| | So this week we had school vacation and Rebekah (the 3rd grade teacher who just got her cast off Tuesday!) and I decided to take a trip to Cesky Krumlov. It's about 3 hours south of here in the southwest of the Czech Republic. It's an UNESCO World Heritage sight, a medieval town that hasn't changed much on the outside since the 16th century. We went Wednesday morning and took a bus down there and then took the bus back late last night. It was awesome and wonderful and I have so much to tell. I highly recommend this as a place to visit if ever you come to the Czech Republic. It's cheap to stay there and it's all very nice. A deluxe double room was 1090 Kc which translates to about 50 dollars so split between the two of us we paid $25 for our hotel. The bus down there and back was 360 Kc which is about $18. It was a nice cheap vacation. The unfortunate part is that we went during the low season so the castle and the castle theater weren't open but there was still plenty to see.   
Though the weather wasn't sunny it was still pretty nice. I loved being in a place the snow actually accumulates! Plus they had just gotten a snow storm overnight so they were shoveling out that morning. These were my first pictures after getting off the bus. It lets you off on top of a hill so it's a good vantage point for taking pictures of the town. The center of town sits in a valley and is surrounded by the river. When it's not February and freezing you can rent boats, rafts or tubes and float around the city on the river. Our hotel was right on the river, Na Ostrove actually means on the island and it is an island. It has the river on one side and a mill race on the other. The hotel was built in the mid 19th century as a burgher's house with a carpentry workshop and just opened as a hotel in 2007. It's close to everything and we had a nice view of the castle from our window.
  
The original settlement of Cesky Krumlov is mentioned in records starting in 1253 which included the owner of the castle. It became a popular place for powerful Czech nobility. It housed the Rosenburgs until 1602, the the Eggenburgs until 1709 and then became the property of the Schwarzenberg family. It is still easy to tell where the richer families lived near the castle and the poorer families lived far away from the castle. This is the main square which is recorded in 1274 as the marketplace. The statue is a column to Mary it was a memorial put up in 1716 to remember the victims of a plague in 1682. On Thursday evening we ate dinner in a restaurant called the Marstal (the Stable). It is indeed a converted medieval stable. Rebekah and I had all our stuff with us as it was our last stop before we boarded the bus and so they sat us at the feeding troughs so we had a place to put our stuff. Much to our delight they also had a fire.
    
We wandered all the little streets of Cesky Krumlov and admired the architecture and just the homey feeling of the town. It's very cute. We saw some interesting things and some fun things. We spent a lot of time just walking around the town.
  
Rebekah and I found this bear shop and we just couldn't resist...and I found myself a Czech man...made out of metal.
  
And of course we did walk up and check out the castle. Apparently during the high season they keep bears in the moat.
 
Yes indeed those are feet. I have no idea why. And Rebekah's looking up because she doesn't want snow to fall on her head. There were all these corridors that connected the different courtyards of the castle, very neat.
  
The castle had a beautiful panoramic view of the town.
You just keep climbing up and up in the castle and eventually it leads to the gardens and an outdoor theater. We didn't climb up quite that far, Rebekah just got the cast off her foot on Tuesday. It's a long way down from the castle that little speck on the line down there is a person walking the path to the parking lot. The views from the mini windows made great postcard pictures.
 
That was pretty much it for Wednesday. That night we ate at this Medieval restaurant that during the high season has people in costume and musketeers and swordfights. However, since it was the low season it was just a nice quiet place to have a bite to eat. After dinner we returned to our hotel to read books and relax for the rest of the night.
  
Stayed tuned for A Trip to Cesky Krumlov Part 2: A Tour of the Eggenberg brewery. Including a nice old man, a delicious cup of hot cocoa, and of course beer.
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| | Posted 2/27/2009 10:35 AM - 18 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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