Petrin Hill

What a day today! Petrin Hill is one of my favorite places in Prague, it was so close from where I was growing up and it has so much to offer. It is a beautiful green space, with several tourist and children friendly attractions, and amazing views of Prague. And the hospital where grandma works is adjacent to it.

So to start the day we went to visit grandma at work, met her wonderful coworkers and got a tour behind the scenes of a hospital lab. We saw how the different machines work and see some interesting samples under a microscope.

Then we took a walk through the rose garden, which unfortunately is not blooming yet, but still looks pretty. We saw the secret garden though, which was blooming with tulips and the kids found a tree to climb.

Then we took the cable car down, play on the playground and took it back up to grab a lunch.

After lunch we went to the mirror maze, which is very small, but the best part are the fun mirrors at the end. We had a lot of fun there!

After that we braved the 299 steps up the smaller replica of Eiffel Tower, the Petrin Tower. Once you make it to the top, you are really high above Prague and can see Prague castle, the whole old town and a lot more. If you not too scared of heights that is:-)

After that we headed towards the tram station, down the hill through the promenade with the view. We walked almost 6 miles today and climbed 24 floors! I Know this place so well and it is great to be able to show my favorite spots to the kids. And of course, spending time with the grandparents makes it even more special.

 

 

Lego Museum

It was a cold and windy day with a chance of rain, so we were looking for some indoor fun today. Turns out, a nice little lego museum opened in downtown, which was perfect for us. They have a pretty nice collections of different sets, from older to newer, from most, if not all different editions – city, technic, architect and more, as well as movie and show collections, ranging from toy story to Indiana Jones and Harry Potter and Sylvia loved finding the friends collection as well. We had a lot of fun discovering all the characters and themes.

Upstairs is a pretty impressive collection of star wars legos, the boys found plenty of sets they really, really, really want:-)

We also enjoyed the fun mirror and the kids left a mark on the wall at the store.

After that we peeked at Wenceslas Square and bought lunch from the street vendors, but it was too cold, so we headed back to grandma and grandpa’s and took a ride on the subway to get there. It was fun, but we hope it will get warmer soon, so we can explore more outdoor places.

Arrived to Prague!

Today was a busy day, we made our trip to Prague, to spend some time with family and friends. Our first experience with an European low cost airlines, Transavia, was a good one.  We had a direct connection from Eindhoven to Prague and even managed to use buses in both cities to and from the airport and everything was on time. Sylvia took a few selfies on the plane, while Timmy took about 50 pictures of Prague from the air, unfortunately all the in rapid succession and all the same, and he did not get the Prague Castle or Charles Bridge, even though we saw it:-) We’ll  just have to take pictures there from the ground.

But of course the highlight was spending time with grandma and grandpa. There will be a lot to report in the nest week, we’ll have to see if we have time for it though!

Dream & Dare Festival

We happen to be here for the 60th birthday of TU/e, the university graciously hosting Karel as a visiting professor for the semester. They are celebrating in stye with the Dream & Dare Festival, which took over campus for the weekend.

It was a chilly weekend with several rain interruptions, even some frozen precipitation, but it was sure worth braving the elements. There were several stages with interesting performances, including various genres of music and ballroom dancing. We especially enjoyed the student wind orchestra, which was pretty impressive.

The kids enjoyed many activities available to them, the boys especially liked riding the bikes in a vertical circle, Phillip said that it is definitely not like riding a bike when you hanging upside down:-) Timmy could not reach the pedals, but the helpful guys pushed him around so he can experience it too. Rock climbing and inflatable shark were other favorites.

We had to take a hot chocolate brake at Karel’s office on both days to hide from the rain, sleet, and cold wind. We were lucky the drone races were taking place right in front of the building and we were able to watch it like we were in a private box!

We were also able to take a boat ride, fortunately the pool area was not too big, as the boats were a little hard to steer and the wind was working against us.

Of course there was also science on display, such as floating concrete, smart goals for soccer, which the kids got to test, virtual reality, and soccer playing robots, which were almost as cool as the robots playing football at Notre Dame. There was also an exhibit on nanotechnology, some of which we’d love to have right away, such as paint that changes color instantly to anything you pick from a color wheel on a touchpad. We had mixed feelings about other examples, like wine that can change flavor, or a belt that can transform your unwanted fat into energy to charge a phone or a flashlight, or a pill allowing you to eat any junk with no ill effect because it blocks the digestion. We also experienced some virtual reality and saw drones taking orders and delivering drinks in a drone cafe.

 

There was also good food and ok beer (which you can carry around openly and not just in the beer garden) and a record breaking beer crate bridge. We were lucky to be here for the festival, it was a lot of fun! Happy birthday TU/e!

 

Picnic at the Park

One benefit of not having any firm schedule is that we can take advantage of a beautiful day when it comes. Today was one such day, high of 65 and sunny, so we packed a picnic lunch got on our bikes and rode to Henri Dunant Park, which is less than 3 miles away and has a lot to offer.First of all, it is home of the Speelpark the Splinter, amazing collection of play areas, I wish every kid had access to. There is something for everybody and enough to keep everybody busy. I think it stimulates kids any age to be active, engages all muscles and promotes coordination and balance development and more. We spent most of the day there today, and still did not visit all the areas (that is why some pictures are from another day:-).

Right by the entrance, there are giant checker boards on the ground as well as smaller boards on tables. There are ping-pong tables, soccer field and a big climbing tower with a slide. There is even a little workout area for the kids to enjoy.And yes, all the accessories such as balls, checkers, ping pong paddles are available to borrow.

Then there is a an area for younger kids with merry-go-rounds, swings, slides and various climbing structures. Walk a little further and you get into a large picnic area, surrounded by more play options: giant castle, giant lego bricks,  teater-totters, swings and more climbing structures. There is also a hammock to rest while the kids play, Sylvia and I enjoyed the sun in it for a while.

On the other side is a rope course, pretty challenging even for older kids, Timmy and Phillip love to climb there,  Sylvia prefers the  tall climbing hill and structure with spider net ladder right next to it.

And of course you cannot forget the zipline!

But that is not even close to all. There is also a petting farm, with goats, pigs, lamas, donkeys and more, including free ranging chickens, peacocks and ducks.

Next there is an area where kids younger than 6 need a parent to enter. At first you are not sure why, as there is a giant climbing ship, fun, but nothing dangerous. Well, if you continue a little behind the ship, you come to the reason.

There is an obstacle course, but with an added fun feature: water hazard:-) The kids love it, Timmy calls it the ninja warrior course. Timmy is too short to stand on the lower rope and hold on to the higher one, so he just hangs on the tall one shimmies across.

Today we found the spinning area, there are several spinning structures, including a giant saucer on its side. You can walk on it to spin it, you can also hang on the side as somebody else walks to spin it. It is great for balance and coordination and of course a lot of fun. I am in love with this park and wish is was everywhere and accessible to all kids. There is also a big splash pool, the kids really hope it will be filled before we leave.

The Henri Dunant Park has more though, we still have not see it all. It is great for a nice walk wit a lot to keep the kids busy along the way. There is another zipline, giant spiderweb, with a smaller twin next to it for less adventurous kids, more playgrounds, interesting rockets-like sculpture and plenty more. I am sure this was not the last time we visited.

 

 

 

Giant Bubbles at the FeelGood Market

I have yet to write about the awesome farmers marked held a couple of blocks from us every Saturday, and I will soon. Today I want to write about another market, which happens once a month, every  third Sunday of the month, and is less than a mile from us in another direction. It is called the FeelGood Market . It is a huge space that allows mostly local vendors to sell their products. It ranges from pottery and jewelry, to baby clothes and accessories, shoes, bags, kitchen gear and more. There are also many stands with treats and specialty food, such as cheese, sausages, preserves, canned and baked goods. Outside for lunch or early dinner you can choose from food options of different cuisines, including american:-)

You can spend the afternoon browsing the stands, trying things on, talking to the vendors and eating samples. There are other things to do too. There is a live music, bounce house, face painting and many crafts and games for kids. You can also participate in workshops, such how to be a DJ or drumming. Phillip picked up a souvenir – swiss army knife striped of the plastic cover and put into a wood setting by a local wood carver.

We had a lot of fun, but the best 2 euros we spent was for a big bucket of bubble liquid that comes with wands to blow giant bubbles. We all took turns to see who can make the biggest and longest lasting bubbles. Making the bubbles last was a little difficult with all the kids running around truing to pop as many as possible:-)

We ended the day with some potato tornadoes, which are genius, I am surprised I have not seen it in US yet. You can watch how a raw potato is cut into a spiral, put on a screwer and deep fried, so you have a huge spiral chip on a stick. You can pick a seasoning flavor too. Another great weekend in Netherlands for us!

 

Bike Ride to Molen de Roosdonck

People have been asking why we have not been to some of the big cities, couple hour train ride from here, visiting some of the major tourist attractions. We will visit some, but we believe there is a value in exploring your surroundings, taking the routes less traveled, talking to locals and finding beauty in places not listed on tourist maps.

For example, if you want to see windmills, everybody tells you to visit Kinderdijk. It is an impressive collection of 19 windmills, harvesting the power of wind to protect large part of Holland from flooding. It is a busy tourist attraction though and from what we understand, very crowded all the time.

So instead, we looked for windmills around us and found one close enough, that we visited today. It was a great bike ride, about a 12 mile roundtrip, through beautiful countryside and small town Nuenen, which is the home to Molen de Roosdonck. The mill also dates to early 19th century, had been completely restored in the 90ties, and is now completely functional. It is in private hands, supported by a foundation and is open to public on Saturday, while the volunteer miller grains into flour. We were treated to a tour of the mill, saw how the grain is being transformed to flour. The owner, who does this as a hobby on weekends, even stopped the mill for us, explained how everything works and let us touch one of the blades. Standing right under the blade looking up gives you an idea how enormous the structure is, each blade is about 13 meters long. We were able to climb steep set of stairs to see all the mechanics. We had the mill pretty much to ourselves to explore. We even bough some pancake flouer milled there, and some local honey.

It was an amazing afternoon, away from the crowds, yet learning about something very authentic to Netherlands. We took a different way home and saw more of the town Neunen, farms and countryside. Can’t wait to explore some more!

 

Flammkuchen in Breda

Yesterday we took the train to Breda, one of the historical cities in North Brabant province. Its origins can be traced to the 11th century and it has been significant strategically from military perspective, and politically over the course of history.

When you walk from the train station towards the center, you can go through a beautiful city park, which was busy with life on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. (I feel for you Indiana friends who were getting snow at that time:-)

The park is attached to historical city center, you can see the Kasteel van Breda from the park. It is a fortress dating back to the 12th century. Currently it is a military academy, but it is pretty impressive even  just from the outside.

The downtown is centered around De Kerkschaft – Grote Kerk, Church of Our Lady, an impressive church, parts of it can be traced to the 11th century and was build in its current form in 15th century. It has rich history tied to the royal family, and many ancestors of the royal family are buried there. It is majestic on the outside, but hard to get a good shot of, as it is mostly surrounded by buildings. On the inside, there are so many details, stone carvings on tombstones, wood carvings, statues, pipe organ, it hard to decide what to look at first. In the prince chamber, where the royal ancestors are buried, you can study the royal family tree. The church is open to public and used as a cultural venue for concerts, exhibits and other events.

After the church we had lunch at the Grote Markt, the plaza close to the church, which is full of outdoor seating of many restaurants on the square. We decided to sample some local cuisine, and ordered some flammkuchen. It looks like a flatbread pizza, but it is very thin, more like tortilla, and there is no pizza sauce or cheese. It comes with different toppings though, we had some leek and mushroom, leek and bacon and parmesan proscito. It was deletes, we had to order seconds:-) They can also be topped with fruit and sweet toppings, we need to try that next time!

We really enjoyed visiting Breda, it was lively and fun, but not overcrowded and the presence of history is palpable, but combined with modern feel in a very enjoyable way. We might come visit again!

Saturday Outing on Bikes

So today at the farmers market we were able to get all the things we needed, the seat for Sylvia, pump, a lock, and a basket for my bike and were able to go on our first outing on bikes. 

Bikes are a common way of transportation and the roads are made for it. Usually there is a road, sometimes bus lane, bike lane and a sidewalk. On crossroads, bikes have it’s own signals, so you have one signal for cars, one for walkers and one for bikes. Sometimes the bike path is even further from the road, like on the picture above. It is usually on both sides of the road, but sometimes it is a two way wide road on one side and it is clearly marked that bikes have to go there and not on the road. Some roads are only for bikes and are closed to cars completely. It is usually reddish or rust color too, so you have a visual indicator of where to go. We don’t have it completely down yet, but it was pretty easy to follow. It is great and I wish we had more of this in US. The only thing that bothers me is that motorcycles are allowed in the bike lanes. They zoom past you pretty fast and it does not feel as safe as if only non motorized two wheelers were allowed. We just need to keep reminding Timmy to satay on the side.

We rode past a windmill, that is currently a bed and breakfast and is actually for sale right now. Anybody interested in owning a windmill bed and breakfast in Eindhoven? Might not be a bad way to make living:-)

Our main destination today was Speelpark de Splinter. It probably deserves a separate post, as it is an amazing place. I wrote about the playgrounds before, this is the best one yet. It is about 2 miles from us, so a little too far to walk, at least not often, but on bikes we can be there in less than 15 minutes. It has many play areas, including a petting farm, rope course, water obstacle course and many others. There is even a a splash pool for summer. I am including just a few pictures and will try to post more about it soon, I am sure we will go there a lot!

 

Using Public Transportation

There is a very nice water park in Eindhoven Nationaal Zwemcentrum de Tongelreep,  that the kids wanted to go ever since we started to research about Eindhoven. We finally decided to go yesterday and even though we just got bikes, we are waiting till Saturday market to get Sylvia’s seat, so we decided to take the bus.

Eindhoven public transportation is limited to buses, but it is an extensive network, that covers the city and outlaying areas well and the buses run on time and often. We live about 3/4 of a mile from the train station, which is also the hub for all the bus routes. It is a busy place with buses coming and going all the times. (I forgot to take a picture so I borrowed one from OV magazine)

Even though our schedule said the bus leaves from platform A, we were able to see on the digital displays that it was actually on Platform E. That is probably why nobody was waiting at the actual platforms, rather everybody was in the larger waiting area at the front, and only went to the platform after the bus # appeared at the digital display. There are digital displays on every station with up to date information on bus arrivals, as well as on the buses with upcoming stations and estimated arrival times, and connecting busses, which makes navigation pretty easy.

As we got on, Timmy and Sylvia started to have a lot of questions “How does the driver know where to take us?”, “Are all the people here going to the water park?” , “Why is the bus stopping every couple of minutes?” and “Why are different people getting on and others off?”. And I realized they have no frame of reference for how public transportation works. They are used to getting into a car and driving from point A to point B directly, and the idea of looking up lines and possibly switching buses, dealing with schedules is completely foreign to them. Phillip has some experience from our previous trips to Europe, but the little ones do not. When I was their age, taking trams, buses and subway everywhere was just part of an everyday life. I miss that living in US, even though South Bend Mishawaka metro area is comparable to Eindhoven, the bus network certainly is  not:-) I can’t wait to take the kids to Prague where we’ll take trams and buses and subway.

One thing I am still confused about here is the fare. The website is only in Dutch and even with Google Translate, I am not very clear on it. But it seems the bus drivers aren’t either. Almost everyone here has a chip card that they slide on top of a machine when they get on and again when getting off and it charges them automatically. You can also pay cash to the driver though. On our way there, the driver charged us two full price tickets for me and Phillip and nothing for Timmy and Sylvia, total of 7.40 Euro. On our way back, I got a special ticket for one adult and two children for 6 Euro and one more for a child for 1 Euro, for a total of 7. When I went to the main store at the station and asked, I was told the kids are 1 Euro for every trip and my ticket depends on where I am going. So I am still not much smarter. We plan to bike to most places anyway, but is was a fun experience! I only took two pictures on our way home, Sylvia and I still with wet hair, but here it is:-)