Road-trip through Poland and Czech Republic

Including Cottbus, Katowice, Krakow, Auschwitz, Babia Góra, Tatra Mountains, Ostrava and Broumovská vrchovina.

Our little Road-Trip started on a monday in the very east of Germany, Cottbus, to visit some family and to shorten the distance to Poland. It was the first time I went there and my typical movement already slowed down in comparison to Berlin. With the probably longest day trip we drove to Katowice, also never been, and I was really surprised by the architecture of that city. We stayed just for one day so we shortly visited the “Muzeum Śląskie”, where we also slept in our van at the nearby parking place and visited the old town, ate some pizza, drank some beers. Here the holiday really started- different currency, different language, good Beer. Just at this evening we saw that Redscalp and Dopelord would give a concert next night in Krakow. Plans were changed quickly and by the next morning we went to Krakow. With a nice parking/sleeping spot directly at the Vistula River we started our day through the old town, the castle, some good breakfast and beer. Some beer later we went to the concert location “Hype Park”. Really strange location. With an open air field of some Food stands and nonfood stands like ICOS it reminded more to a bigger commerce festival than to a little concert with several hundred guests… pretty strange. But six of one and half a dozen of another there was cold beer and the first band “.WAVS” started with pretty good sound. I mean I really don’t know how good sound has to be anymore, but the happiness to be on a real fucking show after that time… “Red Scalp” started with their psych stoner riffing mixed up with that saxophon and... oh yes I missed that fucking hard. I instantly bought a vinyl. Dopelord, obviously great local heros here, made my happiness just bigger and bigger and the cold beer and smoke made that night more and more blurry… Six kilometers back to the van by foot through the old town on a smooth summer night, nice!

Next day, starting with the serious stuff. On the agenda Auschwitz, Birkenau. I’ve been there like five years ago and it is still an impressive, sad, disturbing, frightening place… My english is not good enough to describe that place but I would recommend everyone to visit this place. Never Forget!

On that night we were looking for a nice sleeping-place on a lake and found one (Jezioro Mucharskie) with awesome fish that swam at the water surface all the time to catch flies! Already Saturday of the first week and our first hiking tour is today. Target: the peak of the Babia Gora, 1725 m. That should have been the warm up but with a parking place 4 km far from the hiking start, it was already a full day hike. Awesome nature and landscapes but unfortunately way too crowded, we guessed that we hit the school holidays… whatever. Next Tatra Mountains, we’re coming! That night we slept at a great spot on the Czarny Dunajec River. First we had to get some information about the area, at least a hiking map of the Tatra Mountains. So let’s go to Zakopane. Man much bigger than I thought and totally crowded, yeah we definitely hit the holiday season. We took a look at the map and decided to take a smooth route today and a longer one tomorrow. The one today is with some rain and wind, not that smooth but still pretty nice. Tonight we are sleeping on the top of a hill with an awesome view over the Tatra. Woke up at 1 pm by loud thunder, hard rain, strong winds and pretty bright lightnings, we were in the eye of a thunderstorm. Exciting. After an hour, everything is slowing down. Just in the horizont we can see a little fire of lightning. Next Day was like nothing happened- sunshine and blue sky. Today: big hiking trip through the mountains, three lakes, a lot of awesome forests and tracks. After 10 h of hiking, we needed one night at an official camping place with the first hot shower and one Day break. From now on it’s going back west. On the way to Ostrava we slept at that nice little lake once again, just another place there, with awesome pasta, cold beer and the sunset we enjoyed into the night. In Ostrava we firstly visited a great industrial area (Dolní oblast Vítkovice). What an impressive terrain. After that we just had the plan of walking through the city and getting good and cold beers, it was a pretty hot day.I really liked it, but the old town center seemed quite sad. In the night on the way back to the car which was parked close to a castle, we’ve seen that there was a Shakespeare stage- play and we watched the end of it. Last Day of vacation. We moved to the Broumovská vrchovina with Broumov and the Adršpach-Teplice Rocks. A little last hike and an awesome last night at a beautiful little lake close to Kamienna Góra.

That was probably my shortest road trip but still really intense. Enjoy the pics. Last Pic me and the person who shared that pretty awesome trip with me, Mina.