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Published: August 6th 2007
Pesky Landcruisers
(Yes gigantic cars do exist in CZ but they are rare)With the first familiar faces in town (Alli’s Aunt & Uncle, Lyn & Gary) we took the opportunity to get out of Prague. They had already done the tour group version of Prague and cruised through Russia etc so I think they were just glad that we knew nothing about our surroundings and therefore couldn’t point out everything “to the left you will see …. blah blah blah… more very old buildings”. However there were curious piles of wooden things (a bit like pallets) in piles along the sides of the highway so we would have liked a tour guide to explain that to us…
Anyway, we headed to the place every tourist goes if they have a chance to get out of Prague - Cesky Krumlov. It’s a 2.5 hour drive from Prague so everyone thought we were a bit mad for going there for the day but… we’re Australian!! We used to drive over 3 hours to Melbourne to go shopping for the day or 6 hours each way to Albury for the weekend!
Cesky Krumlov is basically just a smaller, cuter version of Prague, with surprisingly fewer crowds - perhaps due to the forecast of rain.
It’s a medieval town with the castle high on the hill surrounded on 3 sides by the river (the Vltava which continues to/from? Prague) and with the streets meandering down and around from there. And strangely there are 3 huge bears (they were brown so does that make them brown bears?) living down in the moat of the castle.
We climbed the 162 steps to the top of the Round Tower for the most amazing view of the town and countryside - and were also once again amazed at how cheap the Czech Republic can be with an admission price of 35 Kc each (about $2). After wandering through the streets we took the tip from Anthony’s boss and found “U Dwa Maryi” (the Two Marys) right on the river bank and had a huge feast including local beer for about $9 each!
After torturing the men by visiting every second little shop, we were all a bit exhausted so headed home. On the way we caught up with the rain and then dropped Lyn & Gary back at their hotel to continue their Central & Eastern European adventure - next stop Nuremberg.
As for us we’ll
View from the tower
You can see the little green kayaks down on the river - although when it gets a bit warmer apparently lilos are the most popular transport down the river. definitely be heading back over the ‘summer’ (listen to me - I sound like an American already! Next I’ll be saying ‘vacation’!!!) to go camping and kayaking down the river.
Otherwise the next trip for us in a few weeks is a holiday (not vacation ) to Cannes in the south of France.
Steph
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Rick
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Sounds great . . .
Hey ! Sounds great ! So the passing parade of visitors has started ! With this experience, and the history of long distance travel you mentioned, next we'll be hearing of a career change ! Count me in before the price gets out of reach !