Day 56: Cesky Krumlov

My twitter post sums up today...

Paddled down the Vltava. Raft flipped at fall at very end. Casualties: G9, one 4 GB SD, the day's pictures. O_o

It's an unfair summary though because it focuses on the traumatic end. Minus that, the day was absolutely perfect.

It started with a sunny, mildly warm day for us to take a raft calmly down the Vltava. Usually the boats start by going around the old town before proceeding further down the Vltava, but they're doing some work on the river portion around the old town so it looked like we might not be able to start at that usual spot. Actually, the construction was supposed to have been completed by yesterday, but they're a couple of days late. When K and I went to check out the portion of the river being worked, it did indeed look blocked off by the tractors clearing excess silt from the river. All the rafts we saw would get to that portion, stop, and then drag their boats onto shore, adding to the many boats already laying on the shore. It was quite a sight to see all the boats lined up (I took a picture of it, but...).

We waited for a while and then saw the tractors move off a little and a couple of boats pass through the section, at which point we returned to the raft rental place ^-^

Actually, we checked out one other spot first. The boat rental guy said this was the "dangerous" spot, with a small slide/fall (a couple feet) that might cause trouble for the inexperienced, another reason why he suggested us starting after the section-under-work. We watched a few rafts and canoes pass through the spot and decided, yes, we would do it. And we did! Quite successfully, with K getting slightly wet. Even though I sat in the front, I was less wet ^-^

The rest of our four or so hours was mostly calm. Is there a Class 1 level? If so, this would probably be it. Interestingly, every else we saw on the river was Czech! Where are all the non-Czech tourists? We felt quite special ^o^ Everyone was really friendly, too, shouting 'ahoy' to the other boats.

A quarter of the way from the end, we stopped at a little eatery on the shore to eat some yummy palacinka, "pancakes", jam rolled up in crepes and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Our original 'itinerary' was to stop off right before the fall at the end of our intended path. But, at last minute, having been successful at our fall at the start and seeing all the other boats proceeding down this fall, I said "let's do it", not thinking the decision through. The camera was still out, in a Ziploc bag, tucked under my jacket (not in the waterproof barrel!). We went in crooked, needing to push off the wall to straighten our raft. It was exciting and fun! Until we splashed at the bottom and somehow tipped. A couple of people on the side helped to keep our boat and waterproof barrel from continuing further down the river.

Soaked. Camera lost. At least the sun was out so we didn't freeze.

And eventually the van from our boat rental place arrived, a little later than scheduled.

I had actually thought through the whole "what if" scenario of losing the camera quite carefully in the morning. I'd emptied the SD card and deliberated about which camera to take. The G9 was past its prime, suffering from a dust spot that would surely increase into more dust spots (like our old G7). I could make do with our SX-200, I thought.

I miss the G9. It was my fault. I was traumatized.

But K has the right take on it... at least we're both ok. We could have hit our heads or hurt some other part of ourselves on the rocks. I could have infected my bus accident wound. I could have hurt my knee even more. Instead, we lost a camera. And we have another one, SX-200, bought immediately after it was released, the week before our trip.

Onward. ^-^...?

Day 55: Cesky Krumlov

Jan, our host, offered to drive us to the metro station with our luggage so that we wouldn't have to walk, and he also let us take more food to-go from breakfast since we were only eating a little bit ^-^

9:45am bus. Is there a word for 'temporary bus phobia'? At least this is a normal-size bus, not a van-type bus like our crash the other day -- more mass to take impact. Also, this one has seatbelts. The ride was thankfully uneventful.

We got dropped off at the bus 'station', which is a decent walk from the Old Town. It's much better than the even farther train station though. As we started on our walk to the Old Town, I mentioned to K that he could clip his backpack onto the front of the suitcase (it's technically 'part of' the suitcase). Why we didn't think to do this earlier, I don't know. But at least now he didn't need to carry his backpack anymore.

Cesky Krumlov is like Rothenburg, one of those old, preserved towns. And cute! I think it might even be on the UNESCO World Heritage list. (It used to make an impression on me when I heard something was on the UNESCO World Heritage list, but no longer; there's just too many places in the world that are!) It has the cobblestone streets but is a different feel from Rothenburg. It seems like most of the places to stay in town are also places to eat. Ours is one; the rooms are above the restaurant, just a block off the main square. It's not hard to be close to the main square if you're staying in the Old Town though.

When we first approached the main square, we were surprised to see a Chinese restaurant! The little red sign on the blue building...


We spent the day walking throughout the town and exploring the small castle grounds. I even climbed up, albeit slowly, and even more slowly coming down, the 162 steps of the castle's round tower. Beautiful view. And probably the only time my more than 180-degree panoramic came out pretty well, despite the constantly changing lighting. (The old town is in the center, shaped by the Vltava river. The castle and its courtyard is on the right, and the left is the 'new town'.)


I really enjoyed the castle grounds. Aside from it being a leisurely walk with K ^o^, I liked the renaissance architecture. Building facades are usually painted in some repeating design and it's cute to see 'balance' achieved by painting fake doors and windows. Even the concrete wall was painted with 'stones'.

Actually, we sat for a while at these walls (there were benches on the other side). Like we'd experienced in the non-main streets of Prague, beautiful music was floating out from within the castle.


Next to the castle is a huge garden, but it was hilly, so we didn't explore it -- my knees... >_< The sign at the entrance to the garden reminded people that breaking things was not allowed.

Day 54: Prague

Breakfast at 11am! Our latest breakfast yet, but our gracious host said the first day that we could have breakfast whenever ^-^ My usual breakfast here has been: yogurt with a mix of regular granola and choco granola, sweet bread, grain bread, ham, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggs, kiwis, and a cup of tea. The kiwi and choco granola were a nice change from our other stays.

We head over to Florenc station to buy our bus tickets for tomorrow. It's good we decided to go today instead of waiting until tomorrow because it turns out they're doing construction at the station, so it takes us a while to find our way.

Afternoon at Prague Castle. It's the less-busy late afternoon ^-^ The stained glass in the recent half of the cathedral was different from other ones we've seen -- one Art Nouveau by Mucha, a Czech artist, and a few modern artsy ones. The ones in the older half of the cathedral were familiar. I was all ready to climb the 287 steps to the top of the cathedral tower for the third best view in Prague but the tower was closed for 'technical reasons' (is it always technical reasons here?). When K inquired, he was told that it's because there's so many tourists now that they can't fit all of them in such a tight space, so they closed it >_< I think there must be something they can do. Maybe disallow the tour groups but allow individual visitors to go up. Or set up a system where only a certain number of people can be up there at a time. How sad to just leave it closed.


Some random graffiti they left on the wall of the Old Royal Palace.

Letna Park wasn't mentioned in RS, but I saw it on someone's post on virtualtourist. I was a little iffy about it because I hadn't heard about it elsewhere, but I'm really happy we went. It was peaceful and probably the best view we've seen of the Vltava and Charles Bridge ^o^



We saw a really cute (and fast!) squirrel in the park ^-^

Random: There's a 19% (!) VAT tax on eating out in the Czech Republic.

Day 53: Prague

Today, we walked through the New Town, the modern area. It's where all the standard fashion shops and other shopping are located and where the locals outnumber the tourists. St Wencelas from the Christmas carol was apparently Czech! He's a real person in history, not just some made-up character for a song.

I guess the train station slot machines were just a starter. There's quite a few casinos scattered all around the city! During our New Town walk, we stopped by the Museum of Communism, which it turns out, is located in the same building as a casino!


The museum's ad was cute.

And museum itself was really interesting. The exhibit sections were titled "The Dream", "The Reality", and "The Nightmare", giving glimpses into the origins of communism and the beginnings of it in the Czech Republic, the actual harsh realities that it brought along like food shortages, and the measures to take down opposing thought like the secret police. In "The Reality", there was quite a bit of anti-American posters and propaganda, an entirely different view of our home country.

We ate lunch at the same place we went to yesterday, a little cafeteria near the Old Town, a block from the market. It has an English menu outside but then is entirely Czech inside (though some of the servers know some basic English food words). A place where locals eat but still near the Old Town and traditional cuisine ^o^ It's a bit confusing inside because they didn't have all the items we wanted. We went late in the day both days, so maybe they ran out. One of the servers told us only the items on the board were available, but the board was in Czech =/ Still, yummy food and inexpensive. The only off bit was the cashier lady overcharged us. She tried to charge us for a drink we didn't get, 36 CZK (~$1.60). But we had done the math ahead of time, so we were prepared to have her realize her mistake. Being charged for random items you didn't order is something we've been warned about for eateries in Prague, so we took the precaution that we didn't think we needed for a local's cafeteria. Being careful is good.

The visit to the market today made me realize my mistake yesterday. I definitely bought from a shifty merchant >_< And maybe I overpaid a little? Today I picked a good merchant, prices per kg and entirely courteous.

We were planning to go to Prague Castle in the early afternoon, but our walk through the New Town plus lunch took longer than expected. We still went to the castle but we just walked around the grounds, which still took quite a while, and decided we would come back tomorrow to actually go in the cathedral, palace, and basilica. Late in the day is good for avoiding the tour groups. There were still a couple but definitely nothing compared to what we've been told we'd experience in the morning.

The admission price for visiting the castle interiors is cheaper for a "family" than for two adults. It's only 300 CZK for a whole "family" instead of 500 CZK for two adults (250 per adult). Unfortunately, they define "family" as max two adults *plus* one to five kids. Maybe we should adopt a kid for a few minutes tomorrow ^_~

Rain started coming down just as we were heading back home.

Day 52: Prague

Yummy breakfast! We met two other couples at breakfast, one a trumpet player and conductor, the other a Spanish professor and artist. Sometimes I wonder if other engineers travel. The musicians were only on a one-week trip from NY, visiting Berlin and Prague. I can't imagine such a short trip or the cost of the flight being most of your travel cost!

The day was a walking day; we walked around the Old Town and Josefev (the Jewish Quarter). I fared quite well for hobbling along the whole day; I hope my knee won't complain when I wake up tomorrow.

We didn't actually go *into* any sights, well, unless you count the town hall tower. We were debating the sights of the Jewish Quarter for a while, but from reading the descriptions, we decided we'd seen plenty of Jewish history and traditions recently. The Jewish Museum in Berlin was especially well-done and of course, we'd been to a bunch of Holocaust sights. We also didn't want to have to battle for eye-room with all the big tour groups. The Jewish cemetery is maybe the only sight I would have liked to see; it's supposedly the inspiration for the designer of the Memorial for Murdered Jews that we saw in Berlin. It's the *only* cemetery Jews were allowed to be buried in for 300 years here. Unfortunately, they entirely walled off the cemetery so that you have to buy tickets to see it. And there is no cemetery-only ticket. You have to buy the combo ticket that gives you admission to six sights. According to RS, we were supposed to be able to walk up the steps to the ceremonial hall to get a free peek at the cemetery, but the book is from 2008, i.e. 2007 information; they don't let you walk up the steps without a ticket anymore >_<

We almost did go inside the Tyn Church, but we were detered -- it was "closed for the day for technical reasons". Technical reasons? First time we've ever seen that.

It's amusing to see tourists crowding around the various clocks in Europe to watch the striking of the clock and the movement of different clock figurines. We were among the horde here -- for some reason, K really wanted to see it, even though we usually don't care. It was what I expected, anti-climatic. What I do find fascinating though is watching the crowd come together, peak, and then disperse. I got to watch this today from overhead, atop the town hall tower (accessed via elevator ^-^). I forgot to snap a picture until the crowd was already well into the dispersal phase though.

Right as we got off the train yesterday, we noticed the return of Asian tourists. There were plenty of them in the Old Town and lots of other tour groups as well. I've heard some call Prague 'the most beautiful European city', and, it's marketed as 'the city of a thousand spires'. I'm not sure I'd say it's *the* most beautiful city. It's hard declare an absolute like that. But, despite the tourist hordes, the Old Town was pretty. European architecture fanatics should definitely visit. Lots of styles from the various eras. Lots of art nouveau.

Music is another big thing; there's tons of concerts all over the town everyday and it's supposedly much cheaper than similar concerts in Vienna. Since we're taking Prague "easy", we'll be saving the concerts for another visit. What's really cool about small concerts being everywhere is the beautiful music wafting out into the small streets, the perfect perfect accompaniment to our walks.

There's a half-touristy half-local market of fruits & veges and arts & crafts near the Old Town. The prices were 'ok', but half the merchants have "tricky" prices. Instead of by the kilogram, some are 100g or 500g or 'kus' (per piece) or per box. I saw strawberries and apricots sold by all these different methods. A silly non-mathematically-inclined tourist might suffer a bit. It was after I tried to buy and then decided not to buy the overpriced strawberries that I realized I probably picked the wrong merchant. But after my messed up cherries in Athens, I was all gung-ho about quality and this merchant had quality-looking produce. Anyways, the great thing about this market is the adjacent washing fountain ^o^ Usually in the middle of the day I wouldn't buy too much fruit if I'm not near our lodging, because there's no easy way to wash it and I'd have to carry it around for the rest of the day. But not today... tomatoes, apricots, and peaches ^o^

We stopped at Charles Bridge late in the day, so not *too* many people. It's going through reconstruction in parts for the next few years, but it was still pretty nice. I liked the little island (Kampa) and area near it (Mala Strana / Little Quarter). Less tourists ^-^

Last stop of the day, Petrin Hill. We thought we'd be able to see some sort of view after taking the funicular up, but we were sorely disappointed. We'd have to climb up the 400 steps of Petrin Tower. A week ago, that would have been fine for us. But we decided to forgo me climbing with one good knee.

Day 51: Krakow => Prague

6:53am train. With me limping along, we make it just in time, six minutes before the train departs. It's a seven-hour ride to Prague (Praha). Random note: The laundry actually dried from midday yesterday to early this morning. (The hostel only had a washer, no dryer.) So despite the rain, it is still quite dry in Krakow. Or maybe it was because they kept the fan going in the bathroom (where the laundry hanging thing was)?

I eat my fruit pierogis on the train. K had heated them up for me before we left. The first one tasted pretty good, but I think I agree with K about fruit and pierogis not being the best combo. I didn't like the cheesy sauce they put on them either. It was 'ok'. I'd like to eventually re-visit Poland. There's more food I'd like to eat ^-^ But also, I liked Krakow. And, it's one of the cheaper cities in Europe (it gets cheaper as you move east ^-^).

Prague. The train station has the clearest English announcements we've heard anywhere! Aside from the ultra-clear announcements, we were also surprisingly greeted by slot machines and by ads playing X-Files and Inspector Gadget theme songs.

We're staying at a little family-owned guesthouse a few metro stops out of the Old Town. It's residential area, right in the midst of Czech suburban/city sprawl. It's nice to get the contrast between where Czechs actually live and the touristy center.

Since the day's already gone, we don't really do much, except explore the surrounding area's mini groceries and go to a nearby restaurant recommended by our host. K gets a salmon, and me, traditional Czech fare... smoked pork, cabbage, potato dumplings, and bread dumplings. RS comments on Czech food as being "heavy, hearty, and tasty" with "lots of meat, potatoes, and cabbage". You could pretty much say that for traditional Irish or German food! I liked the dish I ordered; the potato dumplings were tastier than the potato dumplings in Munich, and the bread 'dumplings' were especially good. I think it was a steamed yeast bread of some sort. RS also comments that "most Czechs no longer go to 'traditional' eateries, preferring the cosmopolitan taste of the world to the mundane flavor of sauerkraut". But isn't "comfort" food whatever you've grown up with? His latter comment was true for the place we went to; more than half the selections were not traditional 'Czech'.