Tallying my list

Due to heavy gusts of wind in the morning and a steady drizzle we changed plans and instead of going up Cerna Hora for some more skiing we took a tour of more or less surrounding towns.

First stop was Trutnov half an hour to the south west, then Dvur Králové nad Labem, then a short stop at Hostinné and finally Vrchlabi again.

Hostinné

The first three are very similar in layout. There is a church in the town centre and the marketplace not far off with buildings from the 18th century surrounding it. There is a roofed pathway around the marketplace with shops underneath. Mostly cheap clothing, pottery (in fact very beautiful) or sports clothing. Restaurants everywhere. Bought a nice tee pot and got ourselves some of the famous Czech poppy-seed cake, yum!

Trudnov

Stopped at Vrchlabi again on the way back to check out that one toy shop my dad wanted to visit but it was still closed. Headed over to a restaurant afterwards and had some great food again.

I'm back in our appartment now reflecting on our days here.

pros:
- outstanding food and drink
- only 4h drive from Berlin
- prices are lower than back home
- lots of cross country- and downhill ski tracks

cons:
- our room was way too cold
- if there's ice on the road no one bothers to take care of it
- information on ski tracks etc. is hard to get
- cross country ski tracks are not necessarily for beginners

My list of Czech must-have consumables:
dumplings - check
palacinka - check
beer - check, check and check
oblateness - check
apple strudel - check
poppy-seed cake - check
slivovice - open

So after all we had a really good time here. There are hundreds of paths and tracks. Unfortunately the snow was only good above 800m. And you should definitely have snow chains with you.
We'll go cross country skiing next season for sure. If it'd be Czech Republic again... I dunno. If any of you want to join us, drop me a line :)

Cheers,
Kat