Are You Ready to Rock? (at the Adrspach Rocks)

You got mud on your face / You big disgrace
Kicking your can all over the place

It's Monday in Europe. I'm in Prague, but this is true all over the continent. Nothing a tourist wants to see will be open on a Monday. So that means: Excursion Day!

And the excursion was to Adrspach, or more specifically, in proper Czech, Adršpašské skály. Or you can call it Adrspach, pronounced "audder-spa-[that German "ch" hocking sound]".

Adršpašské skály -- and that's the last time we will use that name which requires a diacritical mark over every letter that will take one -- is a national park in northern Czech Republic (no one here calls it "Czechia," even though it was officially renamed last year), about two hours NNE of Prague.

It is known for rock formations.

The rocks get bigger as we move deeper into the park. But, first, ducks on the pond!

And large school groups, too.

This park is very popular with student tour groups, especially from Poland. This is because (a) it is on the Polish border and (b) the rest of Poland is flat as Illinois. (Aside: everyone thinks Nebraska and Kansas define flatness. They don't. They have rolling hills in most parts of those state. Illinois is unrelievedly flat. Flat as Florida. And you know Florida is flat when its highest elevation is listed simply as "northwest corner.")

Enough talking. Time to put on our boots and hike:

The rock formations are massive. There is nothing else remotely like this anywhere in Europe. It reminds me more of something you would see in Utah. Only greener.

This one seems to defy gravity:

If you wanted to do a motivational poster themed on the word "precarious," you would do well to use that rock as your picture, putting aside whether you want to motivate people into precariousness.

More precarious rocks.

Don't stand there! The whole thing could tip over! Spoiler alert: it didn't. The lady survived.

Then we arrived at the place called the Gothic Gate.

Welcome!

The gateway is about the only thing here that was not part of the natural rock formation.

These are members of the small group with whom I was touring. Everyone else was French. France French.

The pictures are in "portrait" and not "landscape" because these rocks are tall.

More precariousness:

The small stream is eroding the base of that rock. I doubt it will survive another 10 or 20 thousand years.

See the yellow? It's not paint. It's lichens. Sulfur lichens to be specific. That's pure sulfur on the surface of the rocks, put there naturally.

And carved into the rocks here is a little mini-shrine to the Virgin Mary:

Probably to have her intercede on our behalf as we climb the staircases coming up.

This is the Little Waterfall:

Scenic view:

The head of Goethe;

Goethe not only wrote "Faust," he also visited these rocks in 1790, well before Adrspach was on the tourism map. Or any map, really. They were sort of unknown in the early 1800s.

But how can you keep views like this secret?

This is the Great Waterfall.

It's almost like it's inside a chamber.

Off we go, in search of more adventure amidst the rocks.

And we find it:

This formation is called the Lovers. It is because it appears to be two lovers -- a skinny man and a fat girl -- or it could be a fat man and his skinny ladyfriend -- in a kiss.

This is an amazing and awesome place to visit.

Next we enter the area called "the Mouse Hole".

This is because the passageway is narrow you have to be small as a mouse to get through the narrow opening.

Fat man meet eye of needle:

And I got stuck. Permanently. Hopefully in the next week or so I will lose enough weight that I can squeeze through and make my plane flight home. If not ...