037 Czech Republic: Budejovice, Cesky Krumlov

Czech Republic: Budejovice, Cesky Krumlov

We returned via Kiev. We'd been a bit concerned that maybe the Russia/Ukraine conflict would have an effect on our flight, but we were fine (as we expected but you never know). Our car was perfectly safe. So we have behind us the two events that news had led us to believe were risky.

We'd had an early morning flight and there was a 2 hour difference so we had the whole of the afternoon ahead of us and drove to Ceske Budejovice. While they accommodate tourists, it isn't  a tourist town (if you know what I mean)

Budejovice:
At some stage I will do a blog with just the towers Frank has climbed. I think I did the first three and a few major ones but if you can climb the church/cathedral tower then Frank is off. He's taken some amazing Arial shots.

This is the view from our bedroom window. It is one of the least expensive hotels we have stayed in, is our biggest room and the second best hotel. Our car was parked via an elevator!

View of the square from the tower. It was over 35C each day. The fountain had no shade yet was still popular with the locals, mainly early evening. It doesn't go dark until nearly 10pm and even then it isn't really that dark.

We took a day trip to Hluvoka State Castle. No photos allowed inside. It was really a private home for most of its life, rather than a defensive castle. It had beautiful extensive gardens. The interiors were covered in elaborate wood carving. Not opulent but certainly tasteful.

 

On the way into Austria we stopped at Cesky Krumlov. This place was awesome (and I don't use the word lightly). The castle/monastery was enormous. We didn't bother going inside as we'd been told it wasn't impressive and we'd already 'done' a great number

The covered walkway to the garden, so they wouldn't get wet or sunburnt!

I've never seen a place make such good use of its river. There were white water sections. There were easily over 100 kayaks. 

We'd heard some pretty bad things about the treatment of bears but these were in a very large enclosure, spotlessly clean, couple of 'caves' and plenty to interest the bears. They looked very healthy. We never  inquired if they had to dance.

This furniture was so funny. There was more inside. These are chairs. Now Frank could have chosen any one of 12 chairs to sit on for the photo and he chose this one!

And that was Czech Republic

 

Very inexpensive. Very friendly. A surprising amount of English spoken. Tourist friendly but not yet really discovered by the hoards of tourists. Very western, except for the food - which we found stodgy.

 

We heard some bad things about the police but never witnessed anything. We bought our toll pass within the first 10 mins of being in the country, stuck strictly to the speed limits (annoying many a local) and stuck to the zero alcohol before driving - so we never tempted any of the on-the-spot fines which is where the trouble seems to originate.

 

The only thing we really didn't like is the smoking - a huge percentage of the population smoke and they can smoke anywhere, even indoors in restaurants - so we had quite a few spoiled meals.

 



Overall a great place to visit.