Week-end in the Mountains at Špindlerův Mlýn

Each time someone asked us where we were heading for the week-end, I had to mumble and fumble the name of "shplindlerlunmlyndler"..... because I could not for the life of me remember the name of this town - and obviously I got very confused looks from people who obviously thought I was completely mad. Ok, so in case you are wondering, the village is called "Shpeendleroov Mleen".

It is in the "Giant Mountains", which border the Czech Republic with Poland. It is totally a ski village, with every kind of winter sports catered for (and it makes do in the Summer with hikers and mountain bikers, but it definitely thrives on the Winter season)

Our accommodation was a few kms outside of the main village, and it was the hotel at the very end of the road, where the road disintegrated into a mountain trail.

We took the girls' bicycles with us as we were hoping that they could amuse themselves while we got an hour or 2 to relax on the veranda, sipping PU, while reading our books.

But one thing that we had completely oversighted, was the fact that even while the girls are amusing themselves on their bicycles, your direct involvement and ever presence, always watching, (and in Sarah's case) constantly holding and pushing is required without ceasing, so there was actually never really any non-parenting time on the week-end.

The weather was very cold and drizzly, which hampered "outdoorsing" to a large extent, but we made up for it with good hot pizzas in the local village (while sipping PU's) in the comfort of a central heated restaurant, while the girls coloured pictures.

After the torrential downpour eased, we took a short walk through the local village. It is an incredibly picturesque village, nestled in the valley of the mountains.

On Saturday evening, we ventured into the mountains to explore the paths behind our hotel and found ourselves escaping into the complete solitude of fresh mountain air with the noise of rushing streams. There were a lot of hikers about (they call it "Nordic Walking" here and are kitted with special rubber footed ski poles and the works) - one group came passed us and on asking us for the distance to the village, we found out that they had walked over 30ks that day over the peak from god-knows-where.



The whole area is really stunning and on the way home I couldn't resist taking some shots of the passing lakes.

Well, I must admit, that I could have spent the whole week-end hiking (or "Nordic Walking") over those mountains, but I guess that will have to wait a couple more years yet...

p.s. On the Monday after we left, it started to snow on the peaks! OMG! Winter comes early in Europe!