We are woken by birdsong at 04:30 just as it is getting light, but obviously stay in bed for a few hours more.

When we eventually get up the sun is shining and it's getting warm. At 10:30 we set off in Mary*Lou with N+G following on their motorbike, for the 10 minute drive to Cesky Krumlov.

A few minutes' walk from the carpark we cross a wooden bridge into the old centre. This ancient town is set inside a bend in the River Vltava making it almost an island.

Cobbled streets weave between rows of brightly coloured shops and restaurants. Many are decorated with mural panels or painted in the cubism style making flat plaster look like carved and dressed stonework.

High above us is the Hradek [or little] Castle tower, a pink and green column resembling a lighthouse, decorated with frescoes dating from the 16th C.

From a park we look over a sea of rooves, some pantile, some wood shingle, before finding a terrace fr lunch. We choose traditional Czech fare, marinated beef with potato dumplings and cranberry sauce, and pork with herb potato cakes. As we leave the restaurant, a few drops of rain fall, but we head on up to the castle, stopping on the way to buy a trdelnik [the pastry coils we saw in Prague] to share hot, sweet and doughy loveliness, but glad we didn't try to eat one each!

As we cross the bridge into the castle yard there is a surprise; for 400 years brown bears have lived in the moat and one of the current three bears is munching away but not on Goldilock's porridge.

Ali and Grete continue along the castle walls while the Nicks avoid the steps and return to the van by the cobbled streets.

A [reasonably] short stop at Lidl on the way back and then a relaxing evening listening to birdsong and the river babbling along