days before the tour starts

We left Sacramento airport Sunday early afternoon, flew to San Francisco International airport, which took 1 hour, then boarded our flight to Frankfurt, Germany for an 11 hour journey after which we caught a 45 minute flight to Prague. After attempting to retrieve our luggage (which was lost somewhere in between), we picked up our minibus car rental, which turned out to be a small SUV 7 seater Renault car, (great for 5 normal sized people and 2 midgets) we will have to make it work, as we could not trade,

we drove 2 hours to Zasada to our Bed and Breakfast Penzion. Exhausted.

We decided to do a little bit of grocery shopping. J-Me loves Cerny Rybiz juice, which is a lovely black currant. We also picked up a bag of frozen strawberry Knedliky which we steamed when we got back to our Penzion. 

The next day, still wearing the clothes we traveled in, we drove around buying art nouveau perfume bottles at a couple of factories we know,

and then on to some filigree at a small factory in Jablonec.

Had a fun day just by ourselves. Later that afternoon our suitcases arrived at the penzion. Yay, fresh clothes and our own bath soap and shampoo.

Wednesday: we had planned to visit castles and just relax, but the day started with heavy rain and spoiled our plans. Two of the castles we had thought to go see, had severe flash flood warnings in those areas. So instead we went antique shopping.

And then bead excavating along a forest logging road we had discovered years before just down the road from Preciosa-Ornela factory.

Saw an old abandoned pressing hut.

Later that afternoon we checked into our hotel, The Zlaty Lev (which means Golden Lion) , in Jablonec, and just loafed around.

Our view from our room at Zlaty Lev. It is still foggy and raining.

Tomorrow morning Guy will drive into Prague to pick up the four tour guests to begin the tour.

Let the fun begin!