Meanwhile Back in the Czech Republic

I hope after reading yesterday's post from Dresden - Germany, you didn't spend all your Czech money because today we are back in the Czech Republic.  Don't worry I will be blogging from Dresden again later in the week, if you want to see more of it.

The reason for all this border jumping is that today Thursday 3 October is the German Reunification Public Holiday and because it is on a Thursday this year most Germans will also take Friday off meaning a 4 day holiday weekend. I therefore had to rush up to the VW factory before production stopped for the holiday - I couldn't see much point going round a car plant if they weren't making any cars!

Just south of Dresden is a cross-border national park, the German half is called the Saxon Switzerland National Park and not to be outdone on the other side is Czech Switzerland. It's a hilly region that is still part of the Sudety range, still sandstone and therefore like Adrspach, has those weathered rocks.

So today I joined the throngs at Dresden's main station for a train to Schöna, the last stop in Germany on the line back to Prague. From Schöna station you then have to get a ferry for the trip over the River Elbe to Hrensko on the Czech side - it doesn't take very long only a couple of minutes.

Hrensko, is not very nice, but don't be put off. Like most border settlements the cheaper side is there solely to service the needs of the richer side. In this case, Hrensko is full of shops and stalls selling cheap booze, cigarettes and labelled goods to the Germans.

A short walk up the road though takes you away from this to the beautiful Kamenice Gorge. Here the River Kamenice cuts it's way through the sandstone rocks to the Elbe and there is a hiking trail running most of the way along it.

I say most of the way, there are a couple of sections where the gorge walls are too sheer to have a path and for those you have to take a punt with a National Park Guide.

At the head of the gorge you can take another trail upwards and back over the hills to Hrensko via Parvcicka Brana - a natural stone arch.

All in all, a must do day trip from Dresden that enables you to take in another country (if you weren't planning to go any further south). Whilst I was using up left over Czech currency, such is the number of German day trippers that everywhere in this area also takes Euro and not at a rip off rate either.