Cesky Krumlov
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2005
1
9
10
Trip End
Jul 16, 2005
Where I stayed
Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic
Monday, July 11, 2005
We arrived in Czesky Budjovice at about 10pm to get a bus to Cesky Krumlov and waited by the stop in the dark, deserted bus station, wondering just how much the darkness and the desertedness was indicative of. Luckily, after unsucessfully trying to flag down a police car, we grabbed a couple of passerbys who translated the bus stop sign for us - the bus didn't run that day. We raced over the road back to the station hoping to catch the last train, raced around the station madly, bought tickets, raced up to the platform, nearly got on the wrong train, and finally boarded the correct train (which smelt). We arrived at Cesky Krumlov late at night and got a taxi to "Skippy's" hostel, tired, went straight to bed.
The next morning we woke up quite late, about 9.30, and Wendy and I met the other person in our dorm, a New Zealander called Grant. It was raining, and we walked into the town to get something to eat at a place called "The Travellers Hostel". I had potatos with broccoli and cheese and turkish coffee, which was very nice and quite cheap (about 90k). It was really miserable weather so we wanted to stay indoors and took the opportunity to go to the tourist info and to an internet cafe and to look around a few shops. It kept raining and then thunder and lighting passed right overhead. We had dinner in a medieval restaurant, I had millett casserole with beans and vegetables, spelt coffee with caramel (really nice) and a weird cabbage pastry for dessert (about 150k altogether).
On our second morning in Cesky Krumlov we went to the supermarket to get some food and little gifts for friends and family and then met Grant at the internet cafe / rafting centre in the town, where, along with a Canadian called Sandra we hired a raft to go along the river. For some ridiculous reason I actually believed that we weren't going to get wet. I was brought back to reality about one minute after we set off when I was washed off my seat by a huge wave of stinky river water as we plunged down a huge weir applauded by a whole bridgefull of onlookers. Drenched, we paddled on, finding the rest of the river to be much calmer and more even. We stopped a couple of times along the way at cafes in the middles of nowhere on the riverbank, and tried to take an exciting off-the-beaten-path route through the river which resulted in us getting completely stuck in a mass of vegetation, the whole raft almost being sucked underwater, me getting all scratched by trees and shrubs as we had to hack our way through them, and my shoes getting full of water as I had to put my feet into the river to kick branches out of the way so we could get through before we sank. We saw a fridge sail past. After about three hours we arrived at our destination point where there was a second huge weir. I got out onto dry land but the others decided to go over it, which they tell me was fun. Back at the hostel I washed all my river soaked clothes and we rested for a while after a hard days rafting. We decided to have dinner at another medieval place, but I got seperated from the others on the way and got lost. Luckily Wendy found me and we went to eat. In the restaurant the food was cooked on an open fire and was very nice (I had grilled camembert).
