The-PITTSTOP: April 2023

2023 Central Europe - Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

"You can't get there from here" - at least not by train without changing trains at least three times and spending 8 hours going from Hallstatt Austria to Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. So, we contracted with a private car company to drive us 3 hours north directly to our hotel in the old Town of Cesky Krumlov. We shared the drive with a couple from Thailand. It was comfortable, going through a couple of large towns, mostly rural areas; and in and out of drizzle.

Entrance to our hotel on the right

We arrived at our Castle View Apartments hotel destination around 4 pm and had to telephone the manager as they don't man the desk all the time. He came right down and with very broken English explained that their card reader was not working and we would have to pay cash. Oops. We had very few Euro and no Czech money at all, so we followed his directions to the ATM (of course we took the scenic route and what should have been a 50 step walk to the ATM turned out to be about 15 minutes). Then we couldn't figure out the conversion rate nor did we even understand how the manager had written the money owed - it had three decimal places!!! We guessed at the amount, but the machine said No, we exceeded the limit for the a withdrawal. Hmm, we tried multiple cards, and reduced the requested amount to one it would dispense. We hurried back to the hotel to meet his 5pm deadline, placing the stack of 20 or so Czech bills on the counter (many of which had lots of zeroes) and tried to explain that we would give him the rest the following day because of the daily limit problem. He looked at the bills, looked at us, and did not look happy; we were sure he was going to give us the boot.....instead, he took just ONE of the bills and then gave us change.

We were so very lucky he was honest - he could have easily said, "sure, come back tomorrow and give me the rest." We all laughed...a LOT. We are still laughing about it! Then we warned him not to tell any of his friends, but his English was so bad, we weren't sure he understood. When he was in school, his second language was the required Russian when he lived behind the Iron Curtain. We gave him lots of encouragement for at least trying - not to mention, we couldn't speak one Czech word at all!

We carted our bags up the one flight of stairs (again, thankful we packed light) and he showed us our room. What a change of pace - we went from a quaint hotel in very tight quarters to a 2 bedroom apartment that had been completely modernized, even though in an old building. We had dinner at a great Italian restaurant, where we ran into the couple who had shared our car ride from Hallstatt!

Living, dining, kitchenette - so much room!

One of two bedrooms

Cesky Krumlov is a great little town with a large central square in the oldest part of the city, just a few steps away from our hotel. The next day, we booked a walking tour to take us around the Old Town, where she described many of the buildings and how the beautiful paintings (actually frescoes) were done.

Outdoor cafes are still open in chilly weather and they provide sheepskins to keep warm

Entrance to The Two Marys Restaurant with outdoor seating on the river

Gingerbread Goodies

Lin stopping to smell the ....... um, Hyacinths

Interesting fire hydrants (not made in Elmira)

Easter decorations

Ornate Window Iron Grillwork

More Easter decorations in shop window

This is one building, not two - showing what an impact the frescoes make.

More window Grills

And another - can you tell I liked these?

A frescoed building in the town square

The outdoor patio at the Cafe where we enjoyed breakfast one day

After Old Town, the tour continued at the Cesky Krumlov Castle, the first buildings of which were built in 1240. Our guide explained the differences in the multiple architectures of the castle, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque. The castle on the hill afforded spectacular views of the red tile roofs of the town below.

View of Cesky Krumlov from the Fortress

View from the Castle of one of many bridges across the river

A Sun Dial in one of the Castle courtyards

One of the frescoed courtyards on the palace grounds - still used for government offices

Cesky Krumlov Castle/Fortress

Gate Entrance to the Castle complex

One of several churches in the complex

View of Castle from Old Town

The Rosenbergs (17th century royal family) received black bears as a present from another European royal family and kept them in the moat, a tradition that continues today. We had lunch at a restaurant (Two Mary's) and we were joined by a woman traveling alone that we had met earlier on the tour. She is an American living in Spain, teaching English and was on a short holiday. Interesting lady who had lived all over the world.

There are three bears here - felt a bit sorry for them

The next day, we returned for breakfast at a good cafe we had found the day before where we enjoyed coffee and croissants right next to the river that serpentines its way through the city. We walked around the Old Town and tried to visit the Eggenberg brewery, but after spending a lot of time getting lost and hitting dead ends because of construction, we asked and found that the brewery was actually closed for construction.

We again found that getting from Cesky Krumlov to Prague was easiest by private car, and so we we arranged for the 2 1/2 hour drive north to Prague, arriving around 5pm.

The next, and last, post will cover our time in Prague.

2023 Central Europe - Hallstatt

We left Salzburg in more drizzling rain for our 11:00 am train ride to Hallstatt, a small village on Lake Hallstatt in the Eastern Austrian Alps. The weather started to clear and the train was a scenic ride into the foothills of the Alps - small villages at the base of small mountains with a little bit of snow still on a few mountaintops.

View from our train windows

Off the train, we followed the signed trail down a short embankment to the lake to catch a 10 minute ferry ride to the other side of the lake into town.

On the ferry

Approaching Hallstatt

The town is packed with visitors as it was Easter Monday, a popular holiday. Most of the visitors were day trippers, arriving from Munich, Salzburg or Vienna by train or bus. The town is composed of two streets, one down at the shore of the lake 1 kilometer long and another, shorter, one parallel up the mountainside just a little bit.

The main street is closed to vehicular traffic (except for locals), and we strolled the cobblestone streets through town to our hotel, built in the 1490's (no, I didn't reverse those numbers). We are on the third floor with a narrow spiral staircase and no elevator. Good thing we packed ridiculously light (we each had only one piece of carry on luggage). The room is fabulous, with a small deck overlooking the lake.

Hotel Breakfast Room

View from our balcony

One of the landings on the staircase

The "closet" in our room with hand painted doors. Our bath was in the room and modern.

Gorgeous antiques on the third floor where our room was

The key to our room was an old-fashioned skeleton key. They also gave us a key for the front door in case we were out late.

Incredibly beautiful ironwork for door handles and hinges.

Lin, outside the hotel entrance.

We stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of premade sandwiches to eat on the benches overlooking the lake and then rode a funicular up the mountain where there is a restaurant, UNESCO heritage Viewpoint and trails leading to an old salt mine that can be toured.

The funicular ride up the mountain with the end of town below

View of the lake and Hallstatt from the Viewpoint

Restaurant and viewing deck

Hallstatt, far below.

The salt mine up the mountain a bit from the restaurant

Part of the trail system to and from the Salt Mine

We returned to town and toured the Presbyterian church that was lakeside that was quite elegant outside, but very spartan inside. We then walked up the hill to the Catholic church which was very ornate.

The painted building in back is the Catholic Church

Manholes - written in English!

Barricades all up the mountain to protect the village from rocks and maybe avalances in winter

Heading up to the small street that parallels the main lakefront street

Waterfall behind the town

The Presbyterian Church, lakeside

Catholic church interior

The Catholic Church up the mountainside

The picturesque Catholic cemetery

The cemeteries throughout most of Europe work quite differently than in the United States. Because of the lack of land for cemeteries, people "rent" a grave for about 20 years, then the grave is reused. The remains may be removed to a catacomb or other facility, or the new internment is done over the old. The custom here in Hallstatt is really different, as they remove the skulls, paint them and store them in the catacomb where they can be viewed. The locals consider this honoring the deceased. Unfortunately (for me, because Lin wanted no part of this) the catacomb was closed the days we were there.

When we checked into the hotel the woman told us dinner was served at 7pm, so we wandered down to the hotel restaurant fifteen minutes after 7. Ooops, we had completely misunderstood her, because they stopped serving dinner at 7pm. She nicely provided us the names of three restaurants that would be open (all the daytrippers were gone, so most shops and cafes were closed). We went to the first one that was lakeside, but they were full up for the night...on to the next and we got an off-feeling about it - and left. We tried the third and just like Goldilocks, it was Just Right. We had just made it in time, because they did indicate that we would not be able to dawdle as they were closing within an hour. A traditional wood decorated room with servers in folk costumes served us a very good pasta dinner.

Interesting sculpture outside a private residence

Our weather had been good all day, but when we woke the next morning, it was pretty gray. We enjoyed a good European breakfast at the hotel and walked around town enjoying the relatively quiet before the daytrippers arrived later in the morning. Street scenes from Hallstatt:

The town Square

For an early lunch, we stopped at an outdoor cafe for coffee and hot apple strudel and watched the swans before our private car picked us up at the edge of town to drive us 3 hours northeast to Ceske Krumlov in the Czech Republic.