We have landed in the most amazing little town here in the Czech Republic: Cesky Krumlov. This town is a totally preserved castle/medieval town built within the windings of the Vltava river. We have spent the past two days wandering the streets and eating and drinking the great bohemian food and beer. Yeah, can you say Pilsner Urquell! We have run into a little cold snap here. It has been a bit of a shock coming from the heat of Athens. We head to Prague tomorrow to stay for a week. Our niece, Lydia MacKinnon, will join us for a few days there. We are all looking forward to spending some time with her.
As Audrey mentioned in the last blog post, we climbed Mt. Olympus. It was a beautiful day. We were a little lazy getting out the door that morning. Mike and I both thought that there would be too much snow on the trail for the kids to summit in their "hiking" shoes (Keen sandals). Lately the girls had been complaining that their feet hurt whenever we went on a longer walk. So we ascended the mountain with the objective of just getting out, not really thinking that the summit was a reasonable objective.
Well, the kids were energized that day because we made it to the Refuge A, which is the halfway point, in just two hours. Mike and I were both surprised and encouraged by this pace so we excitedly decided to continue up. The Refuge has a restaurant ( you gotta love this place), so we fueled up and continued up the path. We did reach the summit in only four hours of hiking! We were all extremely excited to have climbed to the 2nd highest point in Greece. Mt Olympus has 5 summits. The highest summit requires a bit of scrambling with serious exposure, so we chose to summit the trekkers summit. The trail is really steep and loose, so the down actually took longer than the up! Boy, were we tired at the bottom. But this being Europe, there was an fabulous restaurant right at the trail head and so we plopped down and enjoyed a celebratory meal of Goat Soup, and Burgers and of course some beer for Mike and some wine for me. The hike was 11km up and 1800 meters of elevation gain. So for those in the US.... We hiked up and back down about 6000 feet in about 14 miles in 10 hours. The kids did great and we were all very proud of ourselves at the end.
The trail up Mt. Olympus is part of the E4 trail. We followed sections of this trail in Crete as well so I was curious about it. I looked it up and discovered that the European Ramblers Association presides over no less than 12 of these E trails that transect the European continent. E4 connects trails along the mediterranean from Cyprus, Crete, Greece all the way to southern Spain! Maybe we will get to hike along E4 again....
As Audrey mentioned in the last blog post, we climbed Mt. Olympus. It was a beautiful day. We were a little lazy getting out the door that morning. Mike and I both thought that there would be too much snow on the trail for the kids to summit in their "hiking" shoes (Keen sandals). Lately the girls had been complaining that their feet hurt whenever we went on a longer walk. So we ascended the mountain with the objective of just getting out, not really thinking that the summit was a reasonable objective.
Well, the kids were energized that day because we made it to the Refuge A, which is the halfway point, in just two hours. Mike and I were both surprised and encouraged by this pace so we excitedly decided to continue up. The Refuge has a restaurant ( you gotta love this place), so we fueled up and continued up the path. We did reach the summit in only four hours of hiking! We were all extremely excited to have climbed to the 2nd highest point in Greece. Mt Olympus has 5 summits. The highest summit requires a bit of scrambling with serious exposure, so we chose to summit the trekkers summit. The trail is really steep and loose, so the down actually took longer than the up! Boy, were we tired at the bottom. But this being Europe, there was an fabulous restaurant right at the trail head and so we plopped down and enjoyed a celebratory meal of Goat Soup, and Burgers and of course some beer for Mike and some wine for me. The hike was 11km up and 1800 meters of elevation gain. So for those in the US.... We hiked up and back down about 6000 feet in about 14 miles in 10 hours. The kids did great and we were all very proud of ourselves at the end.
The trail up Mt. Olympus is part of the E4 trail. We followed sections of this trail in Crete as well so I was curious about it. I looked it up and discovered that the European Ramblers Association presides over no less than 12 of these E trails that transect the European continent. E4 connects trails along the mediterranean from Cyprus, Crete, Greece all the way to southern Spain! Maybe we will get to hike along E4 again....
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