Wanderung 32

We were up bright and early as our tour to Cesky Krumlov left at 8:30 a.m., and that gave us just enough time to have breakfast and prepare for the day's tour. The tour was a long one as we didn't return to the ship until about 5 p.m. The first stage was a bus trip from our dock in Linz across a bit of Austria and then into the Czech Republic, which I was surprised to find out was as large as Austria and has a couple million more inhabitants. Who knew? The Austrian side had many old, small farms and villages, whereas the Czech side had large, open fields and relatively few dwellings, due to the Russian-led forced collectivization of the small farms after WWII.

Also, the immediate border zone had been part of the Iron Curtain prior to the independence of Czechloslovakia in 1990, so that had been completely cleared of houses and people. Nowadays, the border posts are still there on the Austrian and Czech side, but almost nobody is actually stopped. Our bus passed through without pausing, but the car behind us was in fact pulled over by the Austrian guards on the way back.

Our bus took a very circuitous route and finally dropped us off in back of the English gardens on the hillside just above the big old castle that sits on a promontory above the old town of Czesky Krumlov, which is almost enclosed by a loop of the Vtlava (English: Moldau) River. The gardens themselves were a beautiful recreation of a formal English boxwood garden, but with other elements such as fountains and flower beds included.

From the gardens we entered the uppermost courtyard of the 5 linked courtyards that are strung like pearls on a necklace as you descend the hillside towards the Vtlava River. The courtyards were connected by arched gateways and elevated walkways, all done very elegantly. On the way down we had beautiful views of the old town nestled in the loop of the river.

The courtyards looked quite fancy, mostly due to the painted frescoes on the high walls surrounding each one. The frescoes had all suffered from years of weathering, of course, but some had been painstakingly restored and gave us an idea how it had all looked in the heyday of the castle before 1800. Napoleon deposed the Czech or Bohemian king in 1803, and things were never quite the same for the Hapsburgs after that.

But at least the split with the old USSR, and then later from the Slovak Republic, had both been peaceful separations, because after centuries of religious and territorial warfare, I think the Czech people were probably very tired of war.

The lowest courtyard of the castle opened out via the Red Gate and a moat (complete with two old Grizzly bears!), onto the Main Street of the city of Czesky Krumlov.

Our tour guide worked our group across the bridge over the river and up into the central town square, which lies in the middle of the almost-island. Then we had 3 hours of free time, and we started off by having lunch with Lois and Elizabeth, as we were all tired and chilled after our morning walk.

We ate leisurely and continued our perambulation around the town that afternoon. I enjoyed the old, Baroque-era buildings, of course, but the river itself formed a scenic backdrop to many of the old buildings as it looped around the town, and we also had nice views of the castle on the hillside right across the way. We browsed the offerings of many of the shops that we ran across, and finally broke down to buy a nice print of the river and castle above it from a used-book-and-art shop.

We rejoined everyone and our tour guide in the town square, and she lead us back to the bus in a parking lot just outside the river loop.

We enjoyed classical music on our way back to the ship, and many folks took advantage of the soothing music to nap but I just listened to it and watched the countryside roll by. That evening we had a music and dance performance put on by a pianist and 3 singer-dancers, I danced an Austrian country dance routine with one young lady, and Jerry danced a folk dance with another one, and we all had a great time.