Sandstone, being soft, often gets eroded in striations

You can get an idea about our height from how small the folks on the trail way below look. The trail took a right hair pin bend. So, we are in the shade of the mountain for the next segment. From the cliff there, the trail we came up on is clearly visible below.

Apparently, some of the key scenes of The Chronicles of Narnia were filmed here.

The paved path ended soon. Now, we are over a lot of stones. The challenge is there is a lot of sand too. As I mentioned, this whole area is sandstone mountains. Sand comes out easily off the mountains. There were rains two days back.

All that sand you can see in the picture is making the hike tricky. We are trying our best not to slip. Some were using sticks to avoid slipping.

It has been tiring enough so far that people have started taking breaks.

This whole area is formed of sandstone mountains. If you see the top most point (a bit left of the center of the picture) – there is a sandstone rock natural archway there. That is our target today! A bit left of it you might see a think small line sticking out. That is the “Column”. You will see how it looks in real life once I reach the top. As of now, it is a long haul…

Destroyed a very large part of the Bohemian (Saxon) Switzerland forests. The tell tale signs of thousands of burnt trees are all over the place. I understand this was done deliberately by a human being.

Driving for about two hours north of Prague city. We are nearing the town of Hřensko. Apparently, this town has a very large Vietnamese population who came over during the Communist regime. The river you see is Labe (Elbe) and the other side is Germany!

Finishing up the day with a Aperol Spritz (everybody seems to be drinking this here), writing out my blogs and chalking out my adventure tomorrow.

Enough of this old architecture and long dead people. Yearning to be in nature.

If I understand correctly what I have signed up for (I am not sure Aperol is a good thing anymore), I will be hiking for over 16K (10 miles), climb up some 330 floors, cross a country boundary (into Germany) and wear a smile for all that.

Never done a cross country hike before. Never had to carry a passport to walk around either!!

Heaven bless me!