Day 12 (July 20th)

Pleasant hike down from Vapeč, once again entering a territory of embattled blazing. I recall reading something about problems with blazes in this area, and in fact the problems look intentional -- the blazes expertly painted out by someone with decent color-matching skills. When we finally found our way down to town (a little village called Kopec) we walked past a lumber mill with a beautifully painted forest-scene mural and put two and two together... blazes resumed once we got to the next good village. We met a German couple hiking in the opposite direction and gave proper warning of the troubles ahead. Ascended and descended Stražov; on the way down I saw the largest ant hill I have ever seen -- at least a meter tall and constructed entirely of pine needles. I tried to get Deb to stand next to it for scale, but she declined. Slept in an old hotel in a pleasant little town called Čičmany, which has a lot of cute painted houses.