Year Abroad - Olomouc Part 5

Trip to Český Krumlov! 

Wednesday 30th April

I had been excited about this day for so long! Finally I was going to visit the town of Český Krumlov, which was supposedly the fairy tale town of the Czech Republic, and also stay with a Czech family - time to speak some Czech!
In the morning I went to school for my intense day of just one lesson, before heading to the main station to catch a train to Prague. Luckily I ended up on a really swish intercity train, so had a pretty relaxed journey there. In the station I met Daniela, who I was going to stay with, and her boyfriend Karel. We jumped on a train to Hořovice, a town near to the village where Daniela's family live and were picked up at the station by her step dad. He then drove us through the beautiful rolling hills and little villages of South Bohemia to their little village.

Me and Daniela by the castle in Český Krumlov

After meeting her whole family and being shown to my room we were ready for BBQ time! To start with her very cute 5 year old sister Eliška would only say "Ahoj" to me, but soon enough she was showing me her guinea pig and impressing me with her knowledge of English colours, said in an adorable Czech accent.
The BBQ was a feast, and I ended up eating so much! I had been worried before about having to speak Czech for the whole evening, but I managed a few sentences here and there and vowed to make more of an effort the next day. After a whole afternoon and evening of listening to Czech my brain felt like it was going to explode, but I reckon I picked up a few new things, even if I didn't say a lot! Now I feel like I know how Czech families live (well one at least). For me that's when I really feel like I know the culture of the country, when you know how real people live! Now I can really imagine living in the Czech Republic myself at one point, if that's where life takes me.

Thursday 1st May

Thursday was May Day (1st of May for those of you who don't know it ;) I was asked if we also have June Day and July Day - we don't) so I learned about the traditions that they have in the Czech Republic to celebrate the day. The main tradition is that a couple has to kiss under a flowering tree to have good luck and happiness for the next year. Considering how many trees there were around with blossom, I didn't exactly see swarms of couples making the most of them ;)

That morning we got up, had breakfast, packed the car and started on our long, windy journey to Český Krumlov. 

Huuuge bridge over the Vltava

Our first stop on the trip was a small chateau in a pretty little town, with a lake and a big park which was really pretty, but we only stopped there long enough to have a walk around the building at look out over the park. From there we jumped back in the car and continued on our trip. After a quick ice cream/petrol stop and we took a short detour via a really big bridge over the Vltava river. This part of the river was seriously wide and the bridge looked like something they would bungee off of in a Bond film because it was so high up! The view was pretty spectacular though with some cute little houseboats floating around (imagine canal boats chopped in half - that's what they looked like).

Červené Lhoty

The next place we stopped was called Červené Lhoty, which was a big red house, surrounded by a lake in a tiny village. The house was really pretty in the sun, if a little bright, and with the rowing boats (lodicky) floating around it did have quite a fairy tale feel about it. After a bit of investigating on Karel's part, we finally decided to go on the tour around the fancy apartment rooms in the house. Cue GIANT slippers (worn over the top of your outside shoes <3 ) and an hour of being pretty confused as to what was going on (due to the tour being in Czech...). It was pretty fun walking (skidding) around and seeing how the people there had lived, but sadly I didn't really understand the last story and the main point of the tour - aka why the house had been painted bright red... I think it was something to do with a someone dying but don't hold me to that!

After the tour, and after Daniela sampling the world's worst frappé (black coffee and whipped cream, I'm sorry what?!) we left Červené Lhoty and jumped back in the car to find a place to have lunch. We stopped at a few little towns and did some pretty inventive u-turns before finally coming to a restaurant in a pretty square which even catered for me - woo!

We finally arrived in Český Krumlov at about 5 o'clock that evening, after I beautifully fell asleep most of the way there, missing a lot of the view of České Budějovice, which I had really wanted to see! The family dropped me off at my hostel and headed over to their apartment for the evening, as they were staying out of town. I stayed in Krumlov House Hostel which was really cool and different to any hostel I had ever stayed in before. It was mostly made out of wood on the inside, including the staircase, and had a lovely kitchen and living room which felt like you were actually staying in somebody's house! You even had to take your shoes off and leave them at the door, but they provided you with slippers so it was all good ;)

Český Krumlov

After being shown to my room, the hostel owner gave me a fab map of the town and showed me all the places to go with tips on things to do. I was quite excited to go in to the centre and make the most of the warm evening so after ditching my bag in my room I headed straight out. It had been a really sunny day and the evening was just as beautiful, so the view over the fairytale-like town was so pretty. The castle is really big, and the town is made up of all these tiny winding streets of colourful terraced houses. I spent an hour or so wandering round the town and looking at the castle, before grabbing some snacky food in a corner shop and going back to my hostel. When I got back the hostel owner told be about a really good sunset view you could get over the town and the mountains, so (in true excitable tourist fashion) I hurriedly ate my "dinner" and climbing up a hill outside the town to watch the sun go down. It was pretty amazing with the town and the castle in the foreground surrounded by big foresty mountains. A great end to a day of intense touristing!

Friday 2nd May

Friday the family came back into Český Krumlov and met me at my hostel before driving in to town and attempting to find somewhere to park... Luckily we finally succeeded and our second day of touristing could begin! It was another gorgeous morning and really hot, so I decided to just risk a t-shirt and jeans - when you're British you have to make the most of every sunny day ;) Daniela, Karel and I wandered around the centre for an hour or so and got in our sunny castle pictures while we could. After a bit of confusion over where everyone was (even the walky-talkies couldn't help us) we finally found the rest of the family and walked up the hill to the castle. When we got there the weather decided that a British person apparently can't have a fun day in the sun, and it started drizzling. Luckily we had decided to go up the tower in the castle (this must be done in every town visited) which got us out of the rain for a bit.

From the tower in the rain!

Český Krumlov from above was so pretty, even in the rain! With the winding river and all the tiny streets it really did look like a fairytale... Have I mentioned that already? ;) we sheltered in the tower until the rain stopped and then decided to continue walking through the castle to the gardens on the other side. Most of the way through we were dry, and I took as much of the view as I could because by this point I had really truly fallen in love with the town. We strolled through the grand, English style gardens to the outside theatre, which consisted of what looked like a fake manor house as a stage and seats on a turntable which followed the actors as they moved around. All very interesting until it started to rain again. To start with we were fine, it was just spitting so even ok in my t-shirt. But then it really bucketed it down and I started feeling really underprepared! I luckily didn't get too drenched, but I can't say I was feeling very dry by the time we finally got back to the car!

The theatre stage

Feeling a little bit rained on and sorry for ourselves went into a little Czech pub to warm up and grab some lunch. Unfortunately we were served by the unfriendliest waiter possibly on earth... When he brought out the menus Daniela kindly asked if he knew what might be gluten free, to which he said no, so I said it would be find, I would just have the chicken and American potatoes (potato wedges to you and me). She then asked him to check if the potatoes would be gluten free, to which he responded by disappearing for a couple of minutes before bringing out the bag of frozen wedges and dumping it in her lap and telling her to see for herself. All very awkward and made me feel really bad for being the one with the awkward diet, oops!

So after our fun lunch experience we thought we'd lighten by driving to the castle of Rožmbirk. On the way there we passed a few groups of people canoeing down the river, and Jiří, Daniela's stepdad decided that we really had to do it. After some confusion in what was being planned over the walky-talkies, we arrived at Rožmbirk, which was really pretty overlooking the river and a village nestled in a valley in the mountains. A quick discussion and some negotiations later and it was decided: we were going canoeing. Having only just recovered from our soaking (although I did now have my waterproof at least) I wasn't super keen, but was willing to go along with it if need be. They were my hosts after all! Sadly for Jiří we were very unsuccessful in tracking down somewhere which was still open at 4pm on a rainy Friday, and after a few failed attempts it was decided that would have to just give up and go back to Rožmbirk after all. Annoyingly I suddenly developed this really bad stomach ache, and really just had to lie down, so the family took me back to Krumlov for the evening. All in all a bit of a mixed day with the hot weather/torrential rain/suddenly getting ill situation, but I still had a great time anyway with Daneila and her family anyway! :)

Saturday 3rd May

Saturday morning I got up and packed my things before being picked up by the family to leave my new favourite Czech town. We drove to the palace of Hluboka, which is supposedly a Czech version of Windsor Castle (although I've never been so can't vouch for that!) and is really grand and white with lots of crenellations and ornate gardens and glass houses. The only slight problem was that most of the Czech Republic had decided to descend upon the palace that day, so we had to queue for a bit to get our tickets, desperately hoping we would get to the ticket lady before it shut at 12:30 The palace was apparently once inhabited by some princesses (I want to say Hapsburg) so was decorated and furnished in the most over the top and fancy way you could possibly imagine. Every room was covered in wood panelling, with huge door frames carved in intricate styles. There must have been at least a forest worth of wood in that house, if not more. It was impressive but not really to my taste, purely because it had clearly been decorated in a way to make the owners look extremely rich. Which they clearly were but still... I was a really fab tour though (I had the English text so knew what was actually going in each room) and I'm so glad that we did it!

Hluboka palace

Finally I was dropped off at a bus to Prague in a random Czech town to start my trip home to Olomouc. It was sad to say bye because they had all been so lovely and I'd had such a great time, but I hope that I'll see them all again sometime in the future :) especially when Daniela comes to visit me in England ;) (hint hint...)

So that was my trip to Český Krumlov, next up is a day trip to Dresden and visiting Kutná Hora and the bone church!

Na shledanou!  ;)