We all escaped Prague for the weekend. By luxury coach we travelled an hour to Liberec (70Kc/35Kc one way). The town closes down at lunch time Saturday, but we found plenty of things to do.
We stayed at Zlaty Lev(Golden Lion) which is pretty swanky. It is about 2 minutes walk to the top of the main square and the Town Hall.
We were lucky enough to witness a wedding party coming out of the building. There was three white horses
....awe...but the bride didn't get on one, instead she climbed upon a trailer being pulled by a vintage tractor. A male member of the wedding party climbed onto one horse. I didn't get it?!
Just off the main square is Sokolovske square. Look at the comparison 1902 to 2006.
This section of town use to be called New Town in the 1600's. The houses in the area were built under instruction of Albrecht of Wallenstein, for the towns textile craftsmen. These houses were constructed of brick and timber and continued to be built for years; three of them still stand and are known as Valdstejn houses after their originator (Wallenstein).
We visited the oldest Zoo in the CR which is in Liberec(1919). It was originally built as a winter home for circus animals. They house an impressive number of birds of prey, white bengal tigers(with blue eyes)and baboons. Of course, mummy's fav was the red pandas, N's was the elephant(who was obviously an ex-circus elephant, still entertaining).
We spent 3 hours at Babylon Aquapark...which is huge. We actually lost N for 20 minutes..frantically searching every water cave, slide, sauna and spa ...eventually spotting her enjoying the wave room....it's too big. 4 large slides designed for 10+ years, then smaller slides for the younger kids. Two large pools, with spas. Off from one pool was corridors of caves, with something in each cave - from a red bubbling room, to saunas with icy pools just outside, to sun beds(solariums).
Our return bus was booked for 9pm, so with plenty of time up our sleeves we took a tram and cable car to Jested - pronounced yesh-tee-yed (2o minutes in tram, 1km walk and a cable car). Jested is a popular ski area, in particular ski jumping. As we ascended to the tower at the top we could see the ski jumps to the right.
