Let's travel!


I was supposed to write before my mountain trip, but I completely didn’t have a time for a blog.  Now I also don’t have a lot of time and I’m worried about my cat.
I think it’s going quite good with barf feeding, Misio and Purka accept it, Amaya can eat it only, when I mix 2 tablespoons of barf with can food, which she ate until we decided to change their diet.
Additionally they have to eat paste, which contains methionine, so I’m not worried about urine problems.
The problem is with Misio now - he has acute pancreatitis. He was given strong painkillers and an antibiotic. When painkillers are working, he feels good, but when they stop he is miserable and sore.
He has to use special diet now - cooked meat and low-fat barf meal.

The worst thing is the fact, that problems always begin, when I have to go somewhere for few days and I can’t cancel or move my plans. I leave Adam with this problem alone, and to be honest - I’m terrified, because he completely can’t handle sick cats. He’s lost and he doesn’t know what to do…
I’m trying to not to worry about it before I got final decision how this treatment will look like, but I think you understand me...


I’m really surprised, because our trip with Maja was really nice, I really didn’t expect it to be. We were traveling only by trains, buses and local transport. I would like to group my story with places, not with the chronology, it’ll be easier for me to write about everything shortly and include everything I want.


Kudowa Zdrój

We started our trip in Kudowa city, our landlords were really kind and they had a very friendly dog (unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of him) and cute tabby cat!



This cat was visiting us very often, he wanted to pet him and to share the food with him ;) He wasn’t afraid of Maja, who welcomed him with very enthusiastic way, when he appeared on the terrace!




Kudowa is really nice, well maintained and clean city. There isn’t a lot of attractions for kids, but you can rest here, because it’s small and not very crowded place.



Kudowa was our base of departure city. We made a lot of trips to cities nearby and to Stołowe Mountains from here.
And what’s funny - there was a better selection of famous Czech Studetska chocolate here, than in every Czech city, that we visited during our trip!


Błędne Skały

The rocky labyrinth called BÅ‚Ä™dne SkaÅ‚y is one of the places, which you have to visit, when you’re in StoÅ‚owe Mountains National Park.
You can use a car to get really close to a labyrinth, but it’s not a fun in my opinion. It’s not very easy to get up (especially the last part of the track), but if you resign to walk there you’ll lose a lot of nice views, it’s really worth to climb there!
Walking through the labyrinth takes usually around 45 min (if you’re walking with a kid it’ll take 1,5 hour haha!). The view is incredible, you won’t see how amazing it is on photos (most of the photos in my post don’t give justice to the place).


I’m pretty sure, that you want to ask me the same question, which I got from almost all my friends: “How are you going to climb on the mountains with almost 2 years old kid?”
Well… Maja is walking quite good now and she loves it! When the route was easy, she got kid leash to secure her, when she was falling down and she could walk or even run (not always with the direction, which we would like her to go haha! So when the signpost told, that we have 1 hour walking to some place, we had to add 1 hour more!)



When the route was exceeding her abilities or when she was too tired to walk she was sitting in the special bag with a place for a toddler or in Tula baby carrier. Both were good, we were using them alternately, depending on this how much things we have to take to the trip. We were checking the weather forecast just before we go, because only then it was true.




Szczeliniec Wielki



The rocky formations on the top of Szczeliniec Wielki had really various shapes, sometimes the route between them was really thin or narrow.



Sometimes I had to take off my bag to squeeze between rocks, sometimes I had to crawl under a rock. The rocky city is the place, where you should wear clothes, which you can make dirty or even destroy.


In my opinion Szczeliniec is more interesting than Błędne Skały, but a lot of people had opposite opinion than mine ;)




The route to the top of Szczeliniec Wielki is quite annoying, because there are only stairs (sometimes very steep). In our case it was an insurmountable barrier for Maja, who is learning how to use stairs at the moment. She can walk upstairs only when the steps are low and wide.



Attractions for Maja were only on the top of the mountain this time.





And when you’ll have a little bit of luck, you’ll maybe meet a cat protector in the shelter.


Rocky city in Adršpach



It’s one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen!




I think even more beautiful than rocky labyrinth and rocky city in polish StoÅ‚owe Mountains. I’m sure, that I’ll come back there someday!



People, who don’t want (or can’t) use a car have two options to get there from Kudowa. The first way is to buy organized bus trip, the second way is to go to Náchod city, catch the train to Teplice city and then catch the train to AdrÅ¡pach city (timetables are usually connected, to not to wait too long, but to have enough time to switch the train). And contrary to appearances I recommend the second option, because organized trip includes only going through the way which is possible to go for disabled people or with a stroller. If you’re not one of these, you should definitely see the rest of attractions of a rocky city in AdrÅ¡pach.





We bought this organized trip, but when we got off the bus Maja wanted to walk all the time, but the trip was too fast for her. That’s why we didn’t follow the group, we decided to see this wonderful place on our own and we returned to Kudowa with trains and local bus.







KÅ‚odzko

It’s the small city, where the famous attraction is the fortress. Actually, we haven’t seen it… We were walking through small streets around the market and we had to stay when we saw any fountain… Later we went to shopping mall, because we took too little clothes for Maja from home (oh God, she was getting dirty 3 times more than usual), and we didn’t have washing machine in place, where we stayed...



Náchod

Very small Czech city, just near the Poland border. Actually it was the best point to switch trains and buses, which were going to different Czech cities and interesting places.


The city is quite nice and clean, the only one tourist attraction signed on the map is the castle and the market.


The best attractions for Maja was the toy store, fountain and the coffee shop, where they make delicious waffles!


Hradec Kralove

Another one Czech city, bigger than Náchod, but smaller than Brno.




Definitely the cleanest city which I saw in the Czech Republic. And what surprised me - with a lot of speaking English people (believe me, it’s a problem in this country with English speaking people, even when we visited the capital of Czech Republic - Prague 2 years ago, no one could understand us even on the airport, when we were asking about it in English…)




When you visit Hradec Kralove you should drink great coffee in Cafe na Kole and go to the shop with handmade items called Modry Atelier.

Wrocław

The city which I visit every time, when I’m somewhere close! I really love these beautiful small streets, kind people and lively old town at almost any time of the day or night!
We spend only 1 night in WrocÅ‚aw, so we didn’t have time for visiting all nice places (like botanical garden or zoo). We went through old town streets, we saw the beautiful fountain and spend some time playing with soap bubbles with Maja.





Katowice

After visiting Stołowe Mountains and Wrocław we went to GOP (Upper Silesian Industrial Region).




I like Katowice for great coffee (Synergia caffe), but the city didn’t amaze me. It’s dirty, not a lot of people near the market (especially, when the weather isn’t really good), very heavy and stinky air...


And what disappointed me the most - every cultural place like galleries are closed every Monday…
I didn’t get used to it, it’s not a standard in the rest of polish cities. There is not a lot of unique and craft stores, but I found 3, which I can recommend you: Geszeft, Gryfnie and small store in the Rondo Sztuki building - I don’t remember the store name.


Gliwice



We had only 3 full days in Katowice, so we planned to visit Ostrava one day. That’s why we couldn’t visit all the cities of GOP, but we wanted to spend one day in one more city. There are very good connections between GOP cities, so we decided to visit Gliwice.


We went there on Monday and it turned out that Palm House and botanical garden are closed… We were very disappointed! So we were walking around the city, spent some time in the park and saw every fountain, after all we returned to Katowice.
We left Gliwice to visit next time, when we’ll be somewhere close.


Ostrava



Small but inconspicuous Czech city - it’s only 1,5 hour by train from Katowice. The market and small streets around are really cute, you should also visit Ty Identity store (very creative and cheap handmade things).



But the best in Ostrava is the industrial city called Vitkovice.


It’s old and not used iron factory, which was built on the carbon deposit.



Now it’s great place to meet friends, there are a few hipster coffee stores (one of them is on the top of the industrial city.




I regret, that we didn’t have a lot of time, because I would like to go on guided tour in Vitkovice area. That’s the only way to see some interesting part of the factory, which isn’t available to single visitors. Maybe next time, when Maja will grow up and we won’t have to take her in a carrier...





To sum up our trip - it’s not very easy to travel with a small kid, who wants to visit only parks and fountains all the time or watch every single bench, stake and every second stone haha! We couldn’t visit every interesting for our place, because Maja was angry sometimes. But it wasn’t a tragedy, we could move to different cities quite easy, sometimes she slept in the train. We also had to eat healthy food, because our daughter doesn’t like a meal like french fries or pizza! She prefers to eat potatoes with chicken breast and beetroot salad or carrot and apple salad! It was her trip, not ours, I didn’t expect to rest on this trip. To be honest - it’s impossible to rest, when you have holidays with small kid haha!
We’re planning to have real holidays in September! :)

3 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you posted this before heading off again. The photos are wonderful. I've never traveled here and when I see what you shared, it gives me a little bit of wanderlust! And Maja is a real champ! And a cute one, at that.

    I'm sorry about your cats. The one in the first photo looks like my Lizzie did when she was smaller so it felt all the more "real" to me. I know the anguish of leaving when your cats aren't well -- I've done that before and it was so very difficult. Do you have another friend who might be able to help Adam with the cat care while you are away? Two heads are always better than one!

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  2. Wow, what a lot of travelling. I love the pictures of the old cities - the narrow buildings of different colours and shapes are wondrous - but the views from the high vantage points are my favourites; breathtaking. And I know what you mean by worrying about your cat. That doesn't have to be explained to a cat-lover.

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  3. Very cute pictures of you, Maja and your husband.. and also the places :)

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