Cesky Krumlov – it’s a wrap!

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Well it’s the eve of 12 June and this is the 3rd and last day in Cesty Krumlov (CK). I feel fortunate that I have had the time and space to quite randomly decide that I would spend a whole 3 day weekend, Friday to Sunday nights, here. You sometimes have to be aware/become aware that you are heading into a weekend at a place and that hotel choices might not be so easy etc as people tend to take weekends at such places – such as the couple I met at breakfast , he an American web designer in Prague and his Czech girlfriend. There was only one (single) room at this place the hotel St Hubertus, which was very highly rated on Booking.com, namely 9.1 which is almost unheard of (unless it is super luxe, which this is not – comfortable, yes). Mind you almost every place they had in Krumlov is rated over 8, which suggests that people just simply have a good time here, and the hotel does not interfere with that!

Anyway I effectively got an attic room with an old carved wooden bedhead (see pic) and similar furniture, but yet a fantastic modern bathroom. It was on the 2nd floor so a bit of a flog to carry my bag up, but you only do that once up, then down. I knew I would have to get a taxi here from the rail when I arrived as it is sort of cross town and up hill and down dale. The reviews warned of the 80 steps down/up to the old town, so split the cab with 2 Canadians also on the train who knew where they were going (Pension 99) but not exactly sure where it was. On this side of town, away from the old own, it is also well away from rowdy late night carousers on Fri. & Sat. nights. And for local equiv. of 55Euro a night (< than $75) it was good value for this place.

With the luxury of 3 nights I did very little the first day at all and simply went out for dinner later. Interestingly enough, despite the fact that this is a very tourist town, and v close to Austria/Germany, the restos seem to be rather credit card-averse and mostly take cash only. Mind you when most of them only charge 150Kr ($8) or so for a main course I suppose you could hardly blame them. The first night I went to a resto. allied with the hotel (so got a free beer – Staropramen (another to add to the collection, and waistline) and paid cash. The other 2 nights specifically went to restos that did take credit card, otherwise I will run out of cash and ability to make it (I have Euros on a debit card and a Mastercard with credit paid up so I can withdraw cash without charge).

Day 2 I simply wandered the town – the old town is essentially an island virtually in the middle of an S bend in the Vltava river. Decided I would do the Castle (obviously) but would likely ignore the Egon Schiele art gallery (120Kr. do not partic. like his work) and the Fotogalerei Seidel (130Kr. ditto – a photographers studio and historical work). Then I stopped into Shakespeare & Son – an English language bookshop, in search of elusive LP guide to Western Balkans. Had a very good chat with very good English language girl there and she alerted me to the Cesky Krumlov card – a recent innovation – 200Kr. gives you admissions to the Castle, the Schiele and the Seidel and the regional museum for that one price – way better value, so decided that would be the final day.

Dinner was at the Svambersky Dum resto ‘cos they took cards. A garlic soup, Czech specialty, served inside a solid bread roll. Then a sort of goulash/stroganov style thing with beef strips, with some garlic potatoes, one element of which had a lot of salt I think as it was quite “sharp”. Bought on the way home a 500ml bottle of the Becherovska liqueur bitters from Karlovy Vary to enjoy on the road ($8!) as I had sampled it earlier – almost clovey like a nice apple pie.

Sun 12th woke at 7am to find it dribbling with rains and windows wide open were somewhat wet so closed them. However it cleared later in the day and did not get wet. Went to the Seidel gallery at the foot of the hill first, and effectively got an individual tour of the house and display as there was no-one else around. There was a brass band about to play in the garden yesterday and a mother/child photo contest she told me – hence the crowd then? The decoration of the house was in a stencilled walls/ceiling art nouveau style. It was quite interesting and it was good that he had photographed the local people both at work and at leisure so it was a real snapshot of the time. Then up to the castle and did the tower views. There is a (brown) bear pit there and had seen two of them the previous day – a long tradition on site apparently. Somewhat annoyed that the ticket, at least on the Krumlov card, did not include admission to any of the castle tours of particular areas, which must cost extra, but had a good wander around anyway. Then headed down to the Egon Schiele gallery as it did not close until 6pm. Not much of a fan of his work per se but there were two other exhibitions on there, one of contemporary artists of the everyday – think collages of animal shapes made out of supermarket catalogues etc. And almost the most interesting, the history of the high heel in shoes – on tour from the Bata museum in Toronto (now you did not know that did you?!). A great collection of some pretty funky shoes back to the 17th and 18th century. Men used to wear them high too in the 17th century as an emblem of status etc at the French court – and this did not make a come back until the 1970’s and Elton John platforms partly!

After that wandered around and found a part of town (it’s quite small really) that I had somehow not seen before and had a couple of drinks in a funky bar called Antre where I ended up on the terrace in the late evening sun with a dark ale. Then down the road to the resto of the 5 star Hotel Ruze where I had decided to end Krumlov on an appropriate note (and on credit). I had dropped in earlier to check it out and there had been hordes of Chinese in medieval dressup having their picture taken. Apparently a group from Hong Kong/Taiwan of about 100 so told to come back rather later than 8pm when they had largely finished. So a glass of white wine, an asparagus special theme of entrée salad of asparagus and smoked trout, then salmon with asparagus and potato. Unfortunately the rhubarb crumble had all gone so had to make do with a strawberry cake. This all cost about double what it would elsewhere, but still less than $40.

So that’s about if for Cesky Krumlov. Next stop Linz in Austria, for a night then on to Salzburg.

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Photos

rafting - some take it easy!
girl not doing much in middle

call that a raft?!
more like beers & floating deckchairs

brown bear in castle pit
chewing on kohlrabi?

castle view
over the town

river view
from castle

castle & tower view
and the town

medieval Chinese
at 5 star Hotel Ruze