We headed in to walk around the town of Freistadt before setting off. We had a walking guide that the lady at the campsite had given us. It was a beautiful day out and since we could walk in to town, we decided to have a look around. We didn't have a lot of time so we only went to a few of the places mentioned. It was a neat town with a fortified entrance and pretty gardens in the moat outside. We stopped off at a bakery and picked up an apricot treat for later on.

From there we set off for Cesky Krumlov, back in the Czech Republic. We could tell that it is quite a touristy town by the number of parking lots listed when you approach. However, we were able to park right beside the main entrance as it was definitely the off season. We were there on a weekend which I imagine increased the amount of day-trippers from nearby as it was only 45 minutes or so from the Austrian border. We entered under a gateway with several arches. We could see people walking up above and decided we would head up there for a view over town before returning to the car. Cesky Krumlov is situated on a bend in the river so the town centre is quite compact. There is a castle with a beautiful pastel coloured tower on the opposite side of the river and we got some excellent views as we wandered around.

We stopped off in a cute shop which was selling products from the region. I found a really nice wooden bell decoration for our Christmas tree. We continued on our walking tour and passed by many buildings decorated with "sgraffito". Sgraffito is a technique where the top layer of paint is scratched off to reveal the surface underneath. This left interesting effects on many of the buildings and we enjoyed looking at them all. We continued on towards the castle to walk through the grounds and the courtyards. On the way I spotted a neat looking shop selling some sort of cinnamon sugar treat. We stopped to watch and the process was quite a fun looking one. The guy would take dough rolled out and wrap it around a metal cylinder which was about 3-4 inches across. Then he would put the cylinder over the fire where it rotated until the dough was cooked. Afterwards he rolled the dough in cinnamon and sugar or in sugar and nuts depending on what you wanted. We decided this was a must sample item and picked one up right away. It was really tasty and a perfect hot treat on a cold day.

We wound our way up to the castle and walked through the neat courtyards with more sgraffito. We ended up on the arched gateway which had wonderful views over the town below. From there we continued back to the van. We headed off for Prague which was a few hours drive away. We had a rather stressful time finding our campsite as it was dark by the time we got there. The GPS was sending us on a dubious route, but since our google maps directions weren’t particularly helpful either and we didn’t have a detailed map, we had to rely on it somewhat. We ended up exiting where we weren’t supposed to and had to somehow get back to the highway. Eventually we managed and ended up driving out of town once again. We weren’t sure if we were on the right road, but decided to head out and attempt finding it again. Luckily, just as we thought we were never going to find it and were about to do a u-turn back towards town, Anoop spotted the campsite on the other side of the road, marked by a really small sign for such a large highway. We continued past it and waited for a break in the divider. After turning around, we arrived at the campsite. The owner was very helpful and explained how to get in to the centre of town and what time the bus left. We picked up the map of Prague as well and planned what to see the next day.