Castles, castles... Czech edition

 

I had an opportunity to visit castles in Czech Republic this summer. The first one we went to was Hrad Trosky, the ruins of an amazing two-tower steep clifftop castle. What a magnificent, for defense business -only castle! The second castle, Hrad Kost was a more full-service one, and was used as an administrative base. With a torture chamber, of course. (Is there any other kind of administration???)

Hrad Trosky is such a radical, high-up-on-a-cliff castle that it was breathtaking. Literally, when you climbed the stairs to the top of one of the towers. Only one of the two towers is today reachable, the support structures and stairs for the other one are long gone. Yet, it looms high above the horizon. The castle can be found on Google Maps here. There's easy (paid) parking and restaurants, but a short steep walk to the castle.

Hrad Kost can only be toured on an organized tour (and in our case, in Czech only... but we can English-language printouts...) It resides in an area of interesting rock formations, at the cross section of three small valleys carved in the rock. The area itself is also interesting. The castle can be found here, and again there's easy paid parking. I also want to recommend the grill restaurant at the back of the castle, which makes really nice medieval-feeling meals...

Both castles are highly recommended.

Pictures from Trosky above and below:

Pictures from Kost:

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Korcula wall swim

 

Korcula is a wonderful historic town (on the island of Korcula :-) ) And there's a wonderful swimmable beach ... rocks just outside the east city wall, under the restaurant walking path. You'll be under pine trees, on rocks, with some steps leading to clear water.. can't get much better than this!

There are easy walking steps from the wall down to the rocks, in several places. Much recommended!

Coordinates: N 42.961585 E 17.137192.

Korcula obviously also has a ton of really good restaurants and other tourist services. There's even a red submarine if you are so inclined. But it isn't yellow.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.

They say the repairs would be easy!

 

Been looking for a better car, saw this on sale today, would it be a good choice? They say repairs are easy.

We visited Prague's Trabant Muzeum Praha Motol today. The museum is at Plzeňská 215 b, Prague, in a building looks like a car repair shop but the backside is a museum.

Much recommended, a truly great and detailed museum. Includes even a Trabant simulator:

Eww:

Sign:

Price of the car...

Translation of the price:

More car stories in the Planetskier blog series at Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Haimoon maauimala

 

It is good to jump into refreshing water after a long hike and cave crawl! Haimoon Maauimala to the rescue :-)

The coordinates for this place are N 60.46726 E 24.49452. There is no website, but another blog article can be found here.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.

South beaches on Vis

 

I had an opportunity to visit the Zaglav, Milna, Zenka beaches while on the island of Vis in Croatia for a few days.

The coordinates for these beaches are (approximately, and in the same order as above): N 43.0326 E 16.2288, N 43.0404 E 16.2308, and N 43.0431 E 16.2405.

Above and below is the Zaglav beach:

Milna beach:

Zenka beaches, from high above:

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2021 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.

Anna Mine

 

60 kilometers southwest of Prague is a historic mining area of Příbram. There's mining museum at Mine Ševčinský. There's also two mines that you can actually visit, the Hornické muzeum Příbram – Vojtěšský důl (Vojtěšský mine) and the Hornické muzeum Příbram – Anenský důl (Anna Mine). The latter involves a small train journey in mine carts... 

This was a nice visit, although tours were only available in Czech. And we didn't get to go very deep, just one floor down :-) in this very, very deep 1,600 meter mine system. Still, interesting history, real-life mine and not a museum replica, very interesting steam engine lifts, etc. Much recommended, perhaps going to all three places in one go, even if we only had time for one. 

Tours in the mines are guided tours, going hourly.

The coordinates for the Anna Mine are N 49.687595 E 13.994174. The website is here.

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Letecké Muzeum: More airplanes

 

Our hotel near Prague was by two smaller, older airport that operates now as a general aviation, military, and museum airports. The Praha-Kbely airport has a truly great aviation museum, the Letecké muzeum Kbely. (Nice, Prague. I wish Helsinki was more clever about retaining historic airports...)

There's  A lot of Soviet era aircraft, but also older airplanes from the beginning of the 1900s century, newer ones, some decommissioned NATO airplanes, Swedish Draken and Viggen... and Sojuz-28 capsule! We liked that one in particular!

Much recommended! The museum's website is here. Also, admission is free!

Draken:

Me-262:

An aircraft that had been doing photogrammetry work:

The Sojuz:

More flying and travel stories at planetflier.com. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. All photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko.

Hotel Maria-Luisa pool swim

 

Hotel Maria-Luisa is in the suburbs of Prague, near the military / museum airport (see this article). I almost always choose hotels based on their spas, pools, and saunas. Unfortunately, this time their wellness area turned out to be closed for renovation. Oh well, we were probably too busy anyway to get to the saunas during their opening hours. But the pool was open, and looked nice!

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.

Mali Kozjak hike

 

Mali Kozjak is a mountain ridge in Split, Croatia. Near the airport, in fact. I had seen this on a previous trip, and it looked interesting... was there a hike? After perusing through the Wikilocs and Starves of the world, and some (maybe not enough) local advice, it seemed like there's a nice walk up via the Planinarski Dom Putalj mountain hut. I chose to hike up a bit further north so that I could descend to the hut. But boy did that generate some headache!

Most registered hikes in the area skip a region around the highest mountain. But it looked walkable from afar, and there was one hike that went through that idea. But it turned out that (a) the missing few kilometers are an incredible bush and rock jungle and (b) there's a military radar base that can't be easily avoided. 

There was not much to do. Either backtrack kilometers through difficult terrain and fail the hike, or keep going. I chose to keep going. It seemed that on one side of the base the bushes were far too thick to attempt going through. But on the cliff side the base fencing ended before the cliff, so presumably I could walk through there. However, it turned out that the cliff and the fence closed in, but that the fence also ceased to be. So there was an option to walk through the base -- which seemed mostly abandoned -- or 

Obviously, I chose to go around the bushes :-) But had I gone through the base, I might have ended up on the other side fences, and would have had to climb under the gate here: 

Obviously I wouldn't do such a thing, as a law abiding citizen I simply walked back and around through the bushes. (FWIW, it seemed I was not alone with these difficulties, see this blog for instance.)

I went up starting from here: N 43.565523 E 16.39042. There's nothing here but you can drive up to this point in a taxi, and start walking up. And I came down to the hut, here: N 43.56757 E 16.42414. The radar base is here: N 43.57129 E 16.40778.

There was also an interesting (but closed) hut where I reached the ridge in north, at N 43.57196 E 16.39493, the Orlovo gnijezdo - Planinarsko sklonište, in Kaštel Kambelova. And after the radar base there was beautiful little chapel here: N 43.57103 E 16.41337, the Svrka Sv. Luka in Blaca.

When I finally got to the hut, I thought the difficult part of the hike was over. I started to descend what seemed to be the most direct paths. But those weren't hiking paths, they were derelict downhill mountain bike routes... quite challenging to keep your footing. I ended up scratching myself a bit in a small fall. 

But no matter, after getting back to civilization and paved roads, I walked down further to the sea front, at the Gojača Beach in Kaštel Sućurac (N 43.54548 E 16.42768). It was quite a nice, small beach with some a cafeteria, nice park, and boat harbors around. Sweats washed off, mission accomplished.

Kozjak:

"Clear" route guidance:

Radar installations:

Hut at the top:

Church:

Dom Putalj hut:

Beach:

This article has also been published at TGR. For more urban exploration, climbing, sauna and swimming stories, check out theurbanexplorer.net, planetclimber.net, planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2022 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.