Saturday 5 July 2014 Cesky Krumlov

Mostly Sunny 24C

The boutique hotel we are staying in provides breakfast which is a simple spread including cheeses, meats, rolls and chocolate muesli in a cave under the 15th Century building. We give it a thorough workout each day....

We decided our first activity today would be a city tour at 10.30 which is conducted in English.Our guide Oli (a lovely lady) took us for 90 minutes around the town showing us all the sites and explaining the history. She was excellent and there were just 6 on the tour.

She started the tour showing us a map of the town explaining Cesky means Bohemia and Krumlov means wandering river which describes the place beautifully. There was a town on the other side of the river called Latran which also produced beer.

We visited a lookout which showed clearly the expansive Castle buildings in old Latran, and also saw the original Jesuit buildings in Krumlov which have all been converted to public buildings except for the old Jesuit brewery that they managed to burn down 3 times and isn't quite as original.

Then onto St Vitus Church where she took us inside. She showed us a piece of the old remaining city wall and the river. There seemed to be a problem as both towns on either side of the river were producing beer but one side produced a barley beer and the other a wheat beer. Of course the barley beer was more profitable so they combined the two towns by building a bridge.

Today, Krumlov is a popular tourist town and the Czech people come to holiday and take rafts and small boats down the river during summer. We watched the parade of paddlers of which there were hundreds, many enjoying a pub crawl or boozy lunch along the way as they visit many pubs and drink much beer.

When you cross the bridge to the Castle you can look down to where 3 bears are kept. The bears have been kept here since the Rosenberg dynasty and many of their descendants are serving a grater purpose as rugs around the castle floors. We finished our tour at the castle where she pointed out the ticket office for the tours.

After her tour we climbed the tower at the castle which gave us great views of the surrounding areas. Our plan for the afternoon was to do a Castle Apartments tour and take a walk under and through to the other side of the Castle.

We have seen some interesting art here – there is an artist who makes fingers and toes from various materials – a bit unusual.

The Castle Tour was very good and showed us the residences of three families who lived in the Castle, unfortunately there were no photos allowed. The most interesting room was a weird ballroom where the walls were decorated in the style of a masquerade ball with 143 figures, it was quite unique.

After the tour we walked down by the river to watch some of the rafts and boats come through the rapids and then took a look at some of the galleries in town.

We returned to the restaurant at the Eggenberg Brewery for an early dinner. We mixed sausage wrapped in bacon with horseradish and mustard, and grilled Camembert and cranberries with the Argentina-Belgium World Cup quarter final and another litre of the Eggenberg dark beer.

It was a good night.