Beck's Blog: August 4 - Cesky Krumlov

We arrived in Linz, Austria about 7:00 am. From here, we had booked an optional tour to a medieval town in the Czech Republic called Cesky Krumlov. It was about a 2 hour drive from the ship, and we had to bring our passports because there was a possibility that we would have to show them at the border.

We took a pit stop at a gas station, just before the border, and then continued on. As it was, there were no guards visible when we got to the border although there was a bit of a roadblock a short distance later in a small village. We didn't get stopped and so carried on to the site.

Fountain in the Garden

When we arrived, the bus let us off near the upper gates of the town. We met our local guide, Lukas, at that point, and began the walk into the town. The upper part consisted of both an English garden and a French garden. They both were quite nice to see. We walked through the gardens and down toward the castle, going down a very old rock staircase. Then we continued downward and came to a viewing area by the palace that gave us a very nice view of the town that was below the palace.

View Through Porthole

When we finished there, we continued walking down towards the river that was like a natural moat around the town. The cobblestone streets were narrow and somewhat hard to walk on. We looked at the shops that were there and got out of the way of the few cars that drove down the streets. Not many were allowed there. They had to get special permits to drive in the old town, and these were hard to get.

Lukas had quite a dry sense of humour and told us many stories about this town and his country. He told one story about the town barber and his beautiful daughter. The crazy, rich king living in the palace took a fancy to the barber's daughter and took her to live with him in the palace. After some time together, he got angry at her and threw her out of the palace window.

Looking up at the Palace

Fortunately, she didn't die due to landing on the garbage that gathered below the palace walls. She was injured, but living, and she went back to live in her father's house. Later, the crazy ruler wanted her to come back to live with him, but her father refused, so the ruler had him killed and the girl came back to live in the palace. Well, a couple weeks later, he got angry with her again and decided to chop her up into small pieces with his sword and then throw her out the palace window. He wanted to make sure that she was really dead this time.

We stopped for some photos on a bridge crossing the river below the palace. The palace wall was very imposing. Lukas pointed out an interesting item hanging out from the wall of the castle. This was the toilet which worked on the gravity principle, with all the waste dropping to the grounds below the wall.

From there, we walked around some more, viewing some of the sites in the village. Then we went into an old restaurant for lunch. This was an interesting place, with many small rooms that lots of our group had to squeeze into. We were fortunate to get seats near the door so there was a bit of a breeze blowing in to cool us off. The other rooms were small and hot.

After that, we had free time for a couple hours to explore, but we were tired and hot and decided to go to the meeting place to wait. We sat on the bridge for a while and then joined a lady from the ship who was sitting outside a restaurant having a coffee. We joined her and ordered a soft drink. While we waited, more and more of our group joined us until it seemed like almost everyone was there, filling the tables outside the restaurant.

Finally, everyone was there, and the cruise directors returned to take us back to the bus. Thank goodness we didn't have to walk back up the way we came in, but it was quite a long walk back to the bus. Then it was the trip back to the ship and some comfortable rest.

Tomorrow, off to Passau.