Rozmberk Mausoleum

We were moving on to Cesky Krumlov today. Our first stop, on the outskirts of Trebon, was a detour to see the Rozmberk family tomb that was 500 meters up a dirt path. It was pretty impressive as mausoleums go, very gothic looking, but since we really had no interest in seeing the interior with all the graves, so we were soon on our way again.

The ride was all rolling hills through beautiful farmland, which was a big change from the flat lake areas the day before. It was so clear you could see the Austrian Alps way in the distance to the south. We did get caught in a huge rainstorm, but fortuitously there was a bus shelter there to keep us (relatively dry). Especially fortuitous because we had gotten a bit lost and were on the wrong road at the time.

After many more hills, villages, forests and a scenic dam and reservoir, we arrived in Cesky Krumlov (the first word is pronounced "Chesky"). This was the one place on our trip that I had actually heard of and seen pictures of beforehand - actually years ago, and I had always wanted to come here.

Castle and Tower

Basically, the town looks like something straight out of a fairy tale. It's origins date back to the 1300s to the 1500s, and it is still completely and totally medieval - even the manhole covers are pretty. It is a UNESCO Heritage site, like Telc, and a lot of money has been dumped on it to bring it back to its former glory. It very small, but jam packed. The bulk of the town is pedestrian only, so it keeps more of the ambiance.

Main Square	Street View

The main part of the town is 7/8 surrounded by a loop in the Vlatava river (see map at left above), and the houses are crowded together and are on many levels as the town sort of slopes down to its banks. Some of the buildings are perched high above the river and have terraces out the back over the water with café/restaurants.

Then, across the river on one side, high up another hill, was a huge castle, the second largest in the Czech Republic after Prague. Contained within the castle complex a bell tower that is painted in all sorts of colors and looked like something out of a Disney movie. In fact the whole town did. OK, so it was a bit touristy, but the place was just spectacular. Every few steps the view changed and you could see different buildings or things from different angles, and it was just an absolute wonder. We actually did our sightseeing over that afternoon and late the next day, but all the pictures are posted here.

There is of course a main square with a plague column.

The castle, overlooking everything from the top of a hill like a protective guardian, was quite imposing because of its size relative to the town.

View from the Castle

Castle Gardens

The views of the surrounding town from the castle and the mystical bell tower were fantastic.

As you entered the first main courtyard you pass the castle's "bear pits."

Castle Bears

There are two bears that are kept here, and it was a very depressing sight. It was a fairly large enclosure, but you could tell the beasts were very unhappy - pacing about and all that. It seems the Rozmberk family, the local ruling clan, has kept bears in the castle courtyard for 500 years or so; they are the family mascot or something. Poor things.

Sgrafffiti

The rest of the castle was also quite imposing. There are some spectacular examples of sgraffiti in the interior courtyards, as there also are throughout the rest of the town.

Continuing through the castle and out the back, there are acres and acres of formal gardens with fish-head and mermaid fountains and and statues galore. Only in the Czech Republic would you see a sign as there was in those gardens saying "NO MUSHROOMING."

There were scores of restaurants, mostly interchangable, and mostly lining the banks of the river around the town. This kept the temperatures cooler, as a heat wave had moved in.

Splurging on Dessert

Dining in most of them was outside, which was a nice change from the other towns. The place was packed as it was the weekend, and Cesky Krumlov is only about two and a half hours from Prague -- a nice weekend getaway. It was also a big holiday weekend for the Czech's -- a four day one, so there were more people than usual, or maybe it just seemed crowded to us since we had barely seen any other tourists for a week.

Cesky Krumlov has a fantastic web site with an unbelievable amount of detailed information about the city and the surrounding area. There is an interactive map that gives you historical information on EACH building! So if you want to learn more about this fascinating place you can visit that site at http://www.ckrumlov.cz/uk/i_index.htm.

Day 6 - From Cesky Krumlov to Vyssi Brod and Back

We took an early morning train down to the shores of Lipno Lake, a huge Czech holiday resort near the Austrian border. Our first adventure of the day was getting there. The train was something out of the 1930's and went exceedingly slowly, as it made many stops, loading and unloading bikes, trunks, kayaks, rafts and canoes. The tickets for the hour-long trip (a total of about 30 miles) was $3 each, which included the extra fee for transporting the bikes. The cars were packed with beachgoers, as it was the first day of a four-day holiday weekend.

We were doing a "triangular" jouney -- the train travelled along the hypotenuse, and we rode back along the two other sides. We first rode along the shores of Lipno Lake which was lined with a series of very tacky resort developments, but at least the lake was pretty, surrounded (where it wasn't developed) by forests of dark green fir trees. We rode about 25k along this road. We were glad when we were in the shade, which fortunately was frequent, as the sun was blistering by 11.

At the angle of our triangle was our major destination of the day -- the Monestary of Vyssi Brod (pronounce "vishy").

Vyssi Brod

This is a 12th century Cistercian monastery that had been in use since then until it was closed down by the communists and all the monks arrested and put in prison. The monastery was started by one of the Rozmberk ancestors in gratitude when he had been miraculously (he thought) saved from drowning. The tour was only in Czech, but they gave you a booklet in English to follow along describing all the rooms you would be shown. It was a fairly large group, and they were all Czech speakers apart from us. The tour was interesting, but we definitely got the short end of the stick not understanding the Czech version, since for each short paragraph that we had to read in English the guide went on and on for ages, and there were apparently lots of jokes in there too. Anyway, we saw the church, the chapter house, the cloisters, and their museum, but the most impressive thing and what made the tour totally worthwhile was the libraries. Corridors and corridors full of books, huge old things; I was dying to take something off the shelf and leaf through the aging pages, but you couldn't touch anything - there were infrared motion detectors all over the place. Then you went through a secret door - it was built into one of the walls of books, and contained fake books as a cover - into the inner libraries. These were fantastic rooms of gilded book cases topped by cherubs. More cherubs on the ceiling. It was hideous but fantastically beautiful at the same time.

Afer the tour we got back on our bikes for the rest of the ride. Meanwhile, across the road, there were hundreds of people loading onto rafts and canoes and all manner of floating devices. This had been going on since before we arrived at the monastery, and the parade of people seemed endless.

Rafts on the Vltava

It seems that this is a popular way to spend a day there - floating down the Vltava River from Vyssi Brod back to Cesky Krumlov. It's about 30k and takes 7-9 hours, depending on the water levels. As it was a scorching hot day, everyone seemed to have the same idea. As the rest of our ride was along this river, we watched the sea of humanity floating down it in their rafts the whole time. There must have been thousands of them, an all manner of crafts, from tiny canoes to one huge flatbedded thing that had a table and chairs on it, its occupants totally engrossed in a card game (except when they came to the occasional rapids).

The best thing about following along the path of a river is that you are going downhill the whole time, or at least 90% of it - otherwise the river wouldn't be flowing. Also, much of the road was in the cool shade of the dense evergreen forest.

Rozmberk nad Vltavou Castle

About 10k after we set off from Vyssi Brod we came to another spectacular sight - the castle of the Rozmberk clan, high up on a hill overlooking the river which looked like something straight out of a fairy tale.

The rest of the ride was quite pleasant, there being almost no effort involved in pedaling downhill, and so we made good time getting back to Cesky Krumlov. We had a good time watching the rafters floating along, cavorting and singing. And when we finally arrived in Cesky Krumlov at about 3:45, we were glad we were out on our bikes all day, because it was absolutely roasting hot in town.