12 July 2014 Hamburg 22C Sunny This morning we set off in a westerly direction towards the altstadt (old town) via the many canals that are a Hamburg feature. It's international triathlon weekend here and the triathlon was in full swing for the minor classes, over 50's, girls with baskets on their bikes and overweight men;s divisions. There were spectators and a drumming band we passed entertaining the competitors. As we walked by the canals we passed the larg...

10 & 11 July 2014 Brno – Hamburg 26C Warm Thursday 10th July is a travel day and we left Brno on the 9.30am train arriving in Hamburg at 7.45pm. The journey was comfortable but very long. We arrived in Hamburg and took the S Bahn to our apartment and found we were in a lovely area with lots of restaurants - mainly Spanish and Portugese. For dinner, we settled on a Spanish restaurant with tapas for dinner and fortunately, one of the waiters spoke Eng...

Wednesday 9 July 2014 Brno Cool and cloudy 20C We set off early this morning for the Moravian Karst to visit the Pynkva Cave and Macocha Abyss. We had reserved tickets for the tour at 10am and needed to arrive 40 mins early to pick up the tickets. We caught a train from Brno at 8.30 then a bus from Blansko to the ticket office. When we arrived there seemed to be a problem that they called a technical issue and the Pynkva Cave was closed – not su...

Tuesday 8 July 2014 Brno Hot 30C We have had a very relaxing day – I think the first one since our trip began. After a leisurely breakfast at the apartment we went for a short walk around the town and picked out some of the points of interest listed on the tour map. It is particularly windy today and we hoped to visit St Thomas' Church but it was closed. The fruit and vege market was open so we wandered around and decided to return later in the aftern...

Monday 7 July 2014 Telc - Brno Hot 31C We neglected to remember that European culture shuts down n a Monday and realised too late that Telc castle and museum were closed today. This was disappointing as we had left the tour for this morning. So we changed our plans and after a short stroll around the Castle Park and some breakfast (once the first coffee shop opened at 9am) we set off for Brno. The train trip once again took us to the middle of nowhere Ji...