Day 12 Morning in Cesky Krumlov: August 10, 2007

I'm waiting this morning to get into the Baroque Theater, so I thought I'd come talk to you on the internet. My appointment is not until 11:00 and I bought the ticket yesterday. I hear they only let in 20 people per day because it is so fragile.

Here's the town website. You can go see what it looks like where I am, except today is raining, all drizzly. http://www.visitceskykrumlov.cz/

Yesterday the bus from Prague to Cesky Krumlov was a 3 hour ride through towns and country. The towns have a lot of old communist modern buildings, many of which have now been painted with bright stripes or the railings have been painted. It seems they are trying to give them some color. The bus station in Cesky Budovice was on top of the building, and it was all bright and modern. The bus drove right up on top of the building! Well, it's a good use of space!

The countryside looks a lot like Germany, which it has been part of; it's also been part of Austria and the Hapsburg Empire. But it seems not as rich as Austria or Germany.

This whole town of Cesky Krumlov looks like Disney's Beauty and the Beast town. I can imagine Belle in the town square and the Beast in the huge old castle, with whole wings of rooms where nobody goes. The town is built around the river, which has cut deeply into the earth, so it's all very steep, either up or down to the river.

The river is the Vltava, Czech name for the same river the Germans call the Moldau. In Prague on my boat trip there, when the guide was done talking, they played Smetana's Moldau Symphony over the loudspeaker. In Prague, way downstream it's big; takes 5 or 10 minutes to walk across the Charles Bridge. Here the river is not very wide, maybe 25 yards.

Yesterday I toured the castle here. It's one of my favorites. Very personable, with paintings of the people who lived there: first the Rosenbergs (family crest a red 5-petal rose for their 5 sons) then the Eggenbergs for 300 years and then the Schwarzenburgs. Writing on the wall is in old German, not Czech. Each room has furnishings from the period of the family they are talking about in that room. 300 rooms, but we only see 15. It's built on the top of a ridge, so there are a series of courtyards all in a line, and a long thin garden out behind.

The first part of the garden is laid out like a formal French garden, with clipped hedges, but looser and a little scraggly because this is Czech Republic, and everything used to be scraggly but is now being fixed up.
The far end of the garden is like an 1800's English Capability Brown landscape; huge old trees artfully placed, with grass underneath. Surely some of those trees must be 200 years old. What changes they have seen! I wandered around in the gardens for a long time and really enjoyed them.

The raft trip I had scheduled turned out to be a very tame flat- bottom wooden boat with wooden seats, sliding along glassy black water beneath the castle. It was poled by 2 young men who looked right out of a fairy tale, with loose white shirts, brown pants, suntans and curly hair! All afternoon I had seen kayaks and canoes and rubber rafts going under the bridge in the middle of town. Everyone stands on the bridge and waves to them. I had asked about dry bags, but they said there was no guarantee you would not get wet, so I had gone back to my room and removed everything like watch and passport and hid it under my covers and switched to sandals. I need not have bothered! It was like Huck Finn poling down the river, except we went by old medieval houses and below the castle. We did ride the raft down some water stairs, which was fun and I stood up and waved yahoo! Other than that, the water was smooth and black and the sky threatened rain. Very romantic at dusk.

On the raft I sat next to a lady who spoke excellent English, and she translated for me what the poling guide man said. Turns out she is a translator in Brussels for the European Union! So I got the very best, and I really enjoyed it. She said you should have seen this country 15 years ago. Everything was broken down, like this one little place we passed with its' red tile roof falling in. She said she is so glad there is life again! Some people don't like it, because they think life was easier under the communists. Everyone knew they had work. For a period of time after the fall of communism, many people were out of work, but now that is pretty much over.

By then it was almost 9:00, so I went to dinner in a place by the river with lots of geraniums hanging on the railing. The castle was lit across the river and the mist came down. A cafe across the river had a piano playing old jazz and it was very mellow. I had chicken which was breaded and fried and broccoli soup and little croquettes the size of marbles and it was all delicious. It was also hot, which is what I needed because of the rain and I only had on a short sleeve shirt.

I walked home fast, uphill in the rain and dried myself on my one towel.

My room here was built brand new in March, but looks just as old as the rest of town. There was a garage they demolished to make a tiny hotel 3 stories high with 5 or 6 rooms. Reception is in a building down the street that also rents canoes and rafts.

Breakfast was brought to my room on a tray, because they have no breakfast room. It was 2 long thin rolls, half a piece of rye bread, orange juice, hot chocolate which was very dark, with no milk and not very sweet. I liked it. There was also yogurt, 3 thin pieces of cheese and 3 thin pieces of ham, plus butter, jelly and sugar. It came on a large wooden tray, which took up almost the whole table in my room. Quite nice, I thought!

Well, time to go for my tour of the Baroque theatre. I hope it quits raining!