Checking out Czech

We landed in Prague, Czech Republic in the middle of the night, and one of the first things we noticed was the abundance of 'non stop' bars everywhere. Clearly this is a city that likes to party - although with Lecky surcumbing to a stomach bug, we didn't get to experience this in a big way. Prague is a pretty, picturesque city, with numerous bridges over the river Vltava providing plenty of photo opportunities for the hordes of tourists.

We checked out the castle and wandered through the labrynith of cobbled streets in the centre, and made good use of the network of trams criss-crossing the city. The surprising thing about Prague is how well preserved all the old buildings are - despite being occupied during WW2, the city escaped almost unscathed.


There is also a mini version of the Eiffel Tower on a hill overlooking the city that you can climb up - apparantly Hitler ordered that it be destroyed, saying that it 'ruined the view from the castle', but the Czechs managed to delay the order and ultimately saved the tower.


There was some festival going on while we were there, so the old town was filled with stalls offering roast Old Prague Ham, grilled sausages and Trdelnik (cylindrical donut like snacks covered in cinnamon and almonds). Further out of the town we visited a medieval market, complete with replica catapaults, armour and jousting sticks, a proper old blacksmith and loads of folks in medieval garb (including a local jester).

Next we headed south to Cesky Krumlov - a UNESCO listed town touted as one of the prettiest in Czech, if not Europe, and they weren't far from the truth. The town is overlooked by a huge castle, flanked by green hills and trees decked in their autumn best. A narrow river snakes its way through the town (and past the Eggenberg brewery), and one of the most popular activities is to hire a kayak, tire tube or other floatation device and navigate your way through the wiers and rapids.

We checked out the castle's resident bears who live in the moat - they didn't surface when we visited in the morning (must have been hungover), but made an appearance later in the arvo to pose for our pictures. Seeing as Czech is home to absinthe, we had to give a go, and did so in the Horror Bar - an underground hangout with coffins for tables and decorated with some real skeletons (we found this out later thankfully), where you can get several varieties of 'proper' absinthe (complete with wormwood) and also gory test tube shots of 'Devil's Blood'.

Cesky Krumlov turned out to be a bit complicated to get to, so to get out we opted to pay a little more and got a direct shuttle bus (really just a guy with a van) to Munich. This turned out to be a good option, since we drove off the highways and through some stunning Austrian countryside, and got dropped off right at the door of our home for the next week or so - more on that in our next post!