Cesky Krumlov

We awoke yesterday to the most beautiful day. The sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky! It was the perfect day for canoeing! We had some errands to run before we began our day on the river, so firstly we set off in search of a pharmacy. Our search took us out of the old town of Cesky Krumlov where we have been staying and into a more suburbian area. It was interesting to see, as all of the buildings in the old town are from medieval times; however the houses out of the town are just regular houses. It seemed that most of them were falling into disrepair and were very bleak. Once we had located the pharmacy and purchased what we needed, we grabbed some groceries and headed back to the hostel to make lunch. 

Lunch was finished, and it was time to hire a canoe! We were both really excited to get onto the river, as it had gotten really hot and the river here is just beautiful. We went to the rental place and looked at all of their options. It really seems that they cater more towards big groups with their pricing. To hire a canoe would have cost us $35 for an hour, which I don't know about you but we thought that was a bit unreasonable. We looked around at other companies in the town and found that their pricing was much the same, if not more. So unfortunately we had to give the canoeing a miss. We were both quite sad about it as we had really been looking forward to canoeing. But we made the most of the day! We got some icecream and headed down to the river anyway! We went for a dip in the water to cool down, and lounged around the riverside for most of the afternoon. 

It turned out to be a really relaxed day, which was nice.

We had a lot of Czech money left over that we had to spend, as today we are moving on to Vienna which means we are back to the Euro. Whilst we had been wandering around the town earlier in the day we came across this resturant that looked pretty good, and seemed to have decent prices, so we decided to treat ourselves to dinner there. While the meal we had at the vegetarian resturant the previous day had been the best we have had, this one was possibly the worst. It was a Mexican resturant ( which I guess we should have realised would not have been good. Mexican food in the Czech Republic) on the outskirts of town. Not only was the food flavourless, but there were hidden extra costs everywhere. You want extra guacamole? Well that's €2. Jack Daniels and coke? Well we guess you have to pay for a bottle of coke and a glass of JD. It was really disappointing, as it was our last night in Cesky Krumlov and we had wanted it to be nice. We left as soon as we were finished. 

There is an adorable little ice cream shop on the way back to the hostel. It is a tiny building, with lush green vines and leaves growing on the front of it. 

We decided to stop there and get dessert. We got an ice cream sundea to share, and it was really good! 

A relief after the crap dinner. Once we were done we headed back to the hostel and busied ourselves with packing and colouring for the rest of the night before heading to bed. 

Whilst in Cesky Krumlov we have been in a 6 bed dorm room, which is not uncommon for us. However we experienced the most horrific girl at this hostel. Generally the people in our dorm rooms are fairly nice and you are able to chat to them every now and then. I don't know what this girl had up her ass, but she just refused to talk to anyone, and when you tried to talk to her she rolled her eyes and sighed like it was the worst thing in the world. Not only that, but she slept until about 1pm everyday, and if you happened to disturb her slumber she glared you down and made you feel like you had done something truly horrific. But as soon as she has to leave, she is up early making all sorts of noise whilst people sleep and it's totally fine. She's also got one of her friends to stare you down whenever you're around them. Unfortunately she is an Australian girl on our bus tour. Hopefully we don't have to deal with her again. I truly don't understand people like this. You are in a beautiful country, far away from home, with so many new things to experience. What is the point of travelling if you're going to sleep all day and avoid making new friends like the plague? I'm generally not one to complain about people, I get that everyone is different; I just do not understand this girl. 

Anyway on a more positive note, today we are headed to Vienna! A new country! We are both excited to see what Austria holds. 

Prague and Cesky Krumlov

On our last full day in Prague we went on a Castle Tour. Before the tour started we ducked into a small pub to grab some lunch. We weren't feeling too hungry so we got a meal to share, and thank goodness we did! The Czech people really love huge meal sizes! Since the pub served traditional Czech food, we weren't too sure what to get. We ended up ordering a dish called the Prague feast. And a feast it was! We were served roast and smoked pork, pork sausage, pickled cabbage, dumplings and potato pancakes. It was one of the best meals I have had whilst being abroad! The smoked pork was absolutely amazing! I also really love the pickled cabbage over here, it's really delicious. It was an amazing meal, for an amazing price. 

The Castle Tour was really interesting. The guide showed us around the castle grounds, explaining the history of the castle and the town along the way. We had the same guide as our walking tour the previous day, and once again she was just excellent. Since she is from the Czech Republic she was able to add a personal touch to the tours which makes them that much better. The Prague Castle is the biggest castle in Europe, and it is incredibly beautiful. The arcitecture is just amazing. My favourite part of the castle is the gothic cathederal in the centre. 

It's absolutely amazing. All of the windows inside are stained glass and the ceilings are arched and tall. It was so beautiful. 

Our guide took us to this point in one of the gardens that if you stand in the centre of this perfect circle, your voice reverberates off the stairs and amplifies it and makes it sound super weird! We also went to a place of the castle grounds called the Golden Lane. This is where the people working at the castle would stay. It was a lane of tiny old houses on a cobbled road. It was really cool to see! 

We were able to climb the stairs and go into one of the old houses; there were also gift shops in some of the houses so we got to go in those too. 

From the castle walls you get the most incredible view of Prague. You can just see for miles. 

The skyline of Prague is truly unique, and magically beautiful. I am so glad we got the opportunity to see the castle and the amazing view. 

We finished up the tour around 6pm and wandered back down through the town and made our way back home. 

The next day we were off to a little town called Cesky Krumlov! Cesky Krumlov is about 3 hours away from Prague, still in the Czech Repuic. It is a beautiful old medieval style town that has been incredibly well looked after. All of the buildings look as though they are the originals, and in many cases they are! There is a beautiful old castle on top of a hill, towering over the town. On our first day we wandered around the town for a little bit. It is not a very big town, you can walk from one side to the other in about 15 minutes. But it takes so much loner than that, because there are so many distractions along the way! There are so many quirky shops and incredible smelling food stalls and cafés. We found a small pub on the river near our hostel, so we decided to have a drink.

 

It was really nice! We sat by the river and watched people float by on rafts and canoes, and children playing in the water, people eating dinner. The weather had begun to turn kind of bad so we headed back to the hostel after doing some grocery shopping. Our roommates at this hostel were really nice guys! We got a long with them pretty well, and chatted to them for a while. That night we had dinner, then ventured out into the town for a while to explore a bit more. After a little while of walking around, we made our way back to the hostel. 

On our second day is Cesky Krumlov, the weather wasn't the best. We decided to try and visit the castle before the rain started. We didn't go on a tour of this castle, we just wandered around on our own. I think that Cesky Krumlov's castle is much nicer than Pragues. It's not as large and grand, but the details on the walls and whatnot are just breathtaking. The first thing you will notice walking up to the castle is a bridge over what was a large moat. If you peer down into this moat, you will see that it holds no water. However what it does hold, are two huge brown bears!

 Apparently in the old days many bears used to roam the moat, deterring enemies from attempting to breach the castle. Now there are only two, and they live there in the moat in a nice large fake forested area, with a waterfall and lots of bushes and trees. 

As we wandered further into the castle grounds, I became more and more amazed by the buildings, bridges and squares. They were incredible! We were told about a Czech artist who has an exhibition going in what were once the dungeons of the castle. We managed to find the exhibition and paid to go inside. At first we only really wanted to go in to see the dungeons, but once we were inside we were both blown away by this artists work. There were incredibly thought provoking and interesting pieces. It was also amazing to get the see the dungeons. You walk down the stairs into the dungeons and the temperature drops almost instantly. There's a damp smell, and the lights cast eeire shadows on the walls. 

It's easy to imagine prisoners of the castle going mad in the dungeons, as without the lights it would be completely dark, damp and even colder. We spent a long time meandering through the dungeons, taking in both the artworks and the dungeons themselves. 

Once we were done looking at the exhibition, we continued on our way through the castle grounds. We crossed over this incredibly high and magnificent bridge, that has the most beautiful view of the town.

 We made it to the bottom of the castle gardens, and the highest point of the actual castle grounds. At the top there was a viewpoint and a place to get some drinks. 

We both got a beer (yes dad, I drank a beer!) and found a place to sit down, watch the people go by and take in the view. When we were finished with our drinks we made our way into the castle gardens. They were just beautiful! All manicured bushes and grass, and beautiful trees and flowers. We walked to the end of the garden where there was a lovely pond/small lake, with ducks swimming around and lilypads floating on the surface.

We wandered around the gardens for a while, before the weather once again turned bad and we had to head home. 

It rained for most of the afternoon, so we were pretty much confined to the hostel. It wasn't so bad though, this hostel is very small and cosy so it was kind of nice to just sit around and drink tea. Once the rain stopped some of our roommates suggested we go out for dinner and drinks. We went to a small pub in the old town square, and all tried different traditional meals. Harrison really loved his meal, but I wasn't too happy with mine. We moved to another bar once that one had closed, and had a few more drinks before heading home. 

Today we had planned on visiting the Budweiser brewery in the next town over. The lovely owner of our hostel helped us look at bus timetables and how to get to the bus stop and then to the brewery. We headed up to the bus station, and we waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. The bus never showed up! We were pretty disappointed as we were looking forward to seeing the brewery. It was also a bit annoying as we had wasted our morning finding the bus station and waiting for a bus that never came. We made our way back into town and looked for somewhere to have some lunch. We walked around for a while before settling on somewhere. We found this vegetarian resturant right on the river. I think it was the best meal both of us have had since we have been away! The food was absolutely delicious, and the location couldn't have been better. It was a great afternoon. 

We are hoping that the weather is good tomorrow so that we can hire a canoe and explore the river!