I feel years younger .... - Regensburg, Germany
Regensburg, Germany
Oh boy, I am really sick of packing up and moving on ….. off to Regensburg today and as it was only a three and a half hour drive we decided that we had plenty of time to drive along The Castle Road and see a few …. castles. Even having googled a map before we left it was a little tricky to know where to go and Petty wasn't very helpful when we tried to find the first castle using point of interest (POI). After a few wrong turns and some really stunning scenery, where we unfortunately couldn’t take photos as it was too tricky to stop, we found Karlštejn Castle. The only problem was that we couldn’t see it from the car and quite frankly, we were too lazy to get out and walk. But as I said, it was a nice drive.
We weighed up the risk of all of the other castles not being visible from the comfort of the car and decided that it was too high, so we changed our route to take us through the spa town Karlovy Vary. Again the drive was really lovely, giving us a good look at 'the Cheque Republic that is not Prague’. We saw some very old towns where it was hard to believe that the dilapidated houses were still occupied, yet again making us realise how lucky we are to live in Australia. I know that we have some run down areas and people living in poverty but over here it just seems on another level.
We reached Karlovy Vary by mid-afternoon when we were finally ready for a walk around. It is really one of the most amazing towns I have ever seen. Having just driven through some very low-wealth areas, the wealth in Karlovy Vary is quite shocking by comparison. The huge houses and hotels are beautiful and they are not confined to a small area, there are many blocks of them. We walked through town marvelling at the people in their lovely velour tracksuits, sipping on the water from the hot springs. Although we didn’t drink any of the water this time around we felt different just being in the town, it was as though years fell away from us. Spencer especially, so now we have a seven year old boy again. I wish he had dropped a few more years, taking him back to before he could talk, I should have made him drink the water!
Once we were feeling younger and cleansed we jumped back in the car (our limbs feel so good we can do that now!!) and completed our journey to Regensburg. It was great being back in Germany, having learned so much German from Mali and all. Except it seemed to fail me at the supermarket when neither of my credit cards would work – how is that possible?? Whilst I am sure I was provided with an explanation I didn’t quite catch it, the music must have been a bit too loud. Perhaps I should learn to lip read.