Sumava - The Sound of the Forest

I have been listening to a delightful radio programme on the BBC called Susurrations of Trees - susurration is the English word for the sound trees make. The programme does not just explore the sound made by different trees, but also the different words we have for those sounds - psithurism for example is the sound of the wind in the trees. Of course the Czechs also have a word for it, but they go one step further their largest forest is called the psithurism - The Sumava (pronounced shoomava). My home is on the edge of it; the little town where I catch the bus is called Horice na Sumava. 

The Sumava extends over the border with Germany, where it becomes the Bayerischer Wald ( the more mundane Bavarian Forest). This huge forest is the most extensive (over 54,000 hectares) in central Europe and has the nickname the Green Roof of Europe or sometimes the Green Lung of Europe. And I love it.

I have spoken in earlier posts of the importance of forests to the Czechs, that it has a role in the Czech mind that is equivalent to the sea to the British. Sometimes when I walk in the forest and a wind gets up I feel this connection strongly. The psithurism of the trees is so like the sound of waves that I could close my eyes and I think myself back on a British shore.

Walking the Bear Trail

I have been meaning to blog about walking the oldest nature trail in the Czech Republic for some time now. I actually walked the trail a year ago, but never got round to blog about it. 

The Bear Trail (Medvedi Stezka) gets its name from a stone three quarters of the way along the trail, which marks where the last brown bear in the country was shot in the 19^th century. Now the only bear you will come across is on the signsposts and information boards for the trail, which feature a bear on a yellow and black background. 

Set in the spectacular scenery of the Sumava National Park. the trail links the two former lumberjack settlements of Ovesna and Cerny Kriz, both are on the train line from Cesky Krumlov. Although the trail is only 8.7 miles long, you should allow a day for the walk, as you will need to coincide your walk with the train timetable and you will want to stop for a drink and food at Jezerni Vrch.

Cow Head Rock

The first section of the walk between Ovesna and Jezerni is probably the most spectacular, as you climb the forested slopes of Mt Pernik - the trail rises from 736m above sea level to 1037m before dropping down to Jezerni. Walking in the forest can be a bit tedious, but not so on the Bear Trail, because all the way up are a number of rock formations with descriptive names: including Pernikova Skala (Gingerbread Rocks), Goticky Portal (Gothic door), Hrib (Mushroom), Obri Kostky (Giant's Dice), Draci tlama (Dragon's Mouth) and Soutezka lapku (The Highwaymen's Gorge). In places the forest parts to afford spectacular views across the river valley to the ancient forested hill of Boubin.

At Jezerni Vrch you will find the Schwarzenberg Wood Canal and places to eat and drink. After refreshments you continue along the trail past the Bear Stone and on to Cerny Kriz and the train back home.

Crossing the Iron Curtain

My Czech house is only a few miles from where the Iron Curtain used to be. After the collapse of communism the Czechs tore down this symbol and means of their oppression. The minefields were cleared, the watchtowers and the multiple barbed wire fences were torn down. So there is very little left for the interested visitor to see. 

Of course if you're looking, you will occasionally come across remnants: rusty iron hedgehogs from which barbwire would have been hung, concrete anti-tank barriers and the ruins of houses which were cleared to create the no-go zone several kilometres deep which ran the length of the frontier. Having understandably wanted to clear away these painful memories, the Czechs now find that a new generation has grown up, which has no memory of the past and to whom the story of a dark time in the nation's history needs to be told. Visitors also ask to visit the historical remains of the Cold War. 

One of the best places to visit is Bucina in the Sumava. It's a strange haunted place on the German border. You cannot access it by car as the area is still protected. Instead you approach by one of the minibuses from nearby Kvilda or on foot or bike. If you want to come by coach you have to arrange to pick up a permit. Even the process of doing that reminds you of a scene in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. Clutching a numerical code on a piece of paper, you search a derelict building before finding a hidden wallsafe. You tap in the code, the safe door opens and you take the pass within. 

There is virtually nothing left of Bucina, the village houses and church were torn down to remove hiding places for those trying to cross the curtain. In among the grass and wildflowers low ruined walls and farmhouse floors are just visible. In the grounds of the one building there (a newly built hotel looking across the Sumava towards the Alps) you will find a reconstructed segment of the Iron Curtain together with information panels. 

A track takes you past the ruins of Bucina and over a small stream via a small wooden bridge. A board announces that you have just entered Germany. In a matter of minutes you have done what hundreds of Czechs died attempting to do.

Views

One of the things I miss in the Czech Republic is the British habit of placing laybys at viewpoints. There are many places where I would love to stop the car and take a photo or at least not risk driving the car into an oncoming lorry because I was too busy looking at the wonderful view. But that is not to say that the Czechs do not love views or indeed have their own approach to appreciating them.

All across the Republic you will find lookout towers - not for sighting approaching foes or shooting deer (although there are deer hunting towers everywhere) but for admiring the view. One of the best is on top of Libin Hill near Prachatice. I took a taxi to the carpark and then climbed the two kilometres to the summit, paid my 10 crown entrance fee and climbed the 120 steps to the top of the tower. And what a view there was to be had from it - a 360 degree survey of the Sumava Forest, Budejovice plain and even beyond to Germany and Austria. Here are some of the photos I took there.

Then I descended both the tower and the hill, taking the medieval saltway the Golden Trail back to the ancient town of Prachatice.

What a difference a ten days make.

The day after I drove back to the Czech Republic from England I did what I always do on my return and went for a walk in the forest above the house. I went of course with mushroom basket in hand. I returned with it full of giant chanterelles - as you can see from the picture above. I had two meals of these treasures and froze enough for probably six more. I duly made a mental note to go back this week.

So it was that a Czech friend and I arrived in the forest this afternoon, but despite nearly two hours walking we found only small and sometimes dessicated mushrooms. This seems just weird to me as we have had several days' worth of rain in the village in the intervening time. Maybe our weird microclimate meant that the forest above us did not receive any rain. Mind you I'm not complaining I still have enough for a couple of meals and there's only limited space in the freezer compartment (which is full of wild strawberries, cherries and now chanterelles).

One point of note is that this wet and for the Czechs mild summer has had an interesting impact. The Prague News is announcing that as a consequence the famous bark beetle is dying off. It seems the environmentalists were right - nature is taking its course and intervening to restore balance and the Sumava authorities' drastic logging actions may not have been necessary afterall.

Sumava Logging

Regular readers of this blog will know my views about the danger of the Sumava National Park's response to the problem of bark beetles. No one is underestimating the damage to the forest of the beetle. I have seen areas full of dead trees, but I do not believe that the wholesale clearance of trees which the Park authority proposes is an appropriate response.

Nor am I the only one. Five days ago a group of environmentalists (Czech Friends of the Earth) moved into an protected nature reserve which was under threat. In their press release they state:

The head of the National Park Šumava Jan Strasky launched a massive felling hundreds of trees in a unique mountain forest around Bird Creek on Modrava. Large-scale use of chainsaws is however in stark contradiction with the law. Friends of the Earth, while the park management has repeatedly pointed out that the felling without permission is illegal, but without result,. Sumava lovers from different places of the Republic, therefore, from this morning trying to prevent illegal logging on the spot. Friends of the Earth also serves initiative of the Czech Environmental Inspectorate, to stop the devastation of the park.

So far there has been a stand-off between the protestors and the authorities. I'll keep you informed of developments.

Winter in the Sumava

This is a picture of my Czech home. It huddles under a hill called Liska Dira (Fox Hole) and is well-named given the number of foxes I hear and see in these winter months. It sits just outside of the Sumava natural landscape protected area, in the foothills of the Sumava Mountains and Forest.

The name Sumava comes from the sound leaves make in the wind - the whispering or russling forest. But at this time of year there is very little sound of whispering leaves, just that silence that comes with snow and maybe a "whoosh" as snow falls from the branches. Right now, I'm sitting in a friend's cottage which sits next to a frozen, snow-covered lake. In a few minutes I will put on my walking shoes and head off into the forest. I need to clear my head and fill my lungs with fresh Czech winter air. But first I am writing this for you.

Our local little train which I travelled on this morning was full of Czechs heading for the deeper snow and forests of the Sumava National Park. The Park is one of the Czech Republic's best kept secrets - forming with the neighbouring Bohmerwald the largest forest in Central Europe - "Europe's Green Lung." Only it's not very green now. On the slopes of the Sumava's mountains there are ski resorts - affordable ones - and through its forests, across its plains and along its lakes run hundreds of kilometres of landlaufing trails.

The sun is out, the snow is virginal and I'm heading for the hills.  

Update to Harvesting The Forest

Radio Prague has just reported:






Sumava National Park director resigns





The director of the Sumava National Park, Frantisek Krejci, has tendered his resignation to the Minister of the Environment, Pavel Drobil. A ministry spokesperson told the press that Mr Krejci had
resigned in order to facilitate the new conception for the park promoted by the ministry. Frantisek Krejci was appointed by the Green Party in 2007 when it controlled the environment ministry in order to fulfil a policy of non-intervention against the bark beetle infestation that has devastated parts of the forest. Environmental organisations say the resignation was forced by the new ministry, which want to take a head on approach to the problem.




As I said in the previous post a lot of people are very cynical about the Government, suggesting that it is using the bark beetle as an excuse to justify wholesale removal of trees in the forest. This news seems to confirm this.

Timber

Forestry is a major industry in the Czech Republic and timber a major export. If you are sitting on a train waiting, the chances are you are waiting for a freight train loaded with wood to pass. Worse, you could be driving along a road in the Sumava National Park when you meet a huge lorry, laden with logs, coming in the opposite direction at a speed totally unsuited to the width of the road.


In the old days the logs were transported by water for example by the Schwarzenberg Canal At an exhibition in the history of the Sumava that I visited at the South Bohemian Museum in Ceske Budejovice I saw a wonderful film on work of the woodsmen. The film showed all stages in the journey from forest to sawmill, including its transportation first on wooden sledges and then by river. On the last stage the woodsmen used iron hooks to bind the logs into rafts, that they then rode down to the sawmill. The photo above comes from a site about these timber rafts, you will find it here.

Collecting Berries

I was very amused this summer to see on the BBC's coverage one of the RHS garden shows (Chelsea or Hampton Court) an enthusiastic presenter singing praises of a berrypicker. "You can get it in the plastic version or a deluxe wooden version." The plastic pickers' prices began at about £8. At this point I nearly choked on my cup of tea. Goodness knows what a deluxe wood version costs!

My shock was because this wonderful new device has been on sale in Czech ironmongers for centuries. And you can bet they don't cost very much at all and they are made of wood. At the Museum of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice I saw a lovely film from the late 1940s of lorryloads of Czechs hitting the Sumava forest with buckets for the fruit and berrypickers. They were picking bilberries and cranberries. So my advice is if you want a deluxe berrypicker take a cheap flight to the Czech Republic, better still get several for presents for Christmas. You might get your money back and you get a great holiday as well.

Bark Beetles

I was disappointed to see, when I made my visit to the forest above our village, that there has been a lot of tree felling. Swathes of forest have been felled and some of my favourite spots for mushrooms disturbed in the process. Then I noticed these strange boxes on poles.

They are cause for concern, they are bark beetle traps. The bark beetle has been responsible for major damage in the Sumava National Park, sometimes called the Green Roof of Europe. Opinion is divided between those who wish to fell and dispose of infected trees and those who see the beetle's damage as part of a natural process. Direct action has happened with protesters literally hugging trees.

I am normally in the conservationists' side on issues such as this, but find myself in a quandary. I am sufficiently old to remember the destruction wrought by the dutch elm disease in Britain. I have a vivid memory of a fine line of old elms that stood on the top bank of a local field, one of which housed a rope down which the local boy scouts would slide. And I remember running and catching the leaves as the sick trees suddenly let them fall. For a few years the barren corpses of the elms stood until unsound they too fell. England lost a major natural feature, its elm trees, in a matter of months and they have not come back properly. All because of a bark beetle and the fungus that it carried. I would hate to watch the same happen here.

Finsterau Museum of Sumava Architecture

As I think I said a while back my husband and I have had fun behaving like tourists. As any one who, like us, is doing up a house will tell you, all your spare time is taken up by home improvements, so much so that one forgets what brought you to this country in the first place. So after three years of working on the home, we decided to spend a fortnight going to all those places we kept saying we would go to and never did.

One such place is the open-air museum in Finsterau just over the German border. Here we found a wonderful collection of farms and farm buildings (including a smithy, inn, woodworking workshop) drawn from the German part of the Sumava Forest (Bohmerische Wald). These are kitted out as they would have been in the earlier part of the last century. It is a fascinating museum and gives an insight into a way of life that was devastated by the sudden fall of the Iron Curtain, which split the Sumava in two and destroyed communities.

It of course had particular interest for us, as it gave us some idea about how our house and its outbuildings would have worked. There was not a house exactly like ours, perhaps partly because ours is entirely made of granite, while the majority of the Sumava houses are of timber. Of particular interest was to see the barns in working order and not covered with the debris of neglect as ours are. It gives us an idea that under the layer of earth and compacted manure are stone-floored stalls. We were also particularly interested to look in the cellars. Perhaps we too had a stone trough which held the spring water for use upstairs at one time. Then there were the design of the doors and their furniture etc.

We had lunch in the restored inn – a bowl of goulash soup eaten at a long table that we shared with a family of Germans. Interestingly the waitress, as with the man in the ticket office, did not speak English. We had rather assumed that they would. However, I thought, I have A level German I will understand. Not a bit of it, my German teacher was from Berlin, these people were from Bavaria, the accents were as different as say Glaswegian and Zumerset. The vowel sounds were transformed, something akin to being spoken by a cow.

A Walk Along the Schwarzenberg Canal

The Schwarzenberg Timber Canal is a source of some pride to the Czechs. They talk about the engineering prowess of its creator Josef Rosenauer in designing the canal to descend from the Sumava to the River Vlatava in the Czech Republic and the Muhl River (a tributary of the Danube) in Austria. This he achieved using the contours of the land, gravity and water from Plesny Lake and local streams to bring the timber gradually to their destinations, so gradually that at times when you are walking along it you hardly notice you are going downhill.. However Manchester Ship Canal it ain't, in fact it is not a canal for boats at all. Rather it is only about 4 metres wide and about 1 metre deep. I walked over it the first time I visited, before realising that this was the "great" Schwarzenberg Canal. And yet it certainly is quite a feat, with its granite lined walls, its shutes and the functionality of its design – it did its job very efficiently for over 100 years. As the Czechs would point out big isn't always best.

The Canal makes a popular walk for Czech families (the gradual slope makes pushchair handling easy) and cyclists. Yesterday I took advantage of the last day of the summer bus timetable to take a bus from Nova Pec (which I had gone to on the little train) to Jeleny Vrchy. The little village of Jeleny is the starting point for a number of excellent waymarked trails, of which the Canal one is the easiest. Grabbing a bottle of the superior Czech version of Coke – Kofola – I proceeded to walk down the blue-waymarked path back to Nova Pec via the canal bank. I recommend this walk as an easy-on-the-legs introduction to the Sumava forests. The slopes are covered primarily with fir, interspersed with silver birch, under which are mossy banks on many colours and the occasional large granite slab. Throughout the seasons you will see a range of flowers – the rare (and protected) Alpine snowbell, the more common violet, lupin (sometimes in huge swathes), bellflower, ragged robin and fireweed.

The canal whispered beside me as I walked, dyed brown by peat, whilst from time to time came the sound and glint of forest streams. Sometimes a vista would open up to show the wooded slopes of the Sumava or a lonely farmhouse. To enlighten the walk there were information boards every mile or two, in Czech with a German translation. These fortunately also had graphics which helped my rusty German and even worse Czech. They showed how the logs were transported, the canal built, about the animals of the forest, Plesny Lake, etc. Having had my fill of the canal and its environs I took another track, waymarked yellow, and descended through the forest a little more quickly. Now instead of the canal I had a stream to accompany me, that gushed among the moss-covered rocks, forming little pools and torrents, catching the light or descending into gloom.

I was reminded that I had read that it was here in the Sumava that the Czech otter population had survived in streams like this one. And in the forest the linx once more prowled after a successful reintroduction, though no such effort had yet been made for the lost animals of the Sumava - the wolf and the brown bear, both of which were hunted to extinction in the 19^th century. After a while the track flattened out and I found myself in the peaty stream valley that I had passed on the bus coming up . The trees opened up to reveal tall grasses and flowers, reeds and the occasional fir or birch.

The track crossed over the brook, which was brown and freckled in the sunshine. And I rejoined the road to Nova Pec. Even here I found much to delight me. Little lizards left their basking places on the tarmac and scuttled into the grass at the approaching thunder of my footfall. Dragonflies darted and the air was full of the sweet scent of pine resin. At last the huts and houses of Nova Pec lined the road, and I walked to the station and home.

The Landscape of South Bohemia

As I was driving our Czech visitors to Tesco's I asked them what they thought of the Cotswolds. The response surprised me - the landscape reminded them of South Bohemia. It hadn't occurred to me, that I had managed to buy a Czech property in an area similar to my British birthplace and home. But on reflection I can see why they might say that.

Certainly the area around their home town of Holubov is similarly hilly, although it is far more forested than the rather bare Cotswolds. Both areas are very beautiful. A first glance at the hills around our house (see above) could deceive one into thinking one is in a slightly wooded part of the Cotswolds - the area around Stroud perhaps. But look again at the photograph and you will see the foothills of the Sumava mountains rising behind the hills. These are the steep hills that ring Olsina lake, beyond that there are steeper summits. South Bohemia would indeed be like the Cotswolds, if the Cotswolds were next to the Lake District.

The Search for The House 2

That summer we looked at quite a number of chata (forest huts) which were on estate agents books. Most were pretty basic and in need of work, and quite rightly the prices were much influenced by the chata's situation - the Czechs put a premium on idyllic locations. The trouble with idyllic locations was that they are often very difficult to get to. One lovely little cottage we saw, with the most brilliant views of the Sumava, was an extreme example of this - it was up a winding and narrow gravel track, which eventually petered out at the brow of a hill. Rather than slide the hire car down across the grassy meadow we parked up and walked the remaining section. It was a wonderful location and the female owner was keen to point out ideally suited for mushroom picking, but the thought of negotiating the lane in the winter snow was too much for us English wimps.

Having exhausted the choice of chata to be found on the estate agent website, my friend started to use her network. The carpenter, who had been creating quirky furniture for her, took on the job of looking out for me. He found three properties - one was a derelict cottage by Lake Olsina, he wasn't sure who owned it but it was in a lovely setting. As I suspected it was owned by the Czech Army as it was in the Boletice miltary zone and so unavailable. The second he had heard of via the grapevine but couldn't find when we went out looking for it. And the third was a farmhouse on the edge of a small village near Horice na Sumave, opposite the home of one of his friends. The house looked enormous - this couldn't be it, I thought, it must be the cottage next door. He went up to the door but it was locked, the owner was not there. So convinced was I that it was the cottage next door, that I took a photo of it to send to my husband and then we went back to my friend's house. Our carpenter friend agreed to talk to the owner and arrange a visit.

That Sunday we were back. Duvets hung from the windows of the large house airing. Our carpenter friend rang the doorbell and the gate swung open and the owner came out beaming - I was wrong it was the big house that we were to view. We went in.

Stifter's Trail

On Sunday I decided to walk the Aldebert Stifter trail around the hills that circle Horni Plana. I had been meaning to do it for years, and never got round to it. The walk is only about 4.5 kilometres long and although there is a bit of a climb to get out of the town it is relatively easy going after that. It is a lovely walk and has some spectacular views.

Stifter is known as the poet of the Sumava and was born in the town. The path first takes you through the Stifter Park to a monument to the poet, from where the copper and bronze figure can look across Lake Lipno to the Sumava, crowned by Plechy the highest mountain in Czech Sumava. The trail then takes you around a natural amphitheatre with spectacular views including, if weather conditions allow, views of the Alps that form a blue shadow rising behind the darker green of the Sumava (as is in this photo). You pass Stifter's spruce and then further on Stifter's beech or rather you don't as in both cases all that remains are the stumps! And then descend in to the town again.

A Taste of Honey

A few days ago my friend and I spent a pleasant evening consuming a bottle of medovina. Medovina is honey wine - med being the Czech word for honey (a medved is a bear by the way). The golden liquid slips down beautifully, warming the heart and the stomach. It feels like you are drinking the warm sun of summer - which in a way you are.

In the summer a car journey through the Sumava will take you past houses fronted by roadside stalls, where you can buy jars of honey, medovina and other bee products. Sumava honey is particularly lovely - you can taste the forest in it or the flowers of the Alpine hay meadows. There are other Czech uses for honey - there is medovnik (the honey cake) which is a favourite of mine and my friend even told me that a local wisewoman cured her bad shoulder using a honey massage.

But at the end of a long hard day nothing can beat medovina and good company. Unlike some other alcoholic beverages medovnik does not depress, instead it mellows. You can almost feel the bees buzzing gently in your stomach.

Lake Lipno under ice

When I woke up the fog had cleared from the village, though it lay like a cotton duvet in the folds of the hills. It was cold and frosty, but the sun was already up and things were warming.

After lunch I drove over to Lake Lipno – the deep blue lake of the summer had turned polished steel. Slight white ridges running parallel to the shore looked like small waves but as I grew closer it was obvious that ice covered the lake's surface as far as the eye could see. Snow still lay compacted on the ground and the heights of the Sumava mountains were white. Gone were the windsurfers and catamarans of the summer (see my previous post Wot no sea). I had no business there and wanted to get on, but was glad I had come when I did, they are forecasting a thaw.

Wot No Sea!

Some of my English friends do not see how I could possibly buy a house in a country, which has no seaside, surely they say it would be better to buy in France or Spain, Croatia or Bulgaria. The British magazines about buying property abroad hardly mention the Czech Republic apart from references to buying in Prague or Brno. Again I think the assumption is that this landlocked country has little to appeal to us sea-loving Brits. Well they are wrong - there is water here, it just isn't salty.

A friend of mine came over for a long weekend with me a few weeks back. She had stayed with friends last year in Cesky Krumlov and loved it, so I decided to introduce her to the countryside around here. We took the little train from Horice Na Sumave station up to Lake Lipno. The ride is a complete joy and for only a couple of quid it is also a complete steal. It winds through the hills and wooded valleys behind our house, past unspoilt Lake Olsina in a natural bowl of mountains.

My friend could not help herself but kept exclaiming at the beauty of the scenery - "I had no idea that it was this beautiful," she said "No wonder you love living here." The train follows the shoreline of Lake Lipno with spectacular views of the Sumava beyond. This is the Czech equivalent of the Lake District, with the mountains covered with thick forests and snow in the winter. Lake Lipno is 48 kilometres long and up to 10 kilometres wide. The lake is the site of all sorts of activities you would normally find at the seaside - sailing, windsurfing, and kiteboarding, together with quieter activities such as fishing and swimming. But this inland "sea" offers more sports in the winter - skating, iceboarding and even ice skiing, whilst on the shore at Lipno there is a proper (land-based) ski resort.

My friend now plans to bring her teenage sons for a action-packed holiday at Lipno. As for me the very thought of all that activity leaves me exhausted. Give me instead a glass of Czech red wine on the veranda of a restaurant looking out over the lake, as the sun sets behind the Sumava mountains turning the still water surface from pink to silver to dark steel

Eating fish at Lake Lipno

On a couple of occasions recently we have gone to Lake Lipno to eat at the restaurants along the shore and look out across the lake as the sun sets. One of the things that really strikes you is how in contrast to Cesky Krumlov and even Ceske Budejovice this part of Czecho, only a few miles away, is not geared to the English-speaking tourist.

This is Dutch or German territory. The Dutch have arrived here in their droves – camping in tents and campervans at the various local campsites, or even buying up local properties. The reason I am told for the latter is that they are investing in a part of the world that is sufficiently high above sea level not to be threatened by global warming. Last night we were sitting around a fire in the garden of some Czech neighbours drinking pear schnapps and the subject got on to the Dutch. It would appear that they are not all together popular around here – the comment was made that you would never see Dutch people sitting by a fire with the Czechs. This is probably a problem more with the fact that the Dutch “colony” here is sufficiently large that it can keep to itself (as happens with the Brits elsewhere) than with the Dutch themselves.

Anyway back to the Lipno restaurants the menus were in Czech, German and sometimes Dutch and fortunately I speak enough German to get by and if that fails have a Czech phrasebook with a convenient menu section. The second restaurant we went to was a fish restaurant. Unlike fish restaurants at home Czech fish restaurants of course specialise in freshwater fish – especially the ubiquitous carp (which the Czechs eat for Christmas lunch by the way and which you buy from large tanks set up in town squares from November onwards). Our conversation with our waiter was not good, and he arrived with two portions of butter fried pike which we had not ordered and which was of course more expensive than the trout that we had. We could not work out if he was pulling a fast one, or if he was particularly thick – we had accompanied our order (made in both German and Czech) with much pointing at the relevant menu item. Either way he didn't get a tip at the end of the meal and we will not be going back there again.

As we came out of the restaurant the sun was setting. All along the shore line there were solitary fishermen with rod and line catching a free meal. The lake was like glass in the twilight and the Sumava mountains rose out of mist on the other side. Our tempers calmed, we took some photos and came home.