Weekend Away

This past weekend, Faith Community Church sponsored a Women's Retreat, held in a small village called Cesky Krumlov. The village is a popular tourist destination because of the preserved old buildings and the natural beauty of the area.

First, let me say that there is a reason why Tom takes all the photos for us- the ones following are not so good, but I tried! Of course there were many times when I did not have the camera available, for instance when we were all gathered together, so there are no group people shots here.

Close to 40 women gathered for this retreat, some from the church and others from Riverside School. The retreat was led by a small group of women from Uptown Church in Charlotte, NC, who had prepared an uplifting weekend of Bible study, prayer, and singing for us.

We were fortunate enough to have cars and drivers available for the entire group. I am very glad that I do not drive here, because the following photo is the street on which our rooms were located. Yes, it is EXTREMELY narrow, but cars can, and do, navigate through. Kudos to Laura who was one of the first drivers to arrive and negotiate these streets.

I took a photo of my friend Connie gazing out the window of our room to show that this particular room is available for a comfortable, long-term stay! We had a living/dining area, a fully equipped kitchen, and two separate bedrooms and a bath on the opposite side that I did not try to photograph.

This is what Connie was looking at. The weather on Saturday AM was not very nice- rainy and chilly, but a group of us had signed up in advance to raft down that river. I debated all through the morning sessions as to whether or not I should go, and I finally decided to do it. It was a great decision as the sun appeared about 1/2 way through our journey, and we had a marvelous time floating along on our rafts. When we finally reached our stopping point and were picked up for the trip back to town, we asked the driver how far we had gone. He told us that the river route is 15 kilometers, although the end point is only 5 kilometers away by road! Unfortunately, I have no photos of this event, as I did not think to take the camera!!

Food is always a major part of such gatherings, and we had the opportunity on Saturday evening to choose from some of the many restaurants in the town. Part of our rafting group went to a restaurant on the advice of our raft pick-up driver for some traditional Czech cuisine.

The street on which this restaurant was located was so narrow that I couldn't back away far enough to get a great photo, but here is the doorway. We walked all the way through the small interior space and took a table on the edge of the river.

We ordered the Bohemian feast for all 5 of us. It was served on this huge platter family style, and we all helped ourselves to the different meats. We had rabbit, pheasant, chicken, and ham, as well as one trout which you can't see because it was on a separate plate. There were some potato pancake type things on the platter that were FANTASTIC (my Dad would have loved them) as well as a bready-type concoction made from millet. We all ate too much of course!

Wine was served in this type of chalice.....

Of course the town has a castle. Because I went rafting, I didn't have any free time to do much sightseeing, so I don't have any great photos of the castle. I took this one from the restaurant on the river's edge, aiming up to try to get the most notable part of the castle on the cliff. That's why it looks funny (haha). There are actually more parts to the castle buildings, which I tried to photograph at night, but the photo wasn't good enough to post.

I'm not sure if you can see the colors on that tower, but it made me think of a Mackenzie Childs piece when I first saw it.

This is definitely a place that I would like to visit again!