Sumava

I shot this on the road to Lipno, I think, which was to be the first stop on a trip that I took back in the Spring to Sumava with some of my friends. I really like the colors in this shot, although I don't know if those flowers were dandelions, buttercups, or something else. Sumava has several species of flower that are this shade of yellow.

I originally though that this was a sunset, but now given where it is on the roll, I'm pretty sure that it was a sunrise.

This is Lipno, a major reservior in Sumavsky Narodni Pamatka, or Sumava National Park.

This is the town square of Horni Plana, another town where we stopped.

This is "downtown" Nova Pec, although the Czechs wouldn't refer to it as a downtown, of course. Actually, I'm not sure if anyone else would, either, unless they knew how small this village is.

These ceramic stoves, usually fired by coal and used for heating more than cooking, aren't unique to Sumava and in fact can be found in various sizes all over the Czech Republic. They also aren't anything resembling new technology, as I've seen some from as far back as the Baroque period. Originally they were mainly for palaces and other very expensive buildings, sometimes reaching enormous sizes, but now the irony is that they're being made obsolete by central heating and/or the even more modern phenomenon of independent electric radiators in each room, so now they're as much associated with cottages in the countryside.

Here's another example of the cottages that you can see in Sumava. The cottages of the former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic actually had earlier origins, in the days of the Austrian Empire, but they took on far greater significance under Communism because they provided an essential benefit in a society where international travel was heavily restricted. They were generally thought of, however, as one of the few things that kept people lazy enough to not overthrow the regime, along with beer and Skodas, so although the Czechs still go to the countryside almost every weekend, and are far more likely than people in the west to have a second home, the dubious heritage of this system leaves many people with mixed emotions.

Nova Pec is surrounded by trails for hiking, and these are reasonably well marked. I went on several hikes while there.

I've been searching everywhere for info on this canal, and as far as I can ascertain it was mainly a logging canal.

The Schwarzenberg Canal is of relatively small dimensions, but it is nevertheless a proper canal with locks like this one. I'm not sure of its current status, but it's still in good enough condition to appear maintained. Does anybody know if it's still used for anything?

Jawa motorbikes have been made in the Czech Republic since 1929, and the company is still active today. They're still especially common in the countryside, and some of them, like this one, are quite old (I don't know the exact year of this one, unfortunately), as they're especially high-quality, and can last for decades.

I'm not sure why I took this photo, other than that it's hard to resist some hiking shots in the woods.

Here's the third photo in my Sumava Hike series. I shot this off to one side of the trail.

Here's an alternate to Picture 2.

Here there was a stream back into the woods from a culvert that led to the canal.

Even more interesting was this bunker on one of the curves in the Schwarzenberg Canal, or at least that's what it looked like. It had been filled with concrete by the time I took this, but given the (apparently) Russian markings on it, I'm almost certain that it dates to the days when it when Sumava was a military area, possibly as far back as World War II. Any further info on this would be really interesting.

Here's a close up of the Russian, I think, lettering on the apparent bunker.

Here's yet another shot from the trail. :-)