Orea Hotel Dvorak Ceske Budejovice

... a rundown communist back-water manufacturing town to the “jewel” of the Czech Republic. Stan took us on a tour around the town, up to the 15th century church of St Vitus, which was very beautiful, and then down along the river, through the “puddle square,” so named because whenever they get a really heavy rainstorm the square floods, and then we hiked up to the imposing castle, which was built to incorporate the ...

... and get the boat on the water and we were on our way. We did all right I think because of the couple of times we have been white water rafting. We had picked up at least how to steer and stuff, but very basically!

It was actually quite easy and the water was really shallow so I wasn’t too worried about falling in. At least we would only get wet up to our knees!

About half hour in Witek wanted to pull over as nature was calling. It was for me too but I have never ...

... told us we had to go there. A small castle town (Little Prague is how it's described). Cute place with awesome buildings a tiny cobble-stone streets. We walked through the castle grounds, gardens, city streets and little shops. Its actually hard for me to find good souvenirs - nothing really strikes me as interesting. We found a great place for beer and brats on a terrace overlooking the river. The city is completely surrounded by the river that runs ...

... me to get off. Climbing down I was greeted by a number of official looking gentlemen. I was getting a little anxious walking into such a scene and started to try and explain what had happened to me but my voice was in such a high pitched erratic tone that they didn't have a clue what I was saying. Taking a deep breath I started again and thankfully in a tone that not only dogs could hear. With that the most official of the guys stepped forward to explain that I was no longer in the Czech ...

... sooooooo good! And the best part, for some reason doubles here cost less than singles in town. So John and I Tuzemáked it up! We were feeling no pain, and also not feeling the sun... I was soooo red! (After the day of 2 hours on horses and 4 hours canoing you can see why but thankfully most of it has turned brown now and it didn't really hurt.) We went down one last waterfall and we had reached our destination. 4 hours later! It was so much fun ...

... the 30 min hilly walk into town with all of our stuff, a cab pulled up to drop a guy off at the train station. Dan quickly secured his services and he took the New Zealanders and the Aussie first, promising to come back for us. We admit that, by this point, we had our doubts, but he came back in pretty good time and raced off to drop us at the hostel. We were staying at 'Krumlov House', a hostel that was recommended by our guidebook and online. On the door was ...

... neat but wasnt anything that was worth a whole lot of time. Saturday morning after a nice breakfeast I happened upon the BLACK TOWER. Sounds ominous dont it? It was the kind of ascent that one false move would send you on a long collision course with the floor. I humbly name the stairwell of death.. Jon 0, Gravity 1.... Bah!! The climbing.. aside from being a long.. long long.. way up.. was also narrow .. and couple ...

... warm mead, castles and a vibe of chivalry, a magical place to pad the trip out and continue to chill out in. Checked out of the Travellers Hostel bootcamp at around 9am after somehow locking my key inside the metallic squeaky locker. Though i set the alarm on my mobile phone, the bloke/jungle animal down in the other corner of the dorm who snored like a moose all night pretty much rendered it unnecessary. It wasn't the easiest of nights sleeps. The open window on my neck of the ...

... castle long ago. It was a moment that took me back in time.

And then our afternoon spent at the castle was a moment all in it's own.

... plate of cheese and meats plus a loaf of rye - all for under $10 for both of us. The mustard was very hot for me and may have kicked in my throbbing tooth again. Wish I had taken care of that problem back in the States. After lunch, we explored the Regional City Museum. Saw some really ancient stuff - bits of pottery and some iron pieces. There was a large model of the city - interesting. We saw a lot of church carvings, portraits of royalty along with family trees of the castle ...