Grove Cottages Self-Catering Holiday Cottage

I took most of these photos in January 2008 but Tara is situated in a lovely flowery meadow all summer long

"Tara" is our lovely 300 year old log house that we have been carefully renovating in the original style for the past three years.

The house is made entirely of wood and has been renovated completely in the traditional way even down to the individually 'hand made' wooden roof shingles.

'Tara' is situated in the middle of the famous Beskedy Mountain Nature Reserve in the Czech Republic close to the massive Sance reservoir lake and within view of the Slovak and Polish borders in the NE corner of the Czech Republic.

Brno Airport (Ryan Air) is about 2.2 hrs away and Ostrava Airport (Czech Airlines) about 45 minutes.

We have organised a great taxi and car hire system for guests, whereby guests can be taxied straight from the airport to the house and on the way (25 mins from the house) pick up the hire cars even out of office hours, guest drivers can then follow the taxi into the Nature Reserve where the house is - the car hire for a medium to large saloon is approx £11.5 per day.

The house is ideal for 4 adults and 4 children - or 8 adults, it has 5 spacious to extremely spacious bedrooms.

The main room downstairs has a wonderful old-fashioned farmers oven which incorporates a bread oven and hotplate and has stairs up to the top of it where you can lie down on the sheepskins and sleep if you feel the bedroom is just too far away.

The kitchen has 6 electric hobs plates and an oven, as well as an original old fashioned wood burning stove with a big hotplate and oven.

There is a TV lounge room downstairs and a 42 foot verandah which can be opened up in Summer to enjoy the amazing views over the Nature reserve to the Slovakian mountains across the valley.

There is also a spacious shower washroom with under-floor heating and a washing machine and dryer for guests.

The water is supplied by automatic pump from our own spring and there is a lovely BBQ out house being built in the orchard with fabulous views.

The house stands in its own meadow of about 20 acres, all around is wonderful forest and the views from the verandah look straight across the valley and left and right for about 12 miles - there is no house, light, telegraph pole, road or sign of civilisation at all - it is a wonderful forest nature reserve where only those people actually living in it can travel to by car, everyone else has to walk, so very few cars and no tourist feel to the place.

But... not completely cut off ! The house was the focus of a tiny community of farmers and there are about 6 houses, mostly ancient, within a short walk and there is a mountain top ski resort (again very untouristy) about a 45 minute walk along the forest ways and here there is also a very pretty collection of old houses a picturesque church and a very nice walkers bar / restaurant.

From the restaurant you have superb views over miles of forest and onwards to the Tatra Alpine mountain range.

This area is a paradise for those who appreciate the wonders of a forest nature reserve and there are literally hundreds of miles of forestry roads and paths to explore by bike or walking including the beautiful walks around the Sance (Shancer) lake.

There are many activities on offer and places to visit like the little wooden museum town of Skanzen :

You can reach the mountain top group of Victorian buildings by ski lift all summer and walk down from there. This amazing restaurant does great cakes and tea and the walk up to the statue to Radegast the Pagan God of beer which is just a 25 minute walk up the mountain - luckily enough the restaurant does also serve beer for when you come back down !

As you can see from the photos of Tara most of the work has now been done, we are just waiting a couple of weeks for the snow to go and we can finish off the work like painting windows and oiling the roof and wall shingles.

We are putting together a proper 'What to Do' web section specially for 'Tara' which will be on our website shortly.

Please enquire from our homepage enquiry button at www.grove-cottages.co.uk for more details or if you wish to book. You may also call me (Mark) or Millie in office hours on 01787 211 115

Bike Hire: You can actually hire bicycles directly from some of the train stations and there is an end of the line station just 15 mins down the road from Tara in the main village called Ostravice - you can also take the bikes on the train (this is a tiny mountain train) to some of the other foothill areas or cycle there and train it back or just potter around the pretty foothills

Beskedy mountains :Here are some weblinks about the Beskedy mountains - see the photo galleries if there is one on the websites.

Frydek-Mystek: This is a rather old page of information on Frydek-Mystek which is 25 mins away, it is the local Capital but with a population of just 65,000 a rather small Capital but it does have some nice places to visit and the biggest Tesco's, Kaufland, Hypernova, Aldi and all the other superstores you have ever seen - if you just cannot tear yourself away from familiar pastimes.

The 2 main Squares of Frydek and Mystek are both very pretty with churches, terrace cafés, restaurants, internet cafes, banks and often events.

This is all about Leos Janacek the Composer who was born in Hukvaldi a village about 45 mins away where there is a lovely Castle

Stramberk Castle: A ruin of a castle from the 14th century, renovated at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries according to the project by K.Hilbert. The castle complex with cylinder tower called Trúba (a look-out tower and a dungeon), an entrance gate and remains of fortifications. The colourful town `tramberk is the town historical preserve with dominant folk architecture of the Valaasko region.