Gold Cesky Krumlov

... castle, up on the hill. We are basically operating off of a Google map to find it. The tram map does not have the detail we need and we quickly lose track of where we are. Well, an hour later and eventually use of a cab to get to our hotel. <br><br>There are no lights on. No one answers the door, despite my having received a confirmation. After an hour, we give up and decide to find a hostel in old town. We are on the edge of a park, well ...

... too many people are around. <br><br>The hostel has an interesting hobbit look on the outside with a teeny-tiny door. It is a crash pad type place with its small, more communal style. After a night, Sharon decides that in the future, private rooms are preferred. I have become very used to dorms. Hostels have become my way to socialize and further my interactions with folks from other countries. Private rooms do feel great.

... to Cesky Krumlov... and the rain is back.<br><br>Wow it's cold in Cesky Krumlov!!!<br><br>Hostel Krumlov House is awesome. More like staying in someones house than a hostel with a proper kitchen, amazingly clean everywhere and no bunk beds. Super friendly staff and cool relaxed vibe. They have a couple of guitars,a piano and didgeridoo for guests to play.<br><br>Walked around town in the rain as it might snow tomorrow so might not see things ...

... the afternoon and a night there, but that&#8217;s all you really need. It&#8217;s a tiny medieval town with a castle and a river running through it, and being there is like stepping back in time. We ate a traditional Czech lunch, wandered the cobble-stone streets, the castle grounds and went up the Castle tower for some beautiful views.<br><br>The ...

... is a very interesting castle there, which was fully decorated with paintings. One wall had some sort of yellow and black geometric design painted on it, while another was painted to look like it was made of bricks! Most interestingly, the castle moat is filled not with water but with bears. I (Marnie) managed to only see one bear butt, as they were all hiding behind some rocks. It was enough to prove that there really were bears in there though!<br ...

... the others. The best fun was going down the little causeways as these act as mini rapids, though the hard bit is figuring out which part you are meant to go down as there are nice sloping ramps built for the rafts, but if you miss that there's a 4 - 6ft drop straight down instead, which does not look that appealing from above or below! Neverless, it was still good fun going down the ramps, the boat would fill up with water and we would slide off the rubber ...

... he didn't speak any English and was therefore unable to understand my despair as I had been told to get on this bus in the first place....this wasn't my fault. It's funny but even when I can't speak the language I've always been able to identify when I've landed myself in a problematic situation. When he realised that I wasn't going to understand what he was saying he just handed me the pages he was looking at, timetables was what they turned out to be, and I was able to deduce for ...

... carefully put together by master craftsmen. But once up close it was clear it was an illusion &#8211; the masonry had all been painted onto flat and otherwise plain surfaces. This &#8216;mutton dressed as lamb&#8217; approach to exterior design lives on today in those skilled artisans who can craft an exterior wood finish without the need for treating timber or worrying about the ravages of ...

... a train bridge going over top. We could tell it was another drop bit, but one bit of the bridge had "RAFT" with a down arrow letting us know which one to head down. But there were all these people stopped on the bank of the river, we thought we may as well just keep on goin down the raft bit, but thought we better pull over just incase. I got out and scouted it... THANK BLOODY HELL we did pull over as the drop was like 3 metres straight down at right angles ...

... legacy of communism. The old town centres are like diamonds inserted deep into a pile of manure. To reach them we often had to walk past dilapidated flats and Skoda cars on blocks. Kutna Hora is a fine example of this legacy. It may no longer be the case but Kutna Hora was once the second largest town in Bohemia outside of Prague. The silver coins minted here were the Euro of Central Europe at the time. When ...