We left on Friday afternoon to beautiful sunshine and a balmy 25 degrees. We had (luckily) pre-booked our bus tickets down to Český Krumlov on a local bus so that meant we got seating, something you completely take for granted on a four hour bus ride. But the bus was jam packed full of people. The options for the people who hadn't pre-booked tickets were a) you can get to the bus stop early to ensure you get a ticket AND a seat, b) if you don't get a seat then you can stand or c) stay at home. So the too small bus was full to say the least.
Upon arriving in Český Krumlov we realised that we unfortunately hadn't carried the nice weather with us! We were facing rainy, stormy and cold weather with the forecast for the entire weekend looking bleak.
After a nice dinner in one of the local restaurants, we all headed out for a a few drinks to start off the weekend. A few beers and one too many drinking games later and we were all tucking ourselves up in bed ready for rafting the following day. Well most of us anyway, with the exception of a few stragglers, one of which we found curled up on the couch in the kitchen the following morning. Much to our surprise, he made the deadline for the rafting excursion and before we knew it he was back on the booze at the respectable hour of 9 am. Yuk.
We split up into groups and launched our rafts about 5km upstream from Český Krumlov. We had the 'Aussie' raft, with the exception that we also had a Frenchman and a Belgian guy on board. We had such a hard time of making our raft go in a straight line, but on the up side, we were wonderful at going in circles! Of course, we had 'raft wars' which were less than extreme considering no one could make their rafts go in any semblance of a streamlined bumper boat.
We managed to navigate our first slues with little difficulty and we were even surprised when we were able to paddled around a high point in the river, but it was the second slues that was the issue. We didn't hit the water on quite the right angle, resulting in a few very wet rafters. Add this to the fact that it was also raining non-stop and there was a delightful cool breeze blowing, we were freezing. Instead of the usual beer at every rest stop along the way, I enjoyed Česneková polévka (Garlic Soup) or a warm cup of honey wine!
Seven hours later plus a score of freezing and fairly intoxicated people, we had finished our trip down the river, a surprisingly short distance from the town! We all fought over the seats in the bus the again when we got back to the hostel over the showers (if we can call them that). It was one of the best feelings to be warm again after such a long time cold and wet! Even though the conditions weren't ideal, we had such a great day on the river
with beautiful scenery and great friends.
We had dinner together at a little Italian restaurant then we all
crashed and went to bed.
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| The Rafting Group |
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| Floating down the Vltava River |
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| Raft Wars |
The next day was still raining but we went out to see some of the beautiful historic city of Český Krumlov. The whole city is UNESCO world heritage listed and is probably one of the most beautiful places we have visited. The main attraction of the city is the castle, which was built literally out of the hill it stands on, there is even a moat with live bears in it! Granted, these bears are 100% for the tourists these days, but originally they were there to protect the castle. The castle grounds are all we had time to see, but they were exquisite and from the fortifications of the castle you could see the entire city and the surrounding countryside. As it had been raining, there were low lying clouds hanging over the city, meandering among the smoky chimneys sprouting from the red tiled roofs. It was beautiful.
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| Back streets of Český Krumlov |
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| Český Krumlov from the Castle |
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| Český Krumlov Castle |
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| Bear guarding the Castle |
Grudgingly, we hopped onto the bus to head back to Prague on the Sunday afternoon. The whole weekend had been such fun and none of us were ready to return to reality just yet.
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