On Sunday we set out to Plitvička Jezera (Plitvice Lakes). This was our main destination – the National Park of Croatia and, I would say, the most famous place of the country. And well, it’s fame is undoubtedly merited. To me this was the day with the best views from the whole Croatia trip.
We made the long tour round Plitvice on foot with the exception of traversing the lake with a ship. The green is ubiquitous, it’s kind of amazing how many shades of this colour we have seen.
After Plitvice Lakes we headed to Kuterevo. It’s a small village I read about in a travel guide. It’s situated almost at the end of everything – really lovely and isolated place. It’s a must see point if you are in the area. Why so? It’s the residence of abandoned bears found in National Parks of Croatia. That’s right – „bear orphanages” – they exist!
The place is special not only because of the prevailing cuteness of baby bears. It’s managed by the volunteers from all over the world – one might think it became a Bohemia place for contemporary youth. The uniqueness expresses itself almost at very step there – starting from the fact that when we reached the place we were welcomed and guided in a familiar atmosphere by a young Croatian girl, through the presence of totems, signs, monuments, installations all over the place done by teh volunteers and ending on the souvenir shop where one can buy hand-made goodies (done by the youth of course). It’s a very original place.
On our second day we decided to do something mild so that the drivers can recover from sleep deprivation and regain power. I have to say, it’s a bit ironic how the day really looked like, because it definitely wasn’t a mild one.
We decided to visit Zavratnica – the place where a sunken ship lies in the bay and can be visited with snorkels. We wanted to spend the day a bit active though, so we went for an option to getting there from Jablanac – a 4-km-route „for adventurers”. Well, of course we are adventurers!
But on the route it turned out that there is a path leading to a mysterious mountain called Alan. Noone was really prepared for that (we were all wearing sandals), but I managed to convince people to go and try climb Alan. Now I admit, it was silly.
On the route we got lost and found ourselves walking on the stone run. It was extreme, very dangerous but most of all fun. And the views were spectacular.
At last we found the route and decided to keep walking to Alan. We had lots of fun by that, shouting „Alan! Alan!” all the time just like the groundhog on a well known video by Animal Planet. The route was getting steeper and steeper, our water supplies were shrinking and let’s face it – sandals is not the best choice for going into rocky mountains. So somewhere in the middle we had to give in. That hurt my pride but don’t worry, I promised myself to come back and I did just two days after.
The views from the route and place we reached…
On our way back to Zavratnica we were really tired, our feet hurt but that was not the end of the surprises. We got to know why the route in the guide was described as „for adventurers”. In principle, there was a section where we had to slide down a steep stone river. Well, we ended up all fours desperately trying to reach the bottom. Dangerous but fun!
All the hardship was paid off though when we reached Zavratnica bay. First thing we did was to jump into water. Very refreshing.
We snorkelled down to the sunken ship, it was not very deep (we didn’t need any special equipment). That was pretty cool. There were fish of different kinds, sea anemones, rusted metal covered with seaweed. We did some photos with the underwater camera.
We spent the rest of the day exploring the underwater world, sunbathing and relaxing. On our way back to Jablanec we took even more lovely photos.
Longly awaited holidays came at last. This year’s destination: Croatia.
We started from Szczecin in the afternoon, splitted into two cars. The route was fine, it took us ~13 hours to get to the place. But boy, when we got there we made a stop just to absorb the beauty of the place.
This is the first image of the sea we saw before getting to the destination – after a long ride it was a decent reward for the pains of journey…
And this was the second image…
We arrived in the morning, so after settling in our accommodation place, taking showers and short naps, we set out to see Senj – the city we stayed in.
The city as such is rather small, so after a short walk around we headed to the main attraction – Nehaj hill where the Senj fortess is situated. The view from the massif was really spectacular, so although climbing up in such a hot weather was an effort, it was worth it.
The view on Nehaj…
The very first day on holidays always is like a shock to me. I find everything so spectacular, so fantastic, so marvellous… This was the case with Nehaj too. I could have stayed there for ages just to watch over the sea and mountains. But well, there were other beauty – places to discover so we went down to the city in the quest for finding a beverage to cool down. On our way we spotted even more quaint views of the place.
Our family and friends know the story how Radek went to a pilgrimage just for one day (to visit me on the route) and stayed till the end with only one pair of spare socks and briefs. Ach… good ol’ days!
Anyhow, it’s been 7 years since that memorable event and we decided to make a small tribute to that this year. We have no time and motivation to go on a full pilgrimage to Częstochowa, so we joined the group just for one day: Szczecin – Stargard (which is 27 km). A lot has changed in this time, but the pilgrimage spirit is definitely the same!
This year we were lucky or unlucky with the weather… It rained and it rained pretty heavily. OK, let’s face it – it rained cats and dogs! This is unlucky, because there is no worse thing than rain when you have to march. One gets soaked, demotivated, cold… But then you think: „I’m doing it for a reason, so it’s even better if it’s tough”. And in this sense it’s a positive thing.
Here are some photos from the day… We started as always at 7.00 o’clock with the mass in the sanctuary of Mother from Fatima. Then two groups formed and set out to Stargard -first through the housing estates, then through the forest. The first stop was after 10 km and this is when it started to rain.
Then we marched another ~10 km in the rain. Gosh, that was extreme. It took us twice as long to get to the lunch stop which was in Kobylanka. Fortunately, when we reached the village, it stopped raining. That was really good news because there is no sense in having pauses when it rains. In Kobylanka we had some time to change clothes to the dry ones and use the hospitality of the parishioners who prepared food and drinks.
Last leg of the route was Kobylanka – Stargard and came rather quick. All in all we did the distance of 27.02 km in a 6-hour-march (pauses excluded). Here is the route tracked by Endomondo application.
This year we are biking considerably more often than in the previous years and the biking marathon is a sign of this fact. I came across an advertisement of the venue on the local bike trip and decided to give it a try almost immediately. We encouraged our close friends to join us and so, the fun began.
Przyjezierze is a small town 80 km from Szczecin. We set off early, with four bikes on our indefatigable Fiat Punto (this car has gone through so much with us). It was our first time in a race so everyone was a bit nervous. Especially guys, who like to compete.
We were one of the firsts at the registration desk so we had quite some time for us to prepare to the race. We were lucky, because the weather that day was perfect for a bike ride. Not too hot, no sign of rain. At first we made a short tour around the venue place. There was surprisngly a lot to see! The organizers made a good job.
At first we had a look at home made food by the farmer’s wives association. In the end… a biker needs some calories before the start (but not too much, so we all agreed that we will come back to the stalls after the race for a proper treat).
Then we had a look at the exhibition of cars – with Ferrari being the most popular. Wow, that really is a super looking car!
Then we moved on to see the show given by the bike jumpers (I don’t even know how they are profesionally called, but the animator said they were one of the best in Poland). This looked really cool and a bit dangerous. Respect!
When we finished the tour we still had some time before the start (which was planned at 15.00), so we decided to have a warm-up ride around the area. We followed the official trail of the contest for a while and then took an opposite turn to visit the Moryń lake. Poland is really beautiful.
We didn’t want to be too tired before the start so we came back quite fast, full of excitement while waiting at the „zero hour”. There were really a lot of pro bikers around us, so we felt a bit overwhelmed, yet full of hope and desire to have fun.
Some photos from the start…
From the route…
And from the finish…
That’s correct – my „finish” happened to occur in the middle of nowhere when my bike broke after an ominously looking (but fortunately victimless) accident. I was a bit disappointed not to finish the race but that’s OK, I had some lovely time walking my bike to the finishing line. Poland is really beautiful and I wouldn’t have taken these pictures if it hadn’t been for the accident. So in the end, there is always the good side of the coin. I’ll beat them the next year!
Radek came at a very good 35th place. He was the best from us and I think he was very proud of the result. All in all the race was very exhausting but real fun! We stayed for the award ceremony and got the medals ourselves. Nice souvenir. We will definitely come next year.
To give you a better understanding of how the event looked like here’s the video summary done by the organizers.
Although we had visited Prague just a month earlier, we were not disappointed by the revisit. We had a chance to have a different look on the city – to visit the places we had forgotten, to stroll around not so hecticly end to delight ourselves with the fantastic weather.
We stayed in a very nice hotel in the city centre with a pleasurable view on the roof tops of the city.
When Radek finished his affairs we had the whole afternoon to walk across the city again. Radek was happy because he could take all the photo shots once again with his new camera. We didn’t have any specific aim while walking, First we guided ourselves in the river direction. Beyond no doubt, it’s the prettiest place of the city.
Then we moved across the bridge to the other part of Prague (is it left or right? I’m so bad at directions! Anyway, we crossed the bridges to and fro so I’m unable to track our route with details). We passed by a park with some interesting pieces of arts, peeped over a photo session of the newly weds, waved to some tourists in the ship sailing below on the water, listened to an organgrinder (heh, that’s very old-school, but also very touristic). All of that done unhurriedly. It’s the sense of tranquility I liked the best about that day.
Then we continued walking but in a bit more organised manner. I wanted to see the places we hadn’t „checked” during our previous visit. This were the Prague’s synagoge (I wish more buildings were so colourful) and the museum of sex and erotics our friends recommended to us.
As the sun started to lower, we continued wandering aimlessly. We really were enchanted by this city and we will gladly return there for the third time.
We finished the day with a meal on the Strahov hill with a spectacular view on Prague and walked back to the car.
This month I had a marvellous occasion to travel on a business trip to Palma, Mallorca (how cool is that?). Well… What can I say? Everyone knows the song: Mallorca, join the generation, oh oh oh That’s Mallorca Mallorca, feel the good vibration, oh oh oh That’s Mallorca
For an Eskimo like me, coming from the North, Mallorca indeed is the place of never-ending happiness. I regret not taking better camera with me, the quality of my pictures is rather poor, but still, shows the charm.
The name of Palma (the capital city of Mallorca) is pretty obvious for Poles (palma in polish is a palm tree)…
The organizers of the conference really made a good job and took us to a trip outside Palma, to see the outskirts attractions like a village of Valldemossa (where Fryderyk Chopin, a polish composer spent part of his life with his lover George Sand).
When the guided tour in Valldemossa was finished, we were taken back to Palma, to Bellver Castle (the first round castle in Europe) for a banquet (and more sightseeing).
The castle (as castles tend to be) is situated on the hill, so we had a really good glimpse on Palma in the sunset and then at night.
We decided to see two more things on our way back home. We were quite tired of the tourist approach we have followed for the past few days, so we made it rather quick.
First we passed by yet another hrad – Konopiště. Nothing special, i believe it must be more beautiful in the season. But we saw the peacocks – that was fun, they approached people really close.
After having a walk in the nearby park / forest we set off to Kutná Hora – a place that was recommended to us by our colleagues we had met earlier. We didn’t see the city, we went directly into the Sedlec ossuary which is estimated to contain the bones of between 40,000 and 70,000 people. The chapel is really breathtaking. It’s rather small and gives a goose pimp to everyone. I wouldn’t like to stay there alone in the dark, really scary, but not only. It’s somehow a spiritual place, making you think about life and death. Definitely worth seeing.
On the next day of our journey we decided we had seen enough of Prague and it was time to move into the neighbourhood. And so we had a trip under the auspices of „České hrady” meaning Czech castles. Boy, there are so plenty of them! We decided to have a look at two that day.
First one was Křivoklát.
The castle inside was nothing special (we had had a bit enough of old architecture and tourist sightseeing) and we decided not to wait for a guided tour and to have a walk around instead. This was a good idea. Who would have thought that on long May weekend it can be so hot? It was better to profit from the sun rather than stay in the medieval walls.
We chose one of the paths, it took as an hour and something to complete it and gave us good opportunity to watch the castle from different angles and perspectives. We also came across a children’s playground which made me particularly happy.
The next Hrad we visited was Karlštejn. Unfortunately, we were caught by rain so we didn’t take many pictures of it so you have to believe me it was adorable too.
