Cesky Krumlov

Going south from Prague there were some thunderstorms. So we took the advice of the nice tower guys to forget about trying to reach Vienna and instead land at Cesky Budjovice for Cesky Krumlov, 'the jewel in the Czech Republic's crown. We convinced a German couple, Ellen and Eckhard, who'd landed just before us in Prague to do likewise.  The kind airfield manager lent us his car so that we could drive the 30kms to Cesky Krumlov.

Of course once we'd all landed and dealt with all the admin the thunderstorm caught up with us and we ended up spending more time hanging out in a chilly but dry bowling alley than here at the picturesque castle...  You can see the rain evaporating off the ground in the background.

You can just see the river around Cesky Krumlov

Hluboká nad Vltavou chateau near České Budějovice from the air

This castle near the home of Budvar beer (Budweiser) is modelled after Windsor castle.

Hluboká chateau from the air

Hluboká chateau from the air with extra castle

Prague

Prague is very beautiful, but not really our kind of place, being completely overrun with backpackers and other tourists.  We prefer to be the only obnoxious tourists.

On the plus side it has a fantastic airfield (Letnany) with kind and friendly staff that is only a short walk from a train station that takes you straight into town.

We had a menu misunderstanding, it seems that all dishes are actually sharing plates.

Julian up the tower with one of the fantastic tower guys.

Terezin or Theresienstadt (concentration camp) from the air

Terezin or Theresienstadt (concentration camp) from the air

I thought this was just a happy snap of a nice star fort.  Star forts are fantastic things that were developed for better defense against cannons, and we saw several other ones on our journey: Kastellet in Copenhagen and Kronborg which holds Helsingor (also Denmark).  As a nice bonus they photograph well from the air.

I was finding it unusually hard to identify this star fort in the Czech republic, until google images showed me that it is also known as Theresienstadt (named after the Habsburg empress).  And it's been raining here for 18h.  Why does it all happen at once????

Anyway Theresienstadt was a concentration camp rather than part of the 'final solution'.  There were however many deaths due to overcrowding.  After WWII it was used as a punishment camp for ethnic Germans until 1948, after which it was used by the military.  More information.

Děčín (Tetschen) castle from the air

We left Pirna flying East along the Elbe, past Koenigstein Fortress and not long after Děčín (Tetschen) castle.

Děčín (Tetschen) Castle, with it's long ride (long street up to the castle) and the Elbe in the background

Other planes from the air on the Czech rally

I had hoped to get a photo of each of the other planes from the air during the rally, as it's rare that you get a photo of your plane from the air, but of course that wasn't possible.  Here are a few though!

The lovely Symon

OK-KUR-02

OK-KUR-02

OK-KUR-03

And back again to idylically located Frydlant flying club

Czech-Polish air rally

We had great fun flying to 5 destinations on the Saturday and here are a few group pictures to commemorate the occasion

Maybe not my favourite beer, but definitely my favourite beer mug!

Renaissance gardens seem to be made to be seen from the sky, which was good as it was a really hot day and despite our best efforts we didn't manage to walk there...

We went past dozens of castles.

scenic routes around the area of one of our landing spots, if only we'd had more time!

Everyone warming up to leave our last landing

Polish flying rally to the Czech republic

At Kikity Syzgi told us that he was leading a weekend rally from Katowice to the Czech republic, so after a few moments' consideration we decided to miss the Elblag canal and our other plans for western Poland and go with them.

Katowice town

oops we forgot it was a landing competition until we saw the yellow markings

The rally started from Katowice a big industrial town, where we met to have some Polish specialties for lunch. After we'd eaten Jakob kindly explained what was in it :-(  Nah I don't mind some blood sausage or fermented soup.

An action packed pre rally briefing.

First stop, beautiful Frydlant in the Czech hills