Brit and Czech not abroad

I thought I’d take a break from recapping our year off travelling and write about something a little more recent (but still a while ago…). In May of last year, we spent a week back in Radka’s home country of the Czech Republic (or Czechia, as it’s now officially known). And then in August, Radka joined me in the Scottish Highlands.

One of the things we’ve noticed about both living abroad, is that when we return to either of our home countries we tend to spend most of our time seeing friends and family, normally in our home towns or to where our families have moved. This is obviously enjoyable, but it is a bit weird that with all of the travelling we’ve done we’ve barely seen any of each other’s countries. So, when we decided to spend a week in the Czech Republic we thought we’d make a concerted effort to explore somewhere different. Hence, the final itinerary of spending half of the week in Radka’s home town and the other half hiking in the famous Krkonoše National Park. Whilst in Scotland we combined family time with visiting the beautiful island of Mull, along with a couple of hikes in the Highlands.

For our time in the Czech Republic, the route that Radka chose is part of the Czech Trail; a series of connected long-distance hiking trails throughout the Czech Republic. Whilst there are multiple parts to this concept, if you tackle the main ‘North’ and ‘South’ routes, you will have walked approximately 2100 km, as you follow close to the border and effectively walk around the whole of the Czech Republic! I think it’s a fantastic idea and fits well for the Czech Republic, as geographically the more mountainous regions tend to be along the borders, whilst the central part is much more flat. In the next few years I can really see it taking off as another of Europe’s major long-distance hiking trails.

We may have only done a very small part of the route, but it was beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable. If you’d like to read more about our adventure in the Krkonoše National Park, then please click here.

Our trip to Mull was different, in that we took a car with my parents and used it to explore different parts of the island. We only spent one night on Mull, but this still allowed for two action-packed days. Activities included swimming at the picture-perfect Calgary Beach, eating fish and chips and battered haggis at the colourful ‘capital’ of Mull, Tobermory; and otter-spotting on the drive to Croggan. If you wish to read about the trip in more detail, then please click here.

It was really nice to see a bit more of our own countries and we thoroughly enjoyed both trips. I definitely think it’ll be a pattern we follow more in the future.