Another week has flown by! It has been so rainy and cold; probably the coldest May since we’ve been here. We are still wearing coats when we leave the house. Ryan had his last baseball game of the season Wednesday night in between thunderstorms. I feel so bad that over half his season was cancelled due to weather. Ryan’s fine though and tells us “I’m just happy I get to play!”
I spent the earlier part of the week continuing to recover from my eye surgery. On Monday, I was still having a lot of discomfort, so I needed another day off. By the afternoon, though, I felt like I had crossed a bridge in managing the pain. And after doing an eye rinse, I noticed I could see so much better out of the left eye! It still wasn’t clear, but the swelling was going down enough that I could see enough to get around.
On Tuesday, I did make it to work for a half day before needing to take the afternoon off. I can’t believe how quickly my eyes get sore from looking at screens or driving!
Thursday, I finally had the bandage taken off. My vision continued to improve each day but plateaued by the week’s end. The doctor said my eye looked great but wouldn’t improve much more. I am still going to need one more surgery, the no-touch laser, this time to perfect the vision. This probably won’t happen until the end of the summer, but I’m happy with the prognosis for now. Before, I could not read anything with my left eye, even if it was held right up to my face due to the haze. It’s been such a relief to at least be able to hold things close and see them again! I also saw some double vision when looking at things in the distance, which has been resolved for now, so overall, I am thrilled with how things went.
Brooklyn and her softball team left on Wednesday morning for the European championships. They came out third overall, an improvement over not even placing last year. And it was a great season; the final record before the championships was 12-2. The only team they lost to was the team that ended up winning the tournament.
After Brooklyn got home on Friday, we quickly packed up and got on the road for our Memorial Day Weekend getaway. Since we only had three full days, we decided to go on a driving trip instead of flying. We went to Český Krumlov in southern Bohemia, the western part of the Czech Republic. Český Krumlov is a medieval city located in a sharp bend of the Vltava River. The entire city center is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site and is almost entirely intact. The destination seems random, but when we first moved to Germany, I attended two “get-to-know you” gatherings where every person had to share their favorite places they had visited. At both, two different people mentioned Český Krumlov, which I hadn’t even heard of before, so I made a mental note and have been trying to find the right weekend to visit ever since.
The drive took about five hours, and we arrived after 10 p.m. The city and its ramparts were all lit up at night, and it was really pretty to wander the small streets to our Airbnb.
The next morning, after our late arrival, we allowed ourselves a little sleep-in before getting up and going to find brunch. It started out as a beautiful day, and we could see the beautiful and charming city in full daylight—so pretty! We had a delicious brunch at a restaurant called Kolectiv, where I had my first Eggs Benedict in forever—so good! Then, we went on a walk around the Old Town before visiting the castle.
We explored the town center and visited St. Vitus church before heading to the castle. After that, we hiked up to a high viewpoint near the castle theater, enjoyed the beautiful scenery, and took lots of photos.
We wanted to walk across the Cloak Bridge, which connects the ramparts to the castle and crosses the pedestrian street below. Google Maps told me I needed to walk to the other side of the city to enter the main castle complex. So, we hiked down, made the ten-minute walk over to the other side, and then climbed back up the ridge to the gates.
Once there, we could not enter The Cloak Bridge and Google now told me I needed to walk back over to relatively, where we were before. We walked ten minutes back through town and then hiked back up to the viewpoint where we started. There, was the entrance to the Cloak Bridge! How we missed it, I do not know. I mean, it was RIGHT THERE and not hidden at all. We crossed the Cloak Bridge, enjoying the views and getting more pictures. As we re-entered the castle from the Cloak Bridge side, it started to pour rain, and then hail. We took cover for about 15 minutes until it let up enough for us to run back to the apartment. Once we were there, we decided to take a short nap until the weather forecast looked better, later.
We woke up around 3 pm and decided to visit a Mirror Labyrinth that we had seen earlier and that the kids had wanted to explore. We had a great time navigating through two mirror mazes and then spent some time in the “Funny Mirror Room.” After that, we had a late lunch/early dinner at an Italian restaurant.
Our main goal for Český Krumlov was to take a ride down the Vltava River on one of their traditional wooden rafts. We stopped by a boat shop and arranged a tour for the next morning as the weather forecast was showing more rain for that evening. Then, we headed back to the apartment for a nap. Yes, another one! We were all exhausted from work, school, eye surgeries, and softball tournaments the previous week.
Matt and I woke up around 9 pm and went to Cikanska Jizba, a small gypsy pub with just enough space for a small bar and seating for about twenty people at tiny tables. There’s a live gypsy band that plays every night, and the show is really popular. The music and crowds spill out from the tiny venue into the streets outside. We could hear the music the night before when we arrived and were excited to check it out. Luckily, we found two seats in the restaurant and enjoyed a couple of beers while we listened to the lively music.
On Sunday, we slept in again. When we got up, we were thankful that even though it was cloudy, the rain was holding off. We packed the apartment and loaded the car before returning to the town square for a quick breakfast before walking to the boat launch.
We went on a raft ride with about 10 other people. First, our guides paddled us up the Vltava River and shared the history of Český Krumlov, the river, and its clean-up efforts after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We saw some beautiful parkland, as well as riverside houses and hotels. Thankfully for our guides, who worked hard to paddle us upstream, we turned around after about 15 minutes and began our float back down the river. We floated completely around the steep turn in the Vltava River, with our guides navigating the two sections of rapids.
After the boat ride, we went directly to the car and set off for our next destination, Pullman City in Bavaria, Germany. The journey took about two hours, and we arrived just in time for hotel check-in. As we pulled into the parking lot and entered the park, we noticed several people hauling camping gear and sleeping bags. I started panicking because I couldn’t remember what kind of accommodation I had booked. Sure enough, I had booked a ‘rustic’ cabin. Luckily, everyone found it pretty funny! We were relieved to find that bedding and towels were provided. However, we realized that we would be without electricity and a bathroom overnight. After dumping our stuff, we scouted the bathrooms and found them to be just a one-minute walk away, super clean, and modern.
We took a very short nap and then headed to the main attraction, the “Greatest American History Show in Germany.” The 45-minute long show took the audience through all the “major” events in American History including the landing of the Jamestown Settlers, the Civil War, and the Gold Rush. We loved how an one important part of American History, was the German, Levi Strauss, coming to America to bring Levi dungarees to the gold miners. 😂
After the show, we wandered around the park. The park was pretty big, but we found it would be more accurate to call the place a “themed campground.” The Main Street area was pretty small and there was a large area where there wasn’t anything except lots of fest tables and benches set up.
We headed to the “Western Alehouse” for dinner and also for their American Country music cover band. We were some of the earlier people to come for dinner and a park employee told us how the restaurant was brand new. The original, and most of Main Street had burned down in a fire earlier in the year! No wonder that area seemed so sparse!
After dinner, the kids went and panned for gold in the water park area and Matt and I stayed and listened to the country music cover band, ‘Travis Truitt,’ at the Alehouse.
When we made our way back to the cabin, we found Ryan had built us a fire to sit outside and enjoy.
On Monday, we woke up with Matt yelling that we had overslept- haha! Everyone had forgotten to set an alarm and even with all the noise of the campsite, we had somehow managed to sleep until 10:30. Check-out was supposed to be at 10am! We threw all of our stuff into bags and luckily, they didn’t charge us any extra for the late check-out!
Before setting off for home, we made a stop in the city of Passau in search of food. Passau is on the Austrian border and known as being the “City of Three Rivers,” as the rivers Inns, Ilz, and Danube all converge at this point. Our first stop was the center of town for some food. The kids found a Nordsee (of course) and had fried shrimp baskets for breakfast. Once they were fed and happy, Matt chose a restaurant because he wanted a curry wurst and they also had pizza for me. Sadly, they were out of curry wurst, and it was also one of the worst pizzas I’ve ever had- lol! But, we did at least get really good coffees from there.
After lunch, we headed to a park on the point of Passau called Ortspitze. Interestingly, the rivers are all different colors; the Inns is blue-green as it starts in the Alps and has a mostly rocky riverbed, the Danube if blue-brown due to its silty riverbed and the Ilz is black since it has a clay base. At the point where they converge, you can clearly see the water from the three rivers meeting, and really trying not to mix. The Danube, as it is called henceforth after the convergence, remains striped with the different colors for many miles downstream as the force of the water from the three rivers is so strong.
Even more interesting for the kids, there was a playground with a zip line, which is their favorite. We all took turns before it was time to head home!
Gilcrests Abroad 