"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.
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| 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!
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| Living, dining, kitchenette - so much room! |
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One of two bedrooms
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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.
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| Outdoor cafes are still open in chilly weather and they provide sheepskins to keep warm |
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| Entrance to The Two Marys Restaurant with outdoor seating on the river |
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| Gingerbread Goodies |
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| Lin stopping to smell the ....... um, Hyacinths |
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| Interesting fire hydrants (not made in Elmira) |
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| Easter decorations |
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| Ornate Window Iron Grillwork |
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| More Easter decorations in shop window |
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| This is one building, not two - showing what an impact the frescoes make. |
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| More window Grills |
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| And another - can you tell I liked these? |
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| A frescoed building in the town square |
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| 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.
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| View of Cesky Krumlov from the Fortress |
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| View from the Castle of one of many bridges across the river |
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| A Sun Dial in one of the Castle courtyards |
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| One of the frescoed courtyards on the palace grounds - still used for government offices |
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| Cesky Krumlov Castle/Fortress |
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| Gate Entrance to the Castle complex |
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| One of several churches in the complex |
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| 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.
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There are three bears here - felt a bit sorry for them
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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.
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