August, 21, 2014 - Strakonice

Exploring the city today as they prepare for the opening of the festival, as well as the opening parade. With Eric and Sue Placek.

Got our festival passes (~$50 for the full festival) - was an accident that we discovered these gave us reserved seating in the front rows!

Postcard - Strakonice - City of Pipers

First viewing of the vozembouch (stump fiddle) that Sue and I each purchased for our bands. Getting them to the US turned out to be a six-month adventure in itself!

Bagpipe exhibit in the museum.

Historic motorcycles for Dave Martin.

A cimbalek (small cimbal) used with bagpipe.

Bagpipe, clarinet and harp.

Various crafts for sale.

The opening festival parade:

Dinner at a pub on the way back to Rabi. We missed the opening festival concert after the parade because a British man watching the parade next to us mentioned that it had been sold out for months. We had no idea our festival passes included that concert and that we would have had nearly front row reserved seats! Some things can only be learned from experience! But we had also had a long day by that point and still had the drive back to Rabi.