Wooden Wonderland

I look forward to our Let's Go trips each month.  They are educational, a great way to meet new people, fun, and planned by our very own E.  What is not to look forward too?  So far this school year, we have been to see the sights in Prague, and have wandered through the castle ruins in Český Šternberk. Both lovely trips.  But I had been anxiously awaiting this December trip for a full year.  12 months!  You see, last year I signed up for the trip, and just as we were about to board the bus, the school nurse deposited MadHatter at my feet stating that she had red eyes and needed to stay home for the next three days.  My trip was over before it had even started (and for no reason, as MadHatter did not, in fact, have pink eye but rather a cold that had clogged her tear ducts and made her eyes red).  I vowed that day, that nothing would stop me from making the trip the next year.  Which was Tuesday.  

Why was I so determined to join this motley crew on their way across the border?  Because they were headed to Seiffen, Germany - home to the makers of all things wooden at Christmas!  And those of you that know me well, know that I love Christmas and all things related to it.  No matter the time of the year.  Deposit me in the town that is THE source of all nutcrackers, pyramids and Schwibbogen, and you have one very happy girl.

But why Seiffen?  Why is it so special?  

Back in the day, Seiffen was a mining town owing to the fact that the Ore mountains, where Seiffen is located, were rich in silver ore deposits.  For hundreds of years the mines provided a very nice, though hard, life for it's people.  Then the recession hit the town as the mines were depleted, and the town folk needed to find a new way to support their families.  Thankfully, there is an abundance of timber in the region and the inhabitants turned to carving.   Entire families got involved and it was the norm, and not the exception, that children labored long hours to help out their families wood working business.  In turn, these children became master craftsmen, whose children then became master craftsmen.  Today, Seiffen is synonymous with wooden handicrafts and is known as German Christmas Land.  

Now you understand why I needed to visit!  And it lived up to its hype.  And my pocketbook is a bit lighter.  But it was all worth it.

C and E and their new friend.

Examples of the Schwibbogen (a simple one is above; a more elaborate one below).  This arch used to be left in the window, lit all night, so that the miners could find their way home.

A simple Pyramid.

One of the tallest and most detailed pyramids that I have encountered.

The shelves are packed with wooden crafts.  Some elaborate, and some simple, but all created by hand.

Even the street lamps in town are festive all year long.

Picture perfect!

Class Pictures

During the third week of school, the kids all have their pictures taken.  Each year the girls pick their outfits, decide on how they would like to do their hair and select accessories.  (My girls are girls, through and through).  With their "look" picked out, they then practice their smiles and their goofy faces for the big day.  It really is a production in our house.  

But that was months ago.  Why am I writing about it now?  Because we finally got to pick up the photo's early this week.

Simply gorgeous (if a bit over re-touched.  Why do they feel the need to re-touch children?)  

I give you MadHatter - Second Grade.

  

And her class - the largest in the second grade.

Front row: Ms. Erian, Jack, MadHatter, Oliver, Bente, Samoon, Max, Heidi, Daniel, Emma, Victoria, Ms. Marcela

Back Row: Genevieve, Dylan, Emil, May, Ha-Jun, Bara, Dodee, Grace, Olivia, Or

And Stinkerbell - Grade 1N

and with teeth :)

Front row: Ms. Siun, Orla, Itay, Angela, Espen, Zile, Ethan, Elena, Ms. Carmen, Ms. Suja 

Back row: Lucie, Ofri, Jackson, Quinn, Stinkerbell, Lucas

Pottery Shopping in Poland

It was a random four day weekend in November.  Usually, this means I plan a family trip to explore some remote part of this incredible world we are lucky enough to live in.  But this time B had to work on the Monday smack dab in the middle of our short vacation.  So, instead of a long holiday weekend, we took two separate trips.  The first I chronicled here (read it, it's worth the pictures alone).  It was a family weekend, full of fun and laughter and togetherness.  And it isn't a trip that I will soon forget.  But the second part, ah, the second part, that was all me.  Just for me.  Though I was taking the kids along so it couldn't be all about me.  And I was joined by one of my closest friends, who happens to be the mom of two of the girls closest friends...so who am I kidding?  This trip was not all about me.  It was all about fun and friends and adventure...with a bit of pottery shopping thrown in.

Bolesławiec, Poland.  Located just inside the Polish border (about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Prague) it is Polish Pottery central.  And if you don't know what Polish Pottery is, here is a link to the Wiki site.  Have a read and come back to me.  Ok - now you are in the know.  And you can see why I have been coveting a set of coffee mugs.  And perhaps a new set of cereal bowls.  Maybe some baking dishes.  And ornaments for the tree...And. And. And.  

I convinced my good friend H to accompany me on the quick overnight trip.  She has two children (ages 3 and 6), so we were going to be taking 4 children, aged 7 and under to shop for pottery.  Breakable pottery, all around.  Pottery that is just soooooo not interesting to shop for if you are under the age of 30.  This was sounding like a not so good idea.  But if you know me, I am always up for a challenge, and thankfully, so is H.

We packed our cars and headed out pretty early in the morning.  We wanted to get to Poland by lunch time because we had heard about the delicious Pirogi at the restaurant that resembled Snow Whites cottage. First bribe to make the kids more agreeable to shopping for pottery - take them to a fairy tale cottage, let them order pasta stuffed with potatoes, fried chicken and french fries.  Wash it down with some soda.

Bellies full (maybe too full) we went off in search of an ATM (we got a 15% discount for paying cash).  Zlotys in hand, we plugged in the address for Andy's shop into the GPS and prayed Svetlana (yep, that is her name) would get us there as she had a bit of trouble with the location of our hotel.  She must have decided that she liked Andy because we were there in no time.

Before heading in we gave the kids a quick talk stressing the importance of looking, but not touching; walking and not running; using inside voices and not shouting; and most importantly NOT picking anything up. 

It took them about 3 seconds before the first thing was picked up.  10 seconds before one of the kids was running, with pottery in hand, to show us something.  And about just as long before two of them were huddled in a corner picking through a basket of ornaments.  Obviously, they had not absorbed any of the rules.  Time for Plan B.

Plan B - put the kids in the vestibule outside of the showroom, but inside of the store.  Hand each one of them a cell phone loaded with games and let them have at it while H and I shopped furiously.

You could see how this would be tempting to run through and touch everything, right?

I found the mugs I wanted (2nd row in the picture above).  I had already decided before we left that I wanted 12, mismatched mugs.  That way if I ever broke one of them, it wouldn't be impossible to replace because I couldn't find the exact pattern.  I had also decided that I wanted them to be 1st quality, and that I would try to find as many UNIKAT as I could...

The 1 QLTY stamp means that it doesn't have any flaws.

The UNIKAT stamp means that the piece has been crafted by a master potter.  The artist has created the design from scratch and is the only one allowed to recreate it.  They also sign each of their pieces.  Accordingly they are the more rare, and expensive, of the pieces.

I did pick a 2nd quality piece from this lot.  The snowman plate on the bottom left.  It has the smallest of spots of thin paint underneath the glaze on his scarf so it is marked as 2nd and sold for about half of its original price.  On most of the pieces you can hardly see what their defect is so there are some great deals to be had here.

There are so many things to choose from and something for every holiday or occasion...

The girls were allowed to pick out their own ornament for the tree (MadHatter changed her mind about 20 times - and ended up with a heart instead of a snowman)

I never wavered in my decisions.  Part of my haul is shown below (I couldn't get it all in one frame)...

Thanks to this voucher from the hotel, we saved a bunch of Zloty!

The store packed it up and we packed the car - full of pottery and kids.  

Time taken to get to Poland - 3 hours.  Time to eat lunch - 1 hour.  Time to shop for the pottery we drove all the way to Poland for - 20 minutes.  Seems a bit lop sided but well worth it.

We could have dragged the kids to about 25 more shops.  But H and I are the type of people that go to the one with the best quality and largest selection and make our choices.  We did not need to shop around, compare prices and quality and patterns.  And we certainly did not need to drag 4 children around the city while doing it.  Do I wish we had seen some of the other shops now that we are home?  Nope, not even a bit.  I am thrilled with the pieces I brought home.  If I have time to get back there, without children, I will certainly visit some other places.  But I don't regret not doing it on this trip.

Our mission accomplished it was now time to let the kids have some fun.  Thankfully there was a school playground just across the street from our hotel.  We bundled everyone up and headed to the park with our snacks in hand.  And we lamented the fact that even though H had brought a bottle of wine, we had nothing to drink it out of, as we had no glasses.  Until about 20 minutes later when it dawned on us - I had just bought 12 mugs.  12 large mugs!  So we broke them in...

That's not coffee.

After 2 hours of park play, we walked over to dinner and once again ate until we were stuffed.  The meat pie was just that good.  We took a slow amble back to the hotel and settled in to sleep.

We packed up early, because there was really nothing left for us to see or do, and after a hearty breakfast, were back on the road.  And home before lunch.

What a fabulous way to spend 24 hours.  Friends, food, and shopping in another country!

A Czech Fairytale

Český Krumlov. Covered recently by the Wall Street Journal and a few years back by The New York Times, this hidden gem in the southern bohemia region of the Czech Republic is becoming THE spot to visit while in this part of Europe.  And since it is just under 200 km from Prague, we knew it was just a matter of time before we took a quick trip.  Last weekend, we packed our bag and headed out on the winding roads south.  It only takes about 3 hours to arrive but the moment you pull in to town, you feel as if you have traveled back in time and entered another world.  It's almost like a storybook village that Hans Christian himself penned, has sprung into being right before your eyes.  It leaves you a bit disoriented and dazed and feeling like it's all just a bit surreal.  Even the fact that the historic old town is contained by a hairpin turn in the Vltava river, is a bit too fairy tale to believe.  And those roofs, that castle, the church...It just has to be seen to be believed.

A map of the town and that hairpin turn.

We settled in to our hotel, bundled up against the spitting rain, and headed off on foot to see what we could of the castle and gardens.  About 100 yards in, we encountered the Červena Brana (red gate), welcoming us to look around...all 5 of its courtyards and 11 hectares of gardens.  It is second only in size to the Prague Castle, by all of a few meters, and some suspect it is actually larger but cannot upstage Prague.  Either way, it is large, and impressive and we didn't have a lot of daylight left...

A local artist was showing his works - one of which completely fascinated the girls and we had to stop and take a picture.  It is a giant thumb as a door knob.

We made it up to the castle complex and went to see the bears.  Yep, they have bred live bears in the moat surrounding the tower since the 1600's.  Sadly, they were already in their caves and all we got to see were their empty play areas filled with toys.

The moats are just under the bottom border of this photo.

Bears in hibernation, and the cold making us want to do the same, we headed inside to the museum and took a quick look around.  Depicting the history of the town, it's rulers/owners and what life was like from the 12th century (when the town and castle were built up) until today, it was an educational tour.  But after about 1/2 hour the littlest of us were getting bored, so we moved on.

We didn't go far.  Just around the corner are the stairs that take you to the top of the painted tower seen in first picture (the one with the bear moats).  We climbed the 162 stairs, pausing to look out the porthole windows...

And were greeted with a 360 degree view of the city from on high. And I happily snapped picture, after picture, after picture (don't worry, I won't post them all).  It was amazing and colorful and breathtakingly beautiful. Even on that cold, windy and rainy day.  I can't imagine how gorgeous it is on a sunny summer afternoon.

We climbed down and passed through one of the 5 courtyards.  This is when I noticed that the castle was not merely painted to look like brick - it was etched that way - and then the frescoes were painted on. 

We continued on and I couldn't help but continue to snap photo's.  This place is a dream for photographers...

We finally made it to the gardens.  First up - the revolving theater.  Built in the early 1950's to stage a single play, it now holds upwards of 600 spectators each night in the summer season.  Back when it was originally built, the theater was turned by hand  - literally 80 of them below the decks.  Now, it is motorized but still something unique and original to the area.  And using the Bellaire summerhouse as a backdrop it is unparalleled in its beauty.

The girls then found the garden mazes, and a game of Pinta (tag) ensued...along with a few races...

The gathering and tossing of helicopter seeds...

The conquering of the large tree trunks...

And me snapping a few more shots from different angles.

It was getting dark, and time to warm up again, so we headed back towards the hotel.  But not without taking in the view one more time...

We stopped for a local beer, a snack and some goofing around and then headed off to our 5 course dinner at the hotel's restaurant.  Simply one of the best meals we have had in all of the Czech Republic.  And I sent MadHatter and B off for the massages they had as part of the deal. (I don't do massages.  So I have one of the luckiest 7 year olds around).

The next morning we were well rested and eager to get our tourist on.  We had booked a private tour of the town through the hotel, and though it was raining pretty good, it couldn't damper our enthusiasm.  We met our guide in the lobby (a lifelong resident of the town) and wandered out into the wet.  Heading off in a totally different direction than we had yesterday we wandered through winding streets and took in the Gothic buildings that surrounded us.

The Budejovicka Brana (Busweiser Gate) is the only remaining gate to the city.

An old apothecary - the 10 murals at the top are supposed to be the aging of a man each 10 years.  This store was basically telling you that their elixirs could keep you alive until 100 years old.

The oldest private house in town (now a museum).  Dates back to the 13th century.

Frescoes uncovered on the ceiling of a shop in town dating to the 13th century.  These had been painted over many times as the shop changed hands.  They are being restored and they are uncovering more and more of them each year.

We headed across the bridge and into the town center.  And we passed the line that marked where the water levels reached in the 2012 flooding of the Vltava...

Stinkerbell tickled some toes, and stood on some huge furniture that serve as seating on the riverfront...

and we ended our tour at the town square and the Church of St. Vitus...

Town Hall

The alter and large organ of St. Vitus.  Pictures are not allowed most of the time, but my tour guide said it was ok, so I snapped these two and only these two.  The organ is the most impressive as it is the 2nd largest organ in Europe - over 3000 pipes total!

We bit adieu to our tour guide and meandered back through the streets, popping in little shops to buy our souvenirs.  We hit the hotel and decided to call it a day and head back home.  All in all, an incredible 24 hours in what felt like a fairy tale.  If you are ever near by, this is definitely a place to stop and lose yourself in for a day.