Nuremberg was our most western point. Time to head back northeast, to the border area between Czechia and Dresden, Germany. We have been exhausting ourselves so far. Let's hit a town known for healing your joints: Jachymov. By soaking in radon thermals. Radon, that gas we avoid in our homes...
We got to learn about Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, because they discovered that ore from Jachymov contained radium. Marie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this. Also, we learned that getting an appointment to soak in one of the thermals if you are staying in a cheap pension is not easy. However, we got two hours in a wonderful indoor swimming pool with hot tubs and a waterslide!
15 km (9 mi) north is our next stop: KarlovyVary, or Karlsbad. It is a beautiful resort town, stretched along the river.
The water is what everyone is here for. You buy a special design kitschy cup, stick it in one of the faucets that are running everywhere, and take a sip of mineral water. Yuck! I spit it right out. But they have a recommended
drinking cure, with spa physicians, even.
Driving another 12 km (7 mi) is
Hrad Loket (Loket Castle). It is in the elbow (= Loket) of the Ohre River. It was built originally in the second half of the 12th century! Only in 1992 was it returned to the town of Loket. They filled it with museums, and opened it to tourists.
I loved this story, which I have copied from Wikipedia and from the tour handout:
Queen Eliška Přemyslovna used to hide herself in the castle with her children during the upheavals against John of Luxembourg as well as to protect herself against his anger. The last time she had to hide there was in the early spring of 1319,[5] when King John conquered the castle with a trick when he persuaded the guard to open the gate pretending a friendly visit to his wife. Queen Eliška was taken prisoner and transported to Mělník, the dowry castle of the Czech queens. Their three-year-old son Prince Václav, later Emperor and King Charles IV, was held here for two months in the underground prison,[6] a period which he later described as a horrible imprisonment in a cellar with one tiny window.[7] The
meteorite had a wonderful superstition attached. The burgrave or ruler around 1400 was cruel to his subjects. He was cursed by an old woman, struck by lightning, and turned into this hard piece of iron.
Danny loves
Meissen porcelain, so we drooled on many shop windows from throughout this region. Hrad Loket had a porcelain museum, too, with interesting pieces, but not Meissen.
Onward, away from Czechia and into Germany again. Dresden. I've always wanted to see Dresden since reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. That was about the WWII firebombing. We walked all over the old town for two days.
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| See the hot-air balloon? |
What an interesting city! They have a museum of mathematical and physical instruments. I spent hours in there looking at mechanical calculators, the development of clocks, and more. Neal and Danny enjoyed the Dresden Porcelain Collection, which... wait for it... had Meissen porcelain! Neal got to revel in his automotive fantasies.
And Danny got to experience a European train ride.
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