After a week of class, the program had us set to go off to a little town in the south of the Czech republic called Czesky Krumlov. I'd heard a lot about this town, from people that had gone before, or people who had talked to people that had gone before. Either way, I had heard it was beautiful.
They weren't wrong.
Despite some not so pleasant weather, we piled into a bus, and headed out. Now, a side word about the busses, there weren't enough seats. This was caused by a little mix up by the travel agent that the institute used to book everything for the excursion. See, he got a little confused, and thought we were leaving Saturday. Not the case. So we had to hire a little shuttle bus, and the big bus was late, and not as big as we needed. More on this later.
I got on the big bus though, it was quite comfortable. I napped. It was pretty early in the day.
The countryside of the Czech republic is beautiful. A patchwork of fields of either yellow flowers or thick green shoots, dotted by idilic little towns straight out of any storybook. Little mountains, scenic valley vistas complete the picture.
On the way we stopped by a castle. Now, this made me more than a little bit excited. I love castles. As soon as we started out I was giddy. After getting off of the bus we walked down a little path to what appeared to be a castle entrance, but we found out we were not allowed to go through that entrance, and had to take a boat to the actual castle. So I suppose that was a pretend castle.
The Pretender
Also there were peacocks. We chased
them around with our cameras and listened
them around with our cameras and listened
to them honk to each other.
Anyways, we got on our boat, and started around the lake. It was a nice ride, I like boats. I liked this boat, there was a whole area on the roof for sitting and watching things go by. It was kind of windy, but that wasn't a big deal, I had a castle ahead of me. And finally, it came around the corner, an actual castle. And it's an old one, built in the time of King Wincesclas (of song fame) Here's a badly stitched together panorama!
Then, we landed.
Everything was better than I thought it would be. It was a gloriously crumbling piece of history, stone walls grown with incredibly green grass, and flowering trees. There was so much to take in, and we only had a short while there. We climbed the tower, from which you could see over a large portion of the calm lake and nearby forest.
On the inside, it was the opposite. It was clean and immaculately kept, full of old paintings, restorations of old paintings, and even an exhibit of contemporary paintings. The spaces were vaulted and lovely, alternating between cramped and spacious.
And then, it was time to go on.
And we went.
Next stop was the Budweiser brewery. Where they make incredibly large quantities of alright beer. There were free samples of unpasteurized beer though, which was interesting. It tasted a little like grass. I had two.
After all these distractions, we finally arrived at Czesky Krumlov. And what a sight it was.
And we went.
Next stop was the Budweiser brewery. Where they make incredibly large quantities of alright beer. There were free samples of unpasteurized beer though, which was interesting. It tasted a little like grass. I had two.
After all these distractions, we finally arrived at Czesky Krumlov. And what a sight it was.
Behold:
Aaaaaand this is becoming an incredibly long post, and I have work to do. So, I'll pick it up again later. In part II!
