Bohemian Rhapsody: Our Visit to Cesky Krumlov

Currently, Tom and I are having a blast exploring Budapest.  Our rental apartment is little but charming (despite my poor cereal choices attracting a group of ants), and we have a beautiful balcony where we often spend the early morning drinking tea (coffee for Tom), enjoying the views, or even blogging.  But, before I tell you all about our adventures here, I wanted to share a bit about the day trip that we took to Cesky Krumlov back in the Czech Republic last week.

Enjoying the Views

Cesky Krumlov (the "Ce" in Cesky is pronounced like "Che") is a very small town about three hours south of Prague by bus. We found a great deal for a coach bus where we were served hot chocolates by a peppy young woman wearing a pink and white striped uniform.  We were also able to watch movies on our individual seat TVs (Tom opted for Sherlock Holmes while I, of course, chose the 1990s music video station).  Needless to say, the time went by relatively quickly.

We spent almost seven hours in town and loved every minute of it.  The highlight of Cesky Krumlov is its 13th Century castle (which was huge, considering the town's size), but the entire town is ridiculously picturesque- like something straight out of a postcard or a children's book of fairy tales.  The city was built on the Vtlava River (the same one that runs through Prague), and although the river is bit narrower in Cesky Krumlov, its dramatic bend almost creates the illusion of the town being an island from certain viewpoints. The river was moving at a fast pace at this point in the year, and a few dams even created some rapids.  One of the main attractions in the area is to raft down the river (there are little canals to avoid going over the dam), and although we didn't have the time (or the proper attire- it was cold!) to do it ourselves, we had a lot of fun watching the rafts from the town's many bridges and from our lunch spot along the river.

View of Cesky Krumlov From Above

Boat on the River 

Fairytale Scenery

Typical Town Street (with Castle in Background)

The town's main industry is tourism, and so there are tons of gift shops, restaurants (even a vegetarian one!), and craft booths everywhere you go.  As I've said before, though, it's almost always pretty easy to avoid the crowds if you try, and late in the afternoon, Tom and I enjoyed a quiet stroll along the river's backwaters.

Castle Complex from Tower

Earlier in the day, we spent a couple of hours exploring the beautiful castle grounds, including climbing the tower for amazing views of the city.  (It seems that climbing towers is really starting to be our "thing.")  The castle complex is huge, and even included a "moat" where some bears lived to "protect" the castle.  (Although that part was actually a bit depressing since the conditions were very low-budget-zoo-like and the bears seemed to do more sleeping than anything else.)  Aside from the amazing views everywhere you looked, the highlight of the castle was probably the gardens, which are free and open to the public. There were traditional landscaped gardens, but also a huge "nature" area full of lush foliage and even a pond with a little dock.  As different as the buildings, food, and culture are in the Czech Republic, the natural scenery actually reminded me a lot of Minnesota at times.

View from the Tower

Castle Tower

Bears in the Moat

Landscaped Castle Gardens

Castle Gardens Pond

Hedges in Castle Gardens

Tom Crossing the Bridge to the Castle

We actually decided to visit Cesky Krumlov a bit randomly (we wanted to do a day-trip and saw some promising online reviews of the town), but now I can't imagine taking a trip to Prague and not coming here. If I'm ever lucky enough to return, I might even stay the night (or five) next time.

Alla Prossima,
Erin

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Tues. July 16:  It was a bit chilly in Cesky Krumlov and the weather in Budapest has been surprisingly mild, too.  We were told it would be ridiculously hot, but we've actually been cold at times!  Highs have been in the upper 70s, but it's been getting down into the 50s at night (and it's been a bit slow to warm in the morning). Maybe I'll have to wait until Croatia to get some really hot days!