This year has not been treating us very well and we had to cancel or postpone almost all our trips. We have only managed to visit Slovakia and The Netherlands as we wanted to see our family after more than 6 months.
We desperately needed a break as we both have busy schedules at work and wanted to switch off for a few days. It wasn’t easy to choose the right location for our short trip because we wanted to avoid taking a plane. At the end we decided to go to Carlsbad in Czech Republic. It’s a charming spa town in the west Bohemia region that we haven’t visited before. We only drove through the town and kept saying that we have to come back one day to explore it properly. It’s less than 6 hours drive from where we live which was not a problem as we’re used to longer car trips. We finally had our destination and were excited to book a hotel room and make our dinner reservations.
We booked everything one week before our trip. One day after the booking we met my colleague with her husband for dinner in Zurich. I told her about our plans, and she said that Czech Republic is on the list of high-risk countries and we would have to do 10 days quarantine after coming back to Switzerland! I couldn’t believe it, but we checked the list together and she was right. It was added to the list overnight. If we would have waited with our bookings for one more day, we would have no problem!
The only question on my mind was what should we do? Should we cancel our reservations and stay in Switzerland or should we wait for reaction of Czech Republic? We were worried that they would put Switzerland on their list of high-risk countries, and we would have to stay in the quarantine over there which would make no sense as we only planned to stay for 3 days. And we definitely didn’t want to spend these days in our hotel room (eve though the views were stunning).
I have discussed it with my manager, and she had no problem with me working from home for two weeks which was great news. My husband works from home anyway, so nothing would change for him. We planned to do our grocery shopping on the way from Carlsbad to have enough food for 10 days. But we were still not sure if we would go or not as Czech Republic could add Switzerland to the list anytime. Luckily, it didn’t happen, and we were ready to go!
On Thursday, I took one of my screens and my docking station from the office, packed my luggage, and off we went. There was a lot of traffic and it took us longer than we expected but finally we arrived at the hotel.
In Czech Republic you need to wear a mask inside of a hotel unless you are in your room. You also have to wear it when you’re in a restaurant unless you’re eating or drinking. And of course, it’s mandatory in shops as well. We kept reminding ourselves to put our masks on as we are not used to it because masks were never mandatory in Switzerland but at the end it was not bad.
We were cautious during our trip, but it didn’t feel like the risk of getting infected was higher than back home. We came back on Monday and called our local authorities to make sure that we follow the process correctly as the fine for breaking the rules could be up to CHF 10k per person.
It’s our second day in quarantine and I must admit that I’m enjoying it. I have slow mornings because I don’t have to walk to the office and as we have a home office/study room at home it doesn’t feel like it would be interfering with my free time. As soon as I’m done working, I leave the room, close the door and my evening can start. And I save time as it takes me just a second to get to my ‘office’ and back home! 🙂
And even the weather is with us! It’s cold, cloudy and it should be raining in the coming days, so it’s not very inviting and I don’t feel like I was stuck at home. Let’s see how I will feel towards the end of the quarantine. I believe I should be fine as long as we have enough food.
I will tell you more about our trip to Czech Republic in my upcoming posts.
Thank you for reading!
Cheers!
Martina
@delishtreats, In my opinion nowadays Time In Nature and Outing became very important aspect without any doubt. Enjoy your time and stay blessed always.
That is true. Have a nice day!
Thank you so much.
That's a lot of hassle for a three day trip, but sounds like you still had a good time.
Working at home during this time of year isn't that bad, I imagine it's starting to get quite cold in Switzerland too?
Stay in and be good Martina!! 😊
It's a hassle to go anywhere these days but we simply missed the freedom and had to go somewhere. Switzerland has a mandatory 10 days quarantine for many European countries, so it didn't really matter where we would go - we would most likely have to stay in quarantine anyway. This is why we originally chose Czech Republic as it looked like we wouldn't have to do it..
We still have around 20 degrees but in 2 days it will go down to 10, so you're right, it's not that bad to sit at home :)
Thank you for stopping by, Pauline. Take care!
My tweet:
Hi Martina!
I am glad that you managed to do at least a short trip. Changing scenery is always beneficial!
Things are so simpler where I live. It's good though that you see quarantine in such a positive way :)
Cheers from Crete!
Hello there :) Thank you! Well, we really needed a change. It's been so long and we're not used to being tied to one place.
I don't have much choice and I always choose to see the positive side of things. The life becomes so much easier then.
Oh, you're lucky then! Switzerland even strengthened their rules a few days ago and now we have to go to quarantine when we travel to almost every country in Europe. I hope it won't last long..
Have a nice day!