The best description of this whole event is in

Hillary Clinton's book, "Entertaining at the White House."

While Presidents have to consider things on a level beyond the personal, one thing the Museum brings home is how the personal stories of those from foreign countries inform the President about their nations.

I know President Clinton knew far more culturally about the Czech Republic than necessary (given the 10 million population) simply because of his friendship with Vaclav Havel. Havel had taken President Clinton to the Reduta and even to Czech novelist Bohumil Rabal's favorite pub "The Golden Tiger." The pub keeps Clinton and Havel's picture on the wall.

Nelson Mandela gave the Clintons a personal tour of his prison cell at Robbins Island and described to them what it had been like there. Do Presidents still have the time to invest in that level of personal narrative in understanding a country? I hope so. The Robbins Island visit is detailed in the museum.

One thing I felt the Library and Museum couldn't do justice to was President Clinton's biggest success. His fiscal discipline resulted in the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history. That discipline unleashed a period of enormous creativity in American business. How do you exhibit fiscal restraint in a museum? Maybe the best exhibits of the output created during this time of fiscal restraint are out in the Computer History Museum in California!

President Clinton wanted his library

to echo the bones of

Trinity Library in Dublin.

My one disappointment with the library was the temporary exhibition space was devoted to promoting a corporation instead of hosting an exhibit that would teach us as citizens more about politics. I appreciate that the majority of the population loves sports, but what do the St. Louis Cardinals have to do with a presidential library? It seemed wierd that there were season ticket promotions as a sidebar to the Cardinals exhibit. Respectfully, our experience could have been that much richer with a political exhibit.

You might also like:

An Evening of Jazz at the Reduta

Entering the Land of Lincoln

What Inspires Stories?

The Springfield Race Riots of 1908

Sites outside my blog:

C-Span's coverage of Clinton's Presidential Library

William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library websitehttp://www.clintonlibrary.gov/

The perfect tribute to Václav Havel : the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent

The Goddess of Democracy
from Tiananmen Square
circa 1989

Václav Havel and the Czechs inspired my 'Empty Nest Expat' adventure. I knew people who could elect a playwright as President were different in a way I couldn't define than me and my countrymen. The Czech Republic seemed like such a delightfully highbrow non-warlike society. I wanted to learn all about the Czechs by moving overseas and seeing what they were like.

To this day, I'm inspired by Václav Havel. This week, I discovered that one of the most beautiful tributes has been created to honor what he did so well: creatively dissent from the State.

Havel, for years a dissident at odds with the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, led the challenge that eventually overthrew the regime, and consequently, he became the first President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.

Many credit Havel with the fact that both the Velvet Revolution resulting in the overthrow of Communism and the Velvet Divorce separating the Czechs and the Slovaks were violence-free.

The inaugural Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent will be awarded to Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Saudi women’s rights advocate Manal al-Sharif, and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

I am particularly delighted that Saudi citizen Manal al-Sharif has been recognized. At a time when human beings have walked on the Moon, it seems so strange that other human beings still aren't allowed to drive a car on a particular part of our planet just because of their gender.

Showing breathtaking courage and speaking plain common sense, Manal al-Sharif posted a samizdat video of herself on Youtube driving in Saudi Arabia while she described to the camera all the different reasons a woman needs to be able to drive to fulfill her different duties. The video was swiftly removed. I was one of the 600,000-1,000,000 people who got to see it before it was gone. Awed by her courage, I also thought her reasoning was undeniable.

Manal al-Sharif is an internet security consultant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia working for Aramco. I predict someday she'll have her own statue in her nation.

These three Havel Prize laureates will receive an artist’s representation of the “Goddess of Democracy,” the iconic statue erected by Chinese student leaders during the Tiananmen Square protests of June, 1989.

To learn more about the prize, here is the web page.

To see additional posts about Václav Havel

The Start of a Week in Provence

My college friend of 35 years, Robin, called me from her home in Provence, France and said, "when are you coming to visit? Don't you have the time now? You simply must come." I begged off because I was hard at work learning Turkish and working on other projects. What is a girl to do, though, when your friend tries to call you three times in one day and says, "come!"  I had no choice. So off I went.

 I help out a representation of "The Kitchen Maid"

a famous Dutch masterpiece by

Johannes Vermeer (painted 1658)

There isn't a very direct way to get from Provence from Istanbul.  I flew first to Amsterdam, where I was able to experience an hours worth of my Dutch heritage.  In the very nice Amsterdam airport, there is a small gallery of paintings from the Rijksmuseum, the famous Dutch Art Museum full of Van Goghs.

Isn't that a fabulous idea - to have an art gallery in an airport? To share the very best of one's culture with people who are stuck in an building with no place to go?  I'm surprised there aren't similar art galleries in airports all over the world. Good job, Dutch people, you made me proud. And you made me want to come back.

From Amsterdam, I then flew to Marseilles.  It was an utterly gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky.  Southern France has the soft, balmy Southern California-type weather only without the pollution.  When the plane flew out over the Mediterranean and the Southern France coastline of majestic rocky fjords, it was simply breathtaking to take in the coastline, the sea, the sailboats and yachts, and the sun-washed city of Marseilles. I had no idea there was such a pretty, craggy coastline to Southern France.

I knew Robin would not be there right away to pick me up, having never once arrived on time to get me at any airport in the world. There is a comfort in knowing someone so well. I knew eventually she would show up and I would no longer have to loiter around the lobby, sneaking peaks at the amazing weather outside.

Robin and her husband live in Singapore now full-time where Robin has started a new job as a Senior International Government Affairs Advisor for a large oil company.  She has her hands full between her new executive position, two daughters, and her husband's health care. Robin's husband has been recovering the last couple years from the surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy involved with having a brain tumor.

While my friend Robin employs a terrific Filipino man to help her physically care for her 6'4" husband, I wanted to give my dear friend lots of love and appreciation and make sure someone was taking care of her. We had last seen each other in Prague when she came to visit for some serious girlfriend time and I dragged her to the Museum of Communism rather than letting her see the art she wanted to see (hey, she worked for the State Department then, I was doing my duty as an American citizen).

La Mourrade

Eventually, my beloved friend came to the airport and we packed ourselves off for the trip to Provence and her fairy wonderland home "La Mourrade."  Robin and Jim rent their home out much of the summer, when they do get to spend time there, they practically cry leaving the place, life is so beautiful there.

 My bedroom window

Overlooking the terrace, the Lubéron,

and the spectacular mountain painted by Cézanne,

Mt. Sainte-Victoire

Along with their spectacularly-sited La Mourrade provencal home, this is the beautiful lunch Robin had prepared that greeted me upon arrival:

 Oysters on the Half Shell

Al Fresco

A fresh, healthy Provençal salad

 Grilled Sardines Stuffed With Lemon

A life-long friend

is a blessing.

I am truly grateful for

my friend Robin.

Lemon sorbet

with Black Currants

and Cassis

and a sprig of homegrown mint

A beautiful cappuccino to end the meal

Later that night, while enjoying champagne poolside, Robin asked, "Now aren't you glad you came to Provence?" Yes, I was.  It was the start of an amazing week.

 

Poolside at La Mourrade

Checking Out the History of Dissidents: New Vaclav Havel Library to Open in 2013

A Force for Good

Vaclav Havel

Modeled after the American Presidential Libraries, the new Vaclav Havel Library will be a repository for Vaclav Havel's published works and unpublished papers. Unlike Presidential Libraries, this Library will carry the samizdat of years of repression and the official papers of years of expression.  The unique gathering of that collection makes for an interesting juxtaposition and the final triumph of Prague dissident voices from repression - to rule  - to Presidential level archives. It's a fairy tale, really.  A political fairy tale.

Click on my title to read more about the project.

This Blog is Censored in Turkey

Tap, tap, tap. Is this thing on? I'm not sure. Because I can't physically see my blog.  You'll have to tell me if you can.  I'm physically prevented from seeing what I write here so I hope you can read it. I just now figured out how to get a post on my blog through a blogging "back door."

I haven't posted in over a month.  That hasn't happened in the three years I've been writing this blog because there has been so much I've wanted to share in my traveling adventure.

As many of you know, I moved to Istanbul, Turkey last summer and have thoroughly enjoyed myself here.  I'm a bit behind in blogging about my adventures because well, a move is disruptive, and time-consuming. Turkey itself is a fantastically-interesting country with incredible history and beauty. I can't wait to tell you about it!

Right now, however, my blog and any other bloggers using Google's Blogspot domain are being censored in Turkey.  The story printed in the papers was that one person was illegally streaming football matches over his blog and a judge ordered not just his blog shut down, but the entire domain! Blogspot gets 18 million hits a month in this country alone. I sincerely hope you aren't a Turkish person trying to run a business on your blog cause you've been out of luck for over a month now.  I can't even imagine how frustrating that would be!

Now I'm American so I don't know much about football.  I've watched one game in my life, the final of the World Cup, and it was enough to convince me that I don't need to know too much more about football.  Yawn! Geez, it's slow.  But a game is over in one afternoon, right? I have no idea why this censorship continues. One of my American friends said, "well, maybe that guy wasn't streaming a football game, but a cricket match.  Those go on for weeks, right?" 

So here we bloggers sit.  Still censored.  Maybe it's because I'm a librarian and we librarians are constantly making sure the public has access to banned books.  Maybe it's because I spent so much time in formerly-Communist Prague and I find the idea of repressed society unable to express their opinions so compelling and worthy of my advocacy.

The effect of this banning was annoying at first, but now it's starting to feed my ego. I never would have thought to put "being censored" on my bucket list, but hey, now I can cross it off the list as "done! Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt"  What could we all have to say that merits this silence? Why, I do believe my blog is samizdat (the Russian name for literature that doesn't have the official seal of approval so it has to be self-published)! How wonderfully romantic. The librarian in my loves the idea of "Banned in the 'Bul!" Somebody ought to make T-shirts and sell them.

Another thing the librarian in me is giggling at: I'm not the one doing the shushing here!

WWII was worse for Central Europe than even our histories and memories tell us

Sometimes reading about the evil of the Holocaust it seems so over-the-top that it's all one can do to take in the enormity of all of the killing and dehumanizing that went on in the concentration camps.  Try to imagine this though, it's even worse than everyone thought.

Anne Applebaum, writing in the New York Review of Books, in an essay called "The Worst of the Madness" says that the camps may be the predominant preserved historical artifact of carnage. but much worse carnage occurred elsewhere, for example, in the killing fields of Central Europe. Those killings are less likely to be officially commemorated, remembered, or written about [probably because there is nothing to look at like photos or an actual camp].

Ms. Applebaum also argues that with two dictators, Hitler and Stalin, operating ruthlessly in the Central European theater, it accelerated and exacerbated the carnage of the other. The author argues that each side should expand their notion of guilt of what deaths they may have caused.

She says even the United States can't walk away from revising our notion of participation.  That we weren't involved in just a "Good War" as Americans like to think of it.  She suggests it was more morally ambiguous because Central Europe and the East were left to experience 45 years of totalitarianism.

I found that hard to take because I think Americans would have loved to liberate to the east of Pilsen, but deferred to the Soviets in thanks for their help.  It's true that we Americans would probably never imagine an entire region of the world getting walled off and it's inhabitants being treated like prisoners.  As an American of the next generation, reading about it all just increases my respect for all of those in Central Europe that coped, and perished, due to "The Worst of the Madness."

Thanks to David Brooks, opinion writer for the New York Times, for alerting me to this magazine essay.  He chose it as one of the best of 2010.

Heda Kovaly, Czech Who Wrote of Totalitarianism, Is Dead at 91

People of a certain age in the Czech Republic have had the misfortune of experiencing the full blast of the worst of the 20th century.  The Czech Republic was occupied by the Nazis longer than any other country.  Quickly after the nightmare ended, years and years of gray totalitarianism started.

While I have not read this author, I can't help but read her obituary and be impressed by her dignity, her humanity, and her sheer ability to survive.  Here's what the New York Times reviewer had to say about her book looking back on the worst of totalitarianism in Central Europe:

“This is an extraordinary memoir, so heartbreaking that I have reread it for months, unable to rise to the business of ‘reviewing’ less a book than a life repeatedly outraged by the worst totalitarians in Europe. Yet it is written with so much quiet respect for the minutiae of justice and truth that one does not know where and how to specify Heda Kovaly’s splendidness as a human being.”

Take a moment to click on my title and read about the life of Heda Kovaly, author of ''Under a Cruel Star.''

Safely in Sofia

Good morning from Sofia, Bulgaria! What a fantastic, comfortable, and easy bus trip that was. There was so much to look at.  It was the first time I was in Moravia, Czech Republic. I loved seeing all of this beautiful wine country.  The bus drove through Brno, and I remarked to my bus companion "wow, so many panalaks (Communist working housing that looks like an American housing project). It's too bad."  "I don't see them that way," she said. "to me, it's normal."

I had always heard that Bratislava was a Communist architecture monstrosity, but it didn't look so bad as we drove through it.  My Slovakian companion showed me the historic castle up on the bluff overlooking the Danube.  The Danube River was large, filled to the brim, and it looked worth singing about. The bridges in Bratislava were beautifully designed and quite striking.

From Bratislava, we drove on toward Budapest. I loved seeing this crazy Hungarian language on all of the road signs.  In both Slovakia and Hungary, it looked like the topsoil had been eroded away (Iowans care deeply about such things - we're topsoil proud).  Hungary had beautiful wildflowers, especially fields of wild red poppies.  I wonder if Frank Baum, the man who wrote "The Wizard of Oz" had been to Hungary.  Remember when Dorothy falls asleep in the field of poppies? I don't think buses go through the pretty parts of a city because I didn't see any historical parts of Budapest, only globalized McDonald's drive-thrus and Aldis. Not so compelling.

A friend of a friend was on the bus and she prepared me that we would have to sit for a long time on the Serbian border because it wasn't a part of the EU. I'm glad she had told me this because it took a good hour.
Most of our journey through Serbia was in the dark.  My only real outside contact with anything Serbian was going into two globalized large convenience store/gas stations that could have been anywhere in the world. That hardly counts!

We arrived a half-hour early.  I chatted up three Bulgarians the whole way and they were so kind and helpful to me when we arrived in Sofia.  They helped me haul all of my luggage to the storage facility and translate with the staff there.  Truly, when I have an interaction like that, it makes me vow to look out for foreigners who need help when I'm also traveling.  These Bulgarian bus drivers were so nice and helpful too.  I was the only American on the bus. Now it's time to connect with my Sofia couchsurfing host.

Hiking the Sázava River in Central Bohemia

I had used Couchsurfing.org several times as I started my empty nest vagabonding adventure for accommodations, but it was while I was back in America, I discovered I wasn't utilizing all of the wonderful parts of the site. So  I joined several groups related to where I was living and took part in the events that people organized. What a wonderful way to meet fabulous people immediately in a new location. Each person had an adventure tale to share!

Now back in the Czech Republic, I joined the group on Couchsurfing dedicated to hiking Bohemia and signed up for a hiking adventure organized by a lovely young Muscovite studying for her Ph.D. in the Czech Republic. Natalie, or Tashka to use her Russian diminutive, had gone kayaking along the Sázava River in Central Bohemia the week before and wanted to hike the Posázavská stezka (trail along the Sázava River) this week.

We took a train about an hour south from Prague (24 km) to Kamenný Přívoz; Tashka knew all the tricks for booking at the lowest cost such as group discounts and buying the ticket from the last station out of Prague rather than from the center (a Prague metro pass covers everything in the city).  For our tickets, we spent 51 kc each (about $2.50 for a round trip) and the price would have gone down to 30 kc if were five.  Amazing value! Regular readers of the my blog know how in love I am with Czech trains.

The train followed the Vltava and the tributary we were heading to, the Sázava River, the whole way allowing us to enjoy the gorgeous, sparkling view from the window.  The one cultural difference I discovered on the train is that Czech dads don't make silly fake-scary sounds whenever the train went through dark tunnels thereby fake-embarrassing their families.  Pity.

Tashka,
my hiking companion

Just off the train in Kamenný Přívoz at the start of our hike
Our first view of the river is below.

We started our hike the way Czechs start their hikes:
with beer.  This Czech brew was new to me: Svijany.

We laughed: This house sign translates as
"Such a normal family" 

A relaxing view of the river rafters
from one of the many beautiful little cottages


One of the railway bridges our train used
to drop us off at Kamenný Přívoz


It was highly entertaining to watch the rafters and kayakers
decide what was the best way down the river


One of the many beautiful cottages along the river.
I love the humbleness of these cottages.
It's all about relaxing, not impressing the neighbors.


Most of these cottages had their own privy.


This cabin was under construction so you could
see their future river view through the back window.


Magificent, isn't it?
And the sound of the river was so refreshing.


This area was known for the cherished Czech tradition
known as "tramping." During Communist times, people would
come out to the forest for the weekend.  They could do and say
what they wished.  They built makeshift camps or slept on the ground.


Is your stress lessening just a little?
Any I had, melted away.


The view looking away from the river.
Peaceful, towering forest on the mountain of Melnik.


This cottage owner created his greeting for the rafters.
"Ahoj" is Czech for hello!


A sleeping platform or treehouse close to the water.


The trampers were in love with Wild West themes from America.
Often the camps were "cowboy" or "Indian."
We saw cabins with names like Oregon and Ogden.

Tramping is dying out with each ensuing year of capitalism.
I don't think the land is owned by the State anymore either.


A Czech cottage owner
getting his place ready for the season.


The sign says something like:
"Be patient hikers, in 280 steps you will find a restaurant."
 I liked Taska's subtitle for this photo best:
"It's impossible to die in the Czech forest."















Don't look now but we have an unexpected guest.
She maybe here for an old Czech tradition.
I don't know. I hope she's here just to delight us.

The wind catches her skirt.
Can't get enough of her, can you?
Ok, one more picture.
Look, she's drinking and flying.

How would you like to carry your groceries
up these steps?

"Drinkable water" was available at this spring
along the trail.

War memorials are everywhere in the Czech Republic.
On our 10 km hike we saw about eight different ones.
Notice that the little village we finished our hike in, Pikovice,
had lost what looks like three members of the same family
in the first World War.


This is the map Tashka used to plan our trip.
It shows all of the hiking and biking trails within that
white square of territory in the Czech Republic.

All of the trails are marked by volunteers
so you never have to worry about getting lost.


A last look at the Sázava River
as we cross over to the Pikovice train station.
This is where many of the kayakers
and rafters end their journey too.

Our train was perfect for this route.
Older and not the fanciest carriage in the fleet,
it welcomed wet kayakers, rafters, dogs,
tired and aching hikers, and bicyclists
who were in that back compartment
beyond the seats with their bikes.

On the trip back to Prague, we watched people
rollerblading along the river stoking ideas
of new adventures to be had.