After my experience in the Vienna Woods I hoped that the Czech Republic walking trails were going to be better marked, and luckily they were because my Czech is worse than my German. I tried out my Czech pronounciation of 'thank you' on Nada, the lady who was doing the handover (of maps, GPS, written instructions and programmed mobile phone) and after five attempts she said it would be better if I stuck to smiling and polite getures! I think I must have been saying something quite rude with my dreadful rendition.

So, laden with information (but no luggage as this was being transferrred to the hotel for me), I set off on a 12 km walk that was flat but filled with interesting land marks such as a Triumphal Arch right in the middle of the forest (think L'Arc de Triomphe). I only wondered whether I was on the right track about 32 times but, as there was no one to ask, I figured I would just be confident that I was heading in the right direction - luckily I was. I ended the day at a World Heritage Listed castle and walked another 4kms through the gardens before being picked up and taken to an amazing hotel right in the middle of a square of a medieval village.

The next four days of walking took me to some of the prettiest European countryside I have ever seen. (I stress the European because it can in no way be compared to the very different and unique Australian landscape.) I admired castles that commanded hill tops and overshadowed surrounding villages, protected biospheres of natural woods and forests, fields of green and yellow flowering crops and medieval villages. One walk took me into a river valley where the track narrowed to one person wide at a point called Smugglers path - this was where people smuggled contraband and sometimes people when Czechoslovakia was formed after World War One. It was on the Austrian-Czech border so was heavily manned by the Czech Army during the period of Czechoslovakia being under the influence of the Soviet Union. It was such a pretty and high pass, overlooking a meandering river and the occasional springing deer, that my camera almost overheated.

Above

Picture 1: Pavalava Hills

Picture 2: Hardegg

Picture 3: Vranov nad Dijk Castle

Picture 4: Smugglers Pass