Prague Day 4 - Cesky Krumloff
Today we took a bus trip to Southern Bohemia to the medieval town of Cesky Krumloff. This little town is just a few miles from the border with Austria. The old part of the city is a web of tiny lanes beneath and leading out from the castle. The castle tower is beautifully painted in various colors. The Vltava River winds through the town in an S shape. We walked through the town stopping at various places of historic interest including a former Jesuit College that is now a hotel, and a beautiful Gothic style church with an ornate baroque interior, St. Vitus' Church. There are lots of winding little lanes filled with restaurants, shops, small hotels. There are lovely views out over the town and to the Austrian hills in the distance. The Czechs are known for puppetry, having once been famed for their marionettes and puppet shows. We stopped into a marionette museum where we had a chance to try out some of the puppets. They were a lot heavier than I expected and I realized quickly that it takes no small degree of skill to manipulate them! We had lunch in a lovely, small little tavern with a huge grill where the meat was being cooked just as we entered. The building was once the town prison! The ceilings were very low and it had the ambiance of an old medieval cellar tavern. The food was hearty and plentiful. (See picture!) We had a huge grilled pork chop, with sour cream, mustard and horseradish garnish, a baked potato, a bowl of soup and a large stein of Czech Budweiser beer (the drink of choice over here and NOT to be confused with the American beer of that name which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Czech variety which predates it by many centuries and tastes infinitely better!) They also served us cake for dessert. Our tour group included people from Greece, Japan, Malta, Russia and Australia so we very much enjoyed chatting with our travel companions from all over the world. Our guide was a native born Czech from Prague who speaks seven languages! On our tour she was doing all the commentary in both English and Russian, switching back and forth between the two seamlessly, with occasional comments in Czech to the driver. She wore a big, fur hat and reminded me of something out of Dr. Zhivago! We had a little free time to wander after lunch and I got my first daily dose of hot mulled wine. The weather was quite mild today, and the sun came out when we were in Cesky Krumloff, although it was very overcast here in Prague. We left there about 4:30 and had a two hour drive back to Prague. When we got back here, we decided to forgo dinner, since lunch was more than enough food, but I couldn't resist another hot mulled wine and trdelnik on the way back to the apartment! Czech food is hearty, very heavy on meat and potatoes and not much in the way of vegetables. It would be very hard to be vegetarian here! And one big meal is more than sufficient for me on any given day. (Besides, those trdelniks are so good I'm fine with having them be one meal a day while I'm here. Can't get them anywhere else so I'm enjoying them while I can!)
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