2005 group picture

Standing, left to right-  Ralph (Nigl) Schneider, Vanessa (Nigl) Blink, Jeff Blink,

Tom Reischl, Chuck Nigl, Jeanne (Reischl ) Dunn, Joanie (Fretschl,Kellermann) Reuss,

Mary D.( Nigl,Schraml), Lauri D. ( Bloechl,Weichseldorfer) 

 Kneeling, Carla Nigl, Sandy Nigl

Missing from picture: Michael, Ken and Peter

HOW TO GET A DRIVING PASS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Blue links will have 2005 pictures posted

Several of us decided to visit the festivities in Philippsreut on Monday. We were Ken, Mary, Laurie, Michael and Peter. We heard that there was a special mass held in the church. We arrived after the mass had started and could not get into the church since it was too crowded. There was a tent set up for food and beer but nothing was really happening and since it had started to rain we decided to leave and cross the border into Bohemia.  It was a holiday so there was a lot of traffic and the border was backed up. We decided to give up, Michael took off for Austria while the rest of us drove to the pedestrian crossing at Haidmühle. We checked out the border and could see a train on the other side. There is a paid parking lot on the German side but we could see no reason to stay so we decided to get lunch back at Bischofsreut. 

After lunch we tried for the car border at Strazny again, this time with no problem. The border guards just waved us through. Immediately across the border is where Landstrassen used to be. Now all we could see was a clearing. We drove on and past Strazny and then turned off on the road to Ceske Zleby. NB (the pictures I posted on snapfish that say Stozec are actually Cesky Zleby) It is a very pretty countryside with cows in the field but since it is in the Sumava National Park there is little development. We stopped in Ceske Zleby ( Bohmisch-Rohren) and took some pictures of the cemetery.  There is no longer a church and we think where the church used to be there is now a new building that will cater to the hiking and biking tourist crowd. We continued down the road to Stozec (Tusset) which is just a couple of houses, what may have been a barracks for the communist military border guards, a train station and a small hotel. We then went down the road past a police academy (huh, what is that doing out here?) and drove to the border with Germany opposite Haidmühle. We don't think we were supposed to be driving in this area but nobody questioned us. At the border is a museum in a few old railroad cars, a duty free cigarette and liquor hut, and the border building. The village of Nuethal or Czech Nove Udoli is here on maps but there is nothing here. No one was manning the border and we would have driven back to Germany but the crossing gate was padlocked. That would have been a shocker to the Germans walking over the border. Available in the liquor hut were vodkas from Russia and U.S. cigarettes and whiskey such as Jack Daniels. Very strange. The locals were buying out the store.  

We drove back to Stozec and continued out the other side of the village driving down some nicely paved although narrow roads. These roads used to be the roads that connected the villages that were removed  after WW II. We had gone quite a long ways and never saw another car just a few hikers and bikers. We went down a few roads like this until another pickup truck was coming towards us. We got over but the truck stayed in the middle of the road and made us stop before we hit into each other. The doors opened and out stepped a couple of uniformed men. OH OH. 

They approach. 

They ask Ken who is driving something in German. He responds in German that he doesn't speak German, but he does. They ask do you know that you are not supposed to be driving here, these are biking and hiking paths.  We say we must have missed the signs and aren't aware that this is not a driving road. He says a few more things and then returns to the truck. When he returns he asks if we have any Czech Korunas. Ken just happens to have 200 Koruna with him and offers them. The officer says is that all you have. He seems very disappointed but takes what we have. The rest of us sit very quietly and he never does ask us if we have any money nor does he ask if we have any Euros. We all had Euros and certainly would have had enough to pay whatever the fine was or more if he demanded. The current exchange rate is $1.00 US = 24.500 Krones. So it only cost about $8.00 to get what we ended up calling our day pass to drive anywhere we want in the Czech Republic. We start to back up but the officer waves for us to follow him. Now we think he may want to take us to the station but he just wants us to turn around in a drive a few feet past him. We turn around and he follows us out back to the road.  

After this we also visited the villages of Zaton (Schattawa) and Horni Vltavic (Obermoldau). Both are very small villages with very little there. After these villages we headed back to the border. We stopped in the village of Strazny (Kuschwarda). Along the road here are many prostitutes. There is also a flea market, run by North Koreans that were brought in as laborers during the communist era, selling cheap goods. After this is the border and the place were Landstrassen used to be. Mary wanted a picture of the clearing and decided that a rock she saw was were the village used to be. We kidded her about it and started pointing out every rock. Later when she returned with some other people she was told that indeed the rock she saw was the correct place. 

During the ride back to Germany we were laughing about our little adventure and I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Thanks Ken, Mary and Lauri for a fun time.

Museumsdorf Bayerischerwald

An outdoor museum with 150 buildings and over 60,000 items from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries collected from the Bayerischwald. The buildings represent the vernacular building styles. There are houses, barns, mills, a church, bake ovens and all accessory buildings that were found on a typical homestead. It was begun in 1971. It is a wonderful museum and is definitely worth a visit. It is in the village of Tittling.	You can go inside the buildings and see how they were used over 100 years ago. You can really understand how the buildings were used as houses and as stables under the same roof. There are large collections of tools, wagons, furniture, household goods, and other items of everyday life. There is also a large collection of crucifixes and religious art.
Building Collection	Typical house interior
Crucifix Collection	House #22 Inhaus Vom Böhmlehen aus Penzenstadl bei Hauzenberg circa 1755

Philippsreut, Haidmuhle, Schattawa, Obermoldau, Kuschwarda, Landstrassen, Bohmisch-Rohren, Bischofsreut, Mauth, Nuethal.