Hotel Arcadie Cesky Krumlov

... a “bear-butt” Sunday morning before we left, but just briefly before he retreated back under the bridge, so they do exist!

After our tour on Saturday I explored the square and the little Christmas market, enjoying a cup of hot punch (passing on the significantly stronger Grog), and doing some window shopping. Saturday night we had a reservation at a restaurant that does a traditionally medieval meal. We had hot mead, soup ...

... 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.

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 ...

... to Cesky Krumlov... and the rain is back.

Wow it's cold in Cesky Krumlov!!!

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.

Walked around town in the rain as it might snow tomorrow so might not see things ...

... too scared to ask how much the wine glasses were after hearing that!

We did try some of the wine and it turned out to actually be Italian, I’m not sure why we thought it was from Czech. We did learn later that Czech Republic have several wine regions but unfortunately this shop didn’t have any wine from there.

It was quite cute actually, we asked to try it and she poured us each a glass and then pulled up a couple of seats for us to sit right in the middle of ...

... We explored for an hour or so then came back to our room to catch up on some washing and emails and have some lunch. Later in the afternoon we walked along the Vltava River to another entrance to the Old Town then down through to the river again. We found a nice restaurant right on the river to have an early dinner and enjoyed a lovely meal of chicken with bacon and blue cheese in a lovely relaxed setting.

... was to knock on the surrounding carriages until eventually I came across a Czech/ English speaker. Unfortunately he was as useless to me as a fork in a sugar bowl. The only thing I could get out of him was that I had the wrong ticket. By this stage the conductor had grabbed my luggage and we were all standing in the tight corridor. I explained to the translator, I use this term loosely, I could gather even without speaking the language that there was a problem with my ticket but what I ...

...

... boaters as they tried to negotiate the weir. Many could get over without problems, but a few flipped ... more than once, we saw barrels of baggage go floating downstream. Coffee and ice cream at a small cafe along the river, near a second weir. We hoped the tourist barge would try to navigate the falls, but they snuck around the outside, along a sluice. Cheaters. Unfortunately, we had to leave ...

... meal. It was tasty but very heavy. Because I couldnt read the menu and the waitress couldnt speak english, I had to walk around the restraunt looking at peoples dishes and deciding what looked good. I finally settled on some dumpling looking dish but it made me so full, I had to drag myself to my bed. I was planning on going to Budapest but at the last minute I decided not to as I think I am coming down with a cold. I was ...

... made. Completely covered in gold and resplendent with cherubs, it delivered gifts to Pope Urban VIII and then, mysteriously, was never used again. We visited the town museum and found, like the restaurants, it was very similar to all other provincial museums - full of exhibits and empty of people. An elderly lady silently followed us around. We thought it was to stop us touching the exhibits but she just wanted ...