Reluctant Blogger: RELUCTANT BLOGGER 20: Roses and Bears

So, Cesky Krumlov – a 200km bus ride South towards the border with Austria, in a very smart coach with films and free drinks. All for under £5! I can heartily recommend the Student Agency who run these busses (not just for students) and arrange flights and other travel options too. Find them here.

The frugality continued – unusually for me – at Krumlov House, a hostel run by an American and Canadian who, like many others in CK, came for a week and stayed the rest of their lives. They've created a really great place with a lovely atmosphere. I had a good room for about £25 a night. Their story can be read here.

Cesky Krumlov is a arrestingly beautiful medieval town with the river Vltava snaking through it. It has survived almost intact probably because of neglect. I saw pictures of the place in the 60's and it was in a mess BUT hadn't been messed around with by town planners. Now sensitively and steadily renovated, it is a tourist Disneyland of medieval wonder. However, it has a slightly hippy air (appropriately enough for Bohemia) which makes it very relaxed and unique. I sense this influence is slowly decreasing, but for the moment many of the shops, restaurants and hotels have a gloriously home-made edge and a refreshing lack of concern for conformity or regulation.

The river, and Smetena's music describing it, are hard-wired into the Czech culture. The piece plays every time a Czech Airlines flight lands, the final chords of the piece form the jingle for Railway announcements, and the music is played at national occasions. I couldn't get it out of my head the whole time I was in CK.

The imposing Cesky Krumlov Castle and Chateau with its riotous tower looms over the city. There are real bears living in the moat! When you go into the castle you see where they end up after their guarding duties are over as their skins lie on every floor. Along with the red rose, the bear is a symbol of Krumlov Castle.

The romantic Bear enclosure in the moat

...and one of its inhabitants.

I took a tour of the lovely 16^th and 17^th century rooms led by the appropriately named and equipped Rosa, a completely barking-mad Czech woman who, I suspect, has a long and interesting past in amateur dramatics (we even got a song at the end of the tour) and who must have learnt her English from the 'Comparethemeerkat.com' commercials. She was wonderful. I'd happily let her show me the whole country.

The castle has an amazing Baroque Theatre inside but, sadly for me, this was closed.

The Baroque Theatre, (from the Castle's website).

I picked up an artistic thread that I first found in Vienna, visiting the Egon Schiele Museum. The artist's mother was from Krumlov, and he lived here for a number of years at the beginning of his career until the people of the town forced him to leave because of their perception of his artistic activities.

A colourful row of buildings with the castle in the background.

The rest of my time was spent walking the small but beautiful maze of streets, eating in the great Laibon Vegeterian Restaurant down by the river, the authentically medieval Two Marys next door, where I enjoyed (yes really) Buckwheat Gruel, and the Traveller's Hostel with its dungeon-like dining room complete with roaring fire.