Highlights. The tower views, the raft and the night tour.

Cesky Krumlov had appeared as an interesting addition to our time in the Czech Republic when I was planning our trip. It was a place I had not heard of before then, but I did later find out that both Julie and Paul Sommerville and Shelly D’Arcy had also spent time in the area and in their words, adored it.

Český Krumlov, in Bohemia’s deep south, is one of the most picturesque towns in Europe. It’s a little like Prague in miniature, a Unesco World Heritage Site, with a stunning castle above the Vltava River, an old town square, and Renaissance and Baroque architecture. The site that said this also mentioned the hordes of tourists, but then we are tourists.

The derivation of the town’s name is believed to be from ‘krumbe ouwe’ meaning crooked meadow and ‘Cesky’ for Czeck. The centre is built on a horseshoe bend in the Vltava River so the suggested derivation of the name makes sense.

We packed up picnic food and headed to the main area mid-morning. Our first stop was to buy earrings that we had seen on special last night. Then we went to the castle to walk up the tower. We had looked at the other items offered by the local tourist card but this was the only one we were all keen to do. We stopped and saw a bear in the moat. This has been a tradition in the castle for many years.

The tower was built with the only access being through a window accessed by a drawbridge on the first floor. There is now a door at the bottom with wide steps up to the first floor, but the rest is the original steps. This makes the walk up both steep and narrow, with low beams in a couple of places where you had to watch your head. Passing was either interesting or impossible so we were lucky that the tower was not busy. I admit I did not look forward to the walk down, but It actually proved to be easier than the way up.

We headed through the castle towards the gardens for our picnic. They were quiet and we had no problem finding 2 benches to act as a table and seat. It was very pleasant to sit and look at English flowers while we ate, although it did seem a bit odd to be in a castle garden with cottage-like flowers. We later found this is known as the English garden and the next door one, which we walked through on our way back, has a French style.

From the castle we had seen a lot of the kayakers and rafters we had also seen the previous day. I suggested the others might like to go and I would hold their gear. They suggested we should get a raft and all go. We all agreed it was not urgent and we should look at more of the town and see if we could find the company on the way. The historic town is not that big, but it has enough side roads and bridges to give lots of possible routes. We were also looking at menus to find possibilities for tonight’s meal.

We opted out of visiting other museums today although there were a range, including a marionette museum, a museum of mirrors, one centred on a famous local artist and a regional museum (which was the most tempting for me).

We found one of the rafting companies with a woman who spoke excellent English and booked a raft for 3pm. The trip was up to an hour with a van ride back to base. There were other longer options for not much more, but we were all happy with a trip that would take us under 6 of the town bridges and by the castle. I was my usual nervous self re getting into things on water, but was fine. We all agreed you would have to work very hard to get the raft to tip at all and then Katherine touched the river bottom a few times with the paddle so it was clearly shallow.

I was officially captain, navigator, bridge counter and photo taker (‘deck cargo’ - JB). Most of the river was so gentle that Katherine took her own photos as well. The rest of the gear was in a waterproof bucket but would have been fine in the bottom of the boat. With 2 paddling and the current we did get to the end much earlier than we needed to, something we were all quite comfortable about as the paddlers were not yet tired but did feel they had had a workout. It probably took almost as long for the boat to be loaded on the van and for us all to be driven back to the start.

We had spotted a place selling a spiral of pastry, cooked on the stall, and Katherine was keen to try. She opted for plain (ie covered in sugar but not with chocolate inside) and ate it on the way back.

After a break, she and I went for a walk to a nearby chapel, for both the views and a cache. The cache proved to be a very complicated one that I soon gave up on, but we did enjoy the views. The only hard part was going down the street we are on to then going across and up one that is parallel to our road. That part is steep and added a few minutes to the walk. We did consider being cheeky and cutting through a spare section, but didn’t.

When we went back into the town area, the place we had pencilled in for a meal had no spare tables. Luckily someone was leaving from the next one so we had a table by the river. We managed to find food that included vegetables, something we have been lacking, and it was cheaper than our first place. This was partly because we discovered it did not accept credit cards, so it was good we had cash on hand. We also saw lots of fish in the river and realised for the first time, how full of fish the river was. John fed the ducks with some of the bread that came with his meal.

John walked back while Katherine and I found the free night walking tour host. Katherine has done a lot of these. This was my first free one, although I also enjoy walking tours and this town is perfect for them. The tour had only 5 people on it at the start, 4 from NZ and 1 from Australia. To be fair, one of the NZ people had come from the Netherlands not that long ago given her accent.   At the first stop we were joined by a man from India so there were seven of us. Our guide was John (or Hans) and had been an apple picker in Motueka a number of years ago.

At the this stop we admired views, heard about the history of the town, and also had the apartments from the Communist years pointed out to us. They were so obvious now but had not been before, even though we had been to this viewpoint before.

The town had been owned by various families over the years. The Rosenburg family had been given the town by the King…as royalty did. They built the upper part of the castle and promoted trade and crafts within the town walls, however, eventually they overextended themselves and ran out of money so sold the town to the Hasburgs. It then passed into the hands of the House of Schwarzenberg. The number of German residents rose considerably in their time. After World War II the town's longstanding German-speaking population were sent to Germany and the town was returned to Czechoslovakia. During the Communist era the historic part was neglected which was a double edge sword. Nothing was repaired but nothing was removed. Most of the historic area has now been restored since the communist control was removed in 1989.

The next spot was at the church, St Vitus, that we had walked past a few times and not bothered to go in. Here Hans used a small projector to show us what the inside of the church looked like. It was Gothic, and similar to others we have seen, so be didn’t feel the need to go back for this.

Possibly the next stop was of most interest to us. Hans talked about the importance of 8 in recent Cesky Krumlov history and showed us some photos. The one I most remember was from 1938 and showed an area full of people and Adolf Hitler addressing them. It took a moment to register that the square they were in was the square we were in. The mainly German townspeople welcomed him with open arms as he was offering food and jobs. All the other photos also were of events in this main square. The liberation by the Americans, the communist takeover, the tanks to squash the more liberal authorities and then the Velvet revolution when the Czech Republic became a democracy.

We looked at the coats of arms on the town hall and heard their history. The Roseburg family are represented by a five petal rose, the Schwarzenberg’s by a raven pecking at a skull (Hans did say they were odd) and there was a lion which had replaced the original bear as a symbol of strength.

At our stop at the Bridge we heard of the flood of 2003 and were shown the height of the water. There is a statue of a saint on the bridge to protect the town but Hans said he must had been off duty that day. We also stopped to see a former church that is now apartments. Hans said that only 15% of Czechs are now religious, they are the biggest beer drinkers in the world,  but the Czech Republic has a very low level of crime.

We finished the tour with a walk through part of the castle area. It was interesting to see it by night and to hear more of the history. The bear was inactive in the moat and we were sad to hear she is there by herself. The castle is to get 2 bears from Serbia at some time in the future but even that does not seem enough. We heard the story of the drunk soldier who decided go in and fight the bears that were there in the communist era. The soldier lost an arm, 2 bears were shot and one was eaten by the guards. Hans said a lot of different stories went around about the incident as people were reluctant to believe official stories at that time.

We went through part of the castle and saw the fake windows that had been drawn in over time. The Schwarzenberg family had used frescos to make the effect of stone blocks many years ago for cheapness. Other areas had been renovated since the town became a UNESCO world heritage area. He recommended the tower and visiting the Baroque Theatre which you do need to book for but is one of the two remaining in the world, the other being in Stockholm. It did sound very interesting, but not enough to change tomorrow’s plans. The other theatre here is more controversial. There is a theatre with a revolving auditorium that has grown from seating 60 to seating 600 and is booked out months in advance. It is controversial as UNESCO are keen that it be removed. Hans said there are a couple of options to appease UNESCO and keep the theatre, both of which cost millions of US dollars.

Katherine and I then walked back and were home with John by 11pm, all ready for bed.