Happy Holidays

Christmas has arrived in the Czech Republic!! Unfortunately that beautiful snow that we pictured for you in November is gone. The weather seems to stay right around 35 or 40 F. Who would have thought that by moving to the Czech Republic we were moving to a warmer climate!! With the terrible weather that Iowa has been having this month, anywhere would be warmer! There is still plenty of snow in the mountains and the Czechs head off almost every weekend to go skiing. I have decided that it is one sport that I will not be attempting in this lifetime. I value my body more than that!!
I have managed to do a little crafting here. Two weeks ago we went with Radka and her daughter on a crafting retreat and made all sorts of fun things. Everyone was Czech but they accepted us and welcomed us in. We had a great time and even got to observe the visit of St. Nicholas. It was up in the mountains and while I crafted, Ken wandered and drew pictures. I even met a Czech quilter there.
Ken left for the states last week and I stayed to finish up the semester and to give the final exams before I head off. We will be in the states until the middle of January and will try to see as many friends and family as we can. Both of the boys will be coming to Iowa to spend some time with us. We plan to spend the xmas holiday with Ken's sister in St. Louis. It should be great fun to have all of her grandchildren around.
We decided not to mail out Xmas cards or letters this year, but just to refer everyone to our blog and let them read our adventures. The boys are both doing fine. Quentin is getting started on the final projects he needs to get his PHD and Conner is singing and playing music for his second year at Lawrence University.
For us this year has been a wild and wonderful ride. Everyday brings a new adventure. The last few weeks there has been a Christmas market on the main square and I have wandered through several times. Not buying much, just watching the people and children, laughing, drinking punch (a mixture of Czech wine, fruit and sometimes rum all heated up) and enjoying the beautiful surroundings. I sometimes wonder if this place will hold so much excitement for us after 5 years. I just can't imagine ever being bored with it.
We are settled in and open for visits,...so plan your trip and come share our excitement!
When you write down your life, as I have here, you get to live it twice. We hope that by putting it out on this blog, you are having a chance to live a little bit of it too! May the new year keep you happy and healthy and bring you great adventures!

We are thankful!!

Thursday was our first Thanksgiving in our new home. It seemed funny because it was not a holiday and I had to go to work and then come home and fix the dinner. We had 8 people for dinner,...Our good friends, Dasa and Jiri and their son Jachyme, Eva and her daughter Lada and my new "boss" and the head of our department, Olga. We had to get two turkey's because they were small, but we had all of the trimmings and ate ourselves silly. It was really a nice meal and one of the great American traditions that I think we will keep and continue to practices. It really is interesting that it is a holiday that really isn't based on religion or patriotism,...just getting together and giving thanks. And that is what we did!! Of course we also did not have the mad shopping day on Friday either,...but that tradition I can live without.
Next weekend we are going to a lodge in the Jesinek Mountains (mountains just North of us) with our friends from Ostrava to do a Christmas retreat. It is suppose to be for families and they invited us to come along as their "family". More details in the next blog.
Ken is all packed and we are making the final arrangements for our trip to the states. It will be good to see family and friends,...that and a good supply of fiction in English is what I truly miss. Hope to see as many of you as possible in about a month.

Tooooo Long

After waking to this scene outside our window yesterday morning, we realized that it has been way too long since we posted to the blog. We got about 2 inches of snow,..that big wet flakes that gently fell all day. By late afternoon it let up a bit and Ken and I went out for a walk. For some reason that first snow is always beautiful and peaceful. It's only later that it becomes a pain!! By about 6:00 pm most of it had melted off. But this morning it is back and everything is blanketed in white again. Because it is the wet snow all of the trees have snow on them too. The picture on the left is of rose bush. They grow wild and have these hugh rose hips on them. We admired them all fall and it looks like they will stay pretty exciting all winter .
We did have a most amazing fall. It started in the mountains the middle of September. We went to Slovakia with our friend, Radka and Ivo. The place we went was called the Mali Fatra. That means little Fatra and is not the big mountains in Slovakia. They were in full color and amazing. We stayed in a small pension in the mountains and had a beautiful view. The pension had a small pond which they kept stocked with trout. You could order them in the morning and they would cook and serve them to you at night. So one night we ordered three trout for the four of us. What we didnt' know was that these were the smart trouts that had avoided getting caught all summer so they were hugh. They were like the size of salmon. Please note that the skeleton that Ken is holding is almost as long as his arm. We managed to ge through two of them and the owner was kind enough to wrap up the third one for us to take home with us. They were absolutely delicious. We ate on it for two more days!! The beautiful leaves gradually moved down the mountains and into our river valley. The last of them fell off the trees about five days ago when we had a big rain storm. Now there is just snow. I guess I am telling this story in reverse or at least I am working backwards,...
The beginning of September, our good friends from Iowa, Leslie and Dennis came for two weeks. Although the weather was a bit rainy, we still had a wonderful time and gave them a little taste of this interesting country that we have adopted as our home. We went to Prague, the UN protected town of Telc, Kromerzic where the palace used in the film Amadeus is, and , of course, we gave them the grand tour of our magnificent and historic town of Olomouc. It was sad to see them leave as we had at least 100 more castles to visit and another 4 or 500 types of wine to sample. Oh well, the next trip. I would show you pictures, but unfortunately my computer crashed right after they left and I lost all of the great shots. They are still in our mind and hearts and thats the best place to store memories.
For now I am teaching full time at Palasky University here in Olomouc. This is a picture of some of my students learning how to write instructions in English (and play with Tinkertoys!). On the side, I and Kenny have a "breakfast club" for Phd students to practice their English, one private student and together we proof read science texts written in english. It really keeps us busy. Kenny continues to paint and to draw. He makes his weekly visit to the art museums and generally takes care of things around here. I did finally buy a sewing machine and finished my first quilt,...a gift for the daughter of a friend. We are going back to the states for Christmas. My department at the University has a European
Union grant to promote teaching English to high school science teachers. So I will be doing some filming of high school science classes while we are back in Iowa. We will try to sneak in as many visits as possible with family and friends, but hope you will make the effort to try to visit us too. I would like to say that our life has settled into a routine, but how can living in a place so different and exciting be routine? Maybe I should just say "a rhythm"? Take care,..Pam and Ken

Random thoughts

I was beginning to think no one really cared about this blog, but slowly I have learned that many of you are addicted readers and keeping up with our tales. So,....I will continue. Last Thursday, Ken and I went to Vienna to pick up my work visa and to celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary,...37th is Vienna, isn't it???? Anyway we had a great time and it is only a 3 hour train trip from here. Road the train down there, bought a 24 hour city transit ticket and enjoyed the rest of the day. The Kunst Museum is fantastic with rooms full of Rembrandts, Rubens and all of the biggies. Late in the day, we road the train home and were snug in our beds by 10:00.
Last weekend we made another trip to visit our friends in Hamburg, Germany and to see a GREAT Otto Dix art show. If you don't know Otto, google him,...a very interesting 20th Century artist whose art calls to Ken. We took along a large helping of our now infamous Barbecued ribs. We have gotten quite good at making these, complete with homemade barbecue sauce. The word is spreading and we are getting requests,.... Of course there have been short trips like to the castle at Sovinec, pictured here and about 30 miles from our home.
The papers are all signed now and the deal is done so that I will be teaching full time for Palacky University in the fall. It is the second oldest University in the country, founded in 1573. It should be interesting teaching Czech Students and not speaking very good Czech!! Actually they want me because I am a "native speaker".....strange to be exotic for speaking American English!! More about the job later.
Had my first experience with a Czech dentist today and it was ok. We had heard horror stories about how under communist, there was no Novocaine. So even root canals were done without any pain killers. I had an abscessed tooth, but the dentist took xrays and thought she could save it and cleaned and flushed out the abscess. Maybe because they learned how, she did all of this without causing me any pain and there was no need for novocaine. I would never call a Dentist experience pleasant, but it wasn't bad!! The interesting thing is that when this same thing happened on the other side, in the states, the dentist just looked at it and said, "Oh we need to pull it" and I lost that tooth. Interesting,....
We finally have an offer on our house and we are hopeful that the deal will go through. We should know in about a month when all of the inspections are done and contracts are written.
For now it is hard to believe that the summer is almost over. For those of you who made the trip across the great pond to visit, thanks. We enjoyed your company and it helped with the transition. To those of you who have not made the trip yet,...
some European/Czech tips:
1. Everyone walks here. So get in shape and find good walking shoes. It is not abnormal for us to walk 2-3 hours a day. In addition, our flat is in the 2nd floor, so there is a set of stairs to go up. We don't notice it anymore.
2. Czech beer is known as the best in the world and who am I to disagree. It has a higher alcohol content but less carbonation, so you can drink a lot more and not feel full or bloated. So "get in shape" for the beer drinking!! (and wine tasting). Check out: http://information.travel.aol.com/article/europe/_a/fairy-tale-villages-and-castles-come/20070807141809990001
3. Czech weather is similar to Iowa,....hot/cold/wet/dry/humid/,..get the picture???
4. Because there is no heat in most of the castles, many of them close from Oct 1st to May 1st. There is still a lot to see and a great country to explore. see above link. Most have their own web page now, so you can decide what you want to see. We will go anywhere!!
5. The Lewis Hotel, is always open, so just email ahead to book your room!!
See you soon!!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog

Can you believe it has been two months since I blogged!!! We did go to the states the end of May for three weeks. Most of the time there we were busy, re-cleaning our house, painting the insides of closets, doing yard work, etc. What a pain!! We switched Realtor and lowered the price,...again. Hopefully it will sell soon. The boys both came to visit us and to help. But they had to hurry back to their homes and their lives, sure miss them. The trip was bittersweet. We hated having to do all the work when we really wanted to visit friends and family. We stayed most of the time with our good friends Dennis and Leslie,...they run a real fine hotel!! We got to see my Mom, but not many of our other relatives. Everyone is busy. Some of our other friends found time to fit us in, and I was able to wrap up some more old law cases with the help of my friend, Janice. But there just wasn't enough time to see everyone. When the three weeks were over, we were exhausted and ready to return to our quiet life in the Czech Republic. So we came back to CZ and two days later left for Croatia. The trip had two purposes. The first was to see the beautiful country and the second was to see if we could find the other side of my family. My grandmother, who was a Czech, was born in Croatia. We did find the remaining cousin and a very wild story of robbers, murders, bigamist and thieves. I am trying to write it up now,.. it would make a great soap opera! I'll be happy to share it with you when I get it done! This is a picture of a very distant cousin, Frank Lipsansky and my only remaining second cousin, Alicia. We had a great time, lots of good food and drink. From there we went on to explore Croatia. Zagreb, the capital was wonderful,..filled with great museums. We then went to the far western tip of the country, an area called Istria. It was beautiful and filled with medieval towns and roman ruins. Of course no trip to Croatia would be complete without a trip to the sea. This is the view from our room. Ken went swimming a lot and I watched. Two weeks in Croatia and we only scratched the surface of this very interesting and unique county.
Then it was back to the Czech Repubic and two days later I left for a week to teach and an intensive English Language course for the faculty and staff at PalaskyUniversity,..the school where I will teach in the fall. It was a lot of fun and hopefully, being the only native speaker there, I added something to the education.. the morning after the welcoming party, I taught them all the words associated with a hangover! Now we are home again and I am working on proof reading a Veterinary Lab manual. The first edition they emailed to me had all the gory pictures,..thank goodness the next copy was just text! I should finish it up this week and then we are off to Vienna to pick up my work visa. Mostly I am getting tired just thinking of all of this!! To those of you we saw when we were in the states,..it was great to see you. To those that we didn't make contact with,...next time,...probably March. For now, stay in touch,...your emails, letters and calls help to lessen the void of separation.

The Problem with Blogs

The problem with blogs is that when you don't write in them, everyone starts complaining or making these snide little comments like,.."oh we love your blog, but of course there isn't much to read." Well, it is not because nothing has happened. It is just because we have been too busy!! We went to Bouzov castle with our Ostrava friends. It is a wonderful medieval castle that has been maintained and restored since the early 1900's. It is used a lot in movies. Then Ken and I went to Vienna , Austria for a day,...doesn't that sound funny. Going to Vienna for a day. We wrestled with the Czech Embassy for a while in the morning and then we had a wonderful time at the new Leopold Museum. That is a museum that is dedicated to Klimt and Egon Schille and all of their friends. A wonderful exhibit!! Of course we have gotten used to the Czech Museums where they only charge $2-3 .oo for admission. The small little Leopold Museum was $13.00 each. On the way to Vienna, we stopped at Mikulov, a wonderful Renaissance village on the Czech/Austrian border. In addition to another great castle, they have the worlds largest barrel of wine!
Right now the house is a mess as we start the packing process for our trip to the US. It's hard to get adjusted to not calling that "home". It still seems like we are on an extended vacation. We will be getting back to the states on May 29 and hanging around until June 19th. I don't know if we will have time to seek all of you out, but please try to find us if you have time.
I would like to promise that I will be more diligent with the blog posting, but I've decided not to take anything too seriously,...including blogs!!

A little reflection and a lot of adventures

It has been several weeks since we posted and perhaps it is time for a little reflection. We learned a week ago that a friend and fellow antique dealer passed away suddenly. He was 67 and had recently retired. He had just returned from spending his first winter as a "snow-bird" in the south. He had promised to come and visit,....With Ken's birthday a week away, and mine just past, it made us reflect on what we are doing and how glad we are that we threw caution to the wind and started this adventure. I have been reading the Czech writer Milan Kundera "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and found it very appropriate this week. Kundera talks about how making decisions can be difficult because each event is a one time event. There is no rehearsal and no chance to "try it again." Because of that we have no frame of reference for our decisions and are often left to take chances. With the dollar falling in value and our house sitting, unsold, the chances that we took seem overwhelming some days. But what is the other option? Not an option at all! We are so glad to be here and to be using every day for a new adventure!

Ken and I try to take a little road trip every Friday and explore a new town. Imagine our surprise when we got out of town and discovered that the Czechs have matched Ken's yellow bench with fields and fields of electric yellow flowers. It is amazing. They are everywhere and stretch for miles. You look across this beautiful landscape that is green with spring and there sitting in the middle of it is an amazing intense yellow field. After a little research we were able to discover that it is Canola, for making oil. But what a beautiful spring color!
On Sunday we visited a little village near here that has a palace. Unfortunately the palace belongs to the village and so there is little or no money for the restoration. During communism, it was used as a home for handicapped children. Today the city has restored two of the rooms and recovered some of the paintings. There are 82 rooms in the palace and a hugh formal garden, woods and ponds that are in serious need of restoration. This is a picture of a neo-gothic greenhouse. As we were leaving, the ticket taker/tour guide/local historian asked us if we would like to buy it. It's only 3 million dollars and that includes all of the paintings, furnishing and grounds. Ken thought it would make a great art school or art retreat. Any of you interested???

Today we went to Moravska Trebova. This is a wonderful town that we first visited in 1993. At that time the local palace was in shambles and most of the town in sad repair. We went there because of the local church that has Baroque (1600) frescoes( paintings) on the out side of the church. You can see the frescoes in the background of this photo.
We went to the city palace and discovered not only had it been restored, but it was now possible to tour some of it. We had a wonderful young woman who gave Ken and I a great tour of this late renaissance castle. She spoke a little English and with our little Czech it was a marvelous experience. We were there for almost two hours, while she shared with us the secrets of the palace. Another great day!
We will be returning to the US the end of May for about three weeks and I know we will not have time to visit all of you. I guess that means you need to throw caution to the wind and come and visit us!!!

Dealing with "Cultural differences"

This last weekend was Easter and after some discussions it was decided that we would not stay and partake of the Czech Easter Customs. The Czech's, particularly in the rural areas have this tradition that on Easter Monday the males, from little boys to old men, go door to door and carry switches that are made from willow branches woven together and with ribbons on them. They use these to hit the women who then are suppose to traditionally give them eggs......a little too pagan for me!!! In reality, the little boys get chocolate eggs or decorated eggs, the men get shots of liquor and end up really drunk. The smart ones ask for money and in general the entire thing can be quite unpleasant for a feminist with an attitude. Ken thought it would be best to get me out of the country!
Actually we were looking for an excuse to visit our friends in Hamburg Germany. We travel there by car,..took about 10 hours,..but to someone from Iowa, that is only a "hoot and holler" down the road. We had a great time,...ate too much and drank too much great wine,.. but other than that we really enjoyed ourselves. Ken had to also deliver his first commission work. Our friend in Hamburg just bought a house and the bathroom had no outside walls or windows. So she had the carpenter put a fake one in that did not go anywhere and then commissioned Ken to do 4 seasonal paintings to go on the wall behind the fake window. Ken did the spring one and we delivered it. It really looks great and certainly helps the bathroom!! I've heard of "sofa painting" before, but not "bathtub paintings"!!
We had more visitors this last week. The daughter of an old friend and her boyfriend from Denmark stopped by for a couple of days. It was great having "young people" around. Did the usual eating, drinking and castle hoping.
Ken is working on more paintings. We saw a great show of a woman artist from Finland while we were in Hamburg, Helene Schjerfbeck. She painted from the age of 8 until she died at 83. Ken has a little catching up to do. I am trying to put together some lectures for translators on the basic concepts of American Law while he paints. The weather has been so beautiful that we haven't worn coats for a week....sorry you guys in the middle of a blizzard.
But for now the Lewis hotel is empty,..so get your tickets bought and put in your reservations!!

Cultural Exchange

Each day we gain new experiences and gain insights into this rich and wonderful country. Sunday we decided to return the favor and introduce this country to a real American picnic. So we bought a picnic table, got a checkered table cloth, found a barbecue grill and some hamburgers, potato salad and bake beans. The weather was gorgeous, in the mid sixties and the food tasted great. Our Czech friends (Jiri, Eva and Dasa on the infamous yellow bench. Lada, Eva's daughter and Jachym playing at the picnic) accepted this as just another strange event with the Lewis's. I'm not sure what the neighbors thought. Please notice the bright yellow bench behind Ken in the photo. This very sad and weathered bench has been in the yard since we started visiting almost 15 years ago. So Ken asked the building manager if we could paint it,...little did they know they were dealing with the "mad American Artist." After getting the go ahead, Ken went out and bought the brightest yellow he could find. It really looks wonderful and matches the daffodils and forsythias. You can also see our little barbecue grill that works great. The hamburgers were so good, that everyone had two!!
This has been an interesting week. The 29th was my birthday and I had made an appointment to meet with an Expat American to talk about doing some work at his Language School. He invited Ken to come along. After a two minute tour of his facilities, he suggested that we go and get a beer. We went to this wonderful pub that was under one of the original buildings of the city. We had the local beer and a big wooden platter filled with smoked meats and cheese. After a few beers, Ken had three wines and let it slip that it was my birthday. Well, more expats were called to join us and we all trouped off to hear some Australian band in a very small, smokey Czech bar. The band was a bust head rock and roll band complete with all the local color, some English majors from the local university, a doped out American from Poland and one homeless guy who kept bumming cigarettes from everyone. Several beers and shots of the local liquor later, Ken and I had to call it a night and leave. The walk home took about 40 minutes and gave us time to sober up a bit before we had to climb the steps to our flat!! I haven't celebrated my birthday like that since I was 27,..certainly not at 57!! Maybe this country is making me younger!!

Ostrava-rediscovered

We spent a wonderful weekend at the town of Ostrava with our friends Radka and Ivo and their daughter Michaela. We also went to the town of Pribor to visit the Sigmund Freud house (where he was born). While in Pribor we had one of those very special Czech experiences. We wondered up to the beautiful Gothic, (later Baroque churches.) It being Saturday around noon, the church was closed and gated up. While we were standing there admiring the outside, this woman came up with a key. She said she had come to ring the bells and would we like to go with her. Unfortunately she did not have keys to the church only the bell tower. So we climber these winding stairs carved in stone up to the bell tower (about 150 of them!!). The view was fantastic. She explained that she did this twice a day, at 6:30 am and at noon, everyday. She has been doing it for 40 years. Then she rang the bells. I am surprised that after 40 years she can hear anything! She told us the names of the different bells and what they were used for. One bell (the one in the photo) is the Maria bell and is only rung on Sundays. One of the smaller bells, the Barbara bell, was only rung for funerals. When it was all done we climbed back down and she walked us out of the church yard and thanked us for looking at her bells. I guess this is why we love this country. This type of experience continues to occur to us. Wonderful people who care and love their country and who have a reason to be proud of it and the fine history that it holds. They are also so proud of it that they want to share it with others-even us!!
We had a marvelous time with our friends and re-discovered parts of Ostrava, a city on the North Eastern part of the Czech Republic. Of course we ended up at Ostrava Castle, another medieval castle that has now been restored and hosts many Renaissance fairs in the summer months. Michaela need to make a Maraina for school so I helped out. Under Czech tradition in the spring, everyone goes to the River and throws out the old woman of winter , Maraina. So we had to make one for Michaela to take to school on Monday. Great fun and not too bad for my first attempt!

Health Insurance

Our latest adventure involves getting health insurance here in the Czech Republic. There are several private companies that sell it to foreigners at about the same rates as the US and of course it covers nothing. The Czech government also offers insurance to it's citizens and to foreigners so we decided to try and apply for that. We went to the foreign office where the woman spoke pretty good English, but we took a friend along anyway. We got all the forms and information and then were told that we had to have a physical from one of their two doctors. We called and made an appointment that we went to on Friday. It was in a building directly across the street from the cemetary,....hum.....It has been 40 years since I have had anyone draw blood without wearing rubber gloves. I was handed an old measuring cup and Ken a plastic drinking cup and told to get a urine sample. The Doctor spoke almost no English and had a manual typewriter that she used to type up the form. She also used carbon paper to make a copy for her files,....don't know where to even buy carbon paper in the States! She wanted to know what our parents died of and if our siblings were healthy. Ken told her he was taking pills for blood pressure and offered to show her what it was and all she wanted to know was if he took one or two pills. I told her about my high blood sugars and she said there was no sugar in the urine so she wasn't going to write it down. She did a quick exam, heart lungs etc and then she took our blood pressure and Ken's was 150/95,...a little high even for him. Then she took mine and it was 150/95. Since mine always runs about 110/60, I asked her to take it again and she did and got the same result 150/95. I tried to tell her I thought there was a problem with her machine, so she took our friend/interrupters blood pressure and guess what it was??? 150/90. She assured us that it was not a problem because we were probably all just nervous!!! I certainly was after that!!! The final event however was when she handed us our blood samples and told us we had to take them to the lab ourselves! We thanked her and asked if she would be our regular doctor in the future and she assured us that she would not. She only does the exams. So we drove to the other side of town where we handed off our blood to some woman in jeans in the hallway of some building! We should get the results in about a week and if we are approved,.....we get Czech health insurance, I think,...I know all of this sounds crazy, but somehow it works here. The medical care is excellent and the cost of the insurance is about 1/4 of what we were paying in the states. If I work for the University, I will get the insurance for free and then we only have to buy it for Ken. So that is the experience for now,...After the gorgeous weather last weekend, this weekend was cloudy and colder,..but the dafodils and forsythias (the Czechs call them golden rain!) are out and the cold will soon be gone!

One Month, but who's counting!

It has been one month since we arrived here and in some ways it still feels like we are only on vacation. What a way to live life!! Feeling like you are on vacation all the time!
Of course the first few weeks were filled with shopping. We arrived to an apartment that had a sleeper sofa,..we ordered it sight unseen, a set of linens (purchased last March), a coffee pot,..but no coffee cups and a couple of towels. Since all of our luggage was lost even the stuff we had brought was not here for the first night. Gradually we added the essentials,..a bed, dishes, pans, a TV, printer etc. It is interesting that under communism there was essentially one store, one product and one price. Now there are thousands of specialty stores. In fact I needed some extra pillow cases so I had to go to a store that sold only bed linens. Ken had to go to a paint store for turpentine for painting and to a drug store for de-natured alcohol for cleaning his brushes. I am still looking at a couple of different sewing machine stores to buy a machine. There are a few of the big "Wall-Mart type" of stores and they carry a general line of a lot of items. They do not however have the variety and quantity that we are used to and in many cases they are more expensive than the little neighborhood specialty store. Some things we still have not found,...like steel wool and vanilla. I'm sure they are around but it is sort of a scavenger hunt to figure out where to go to buy them. This photo is of one of the local Baroque churches.

Will wonders never cease!

It is not enough that we have quit all our jobs and travel around the world to live in the Czech Republic, we have also started a Blog! So many of you have asked for updates, that we thought this would be the easiest way to keep everyone informed about the exciting adventure we are on. I suppose some of this will boring at times and we will try to spare you all the mundane trivial aspects of complete changing a lifestyle after 55. I hope to post some photos of the great places we go to (another hurdle to try to decipher). Mostly we hope to share with you the excitement and wonders that we encounter along the way. The photo at the right is Helfstein Castle. A wonderful old medieval castle set up on a hill. In the summer they have re-enactments and catapults flying. It was a glorious Sunday, 60 F and sunny and no better way to while-a-way an afternoon. This is just the start, so hang in there and check us out often!!