Middle-aged flash packers

It’s rare that somewhere is prettier in reality than in carefully taken tourist photos, but Cesky Krumlov is one of those places.

After an easy 4.5 hour drive from KG we arrived at Penzion Svojse, dumped our stuff and headed out to explore CK.

I’ve always wanted to visit Bohemia. I imagined its history to be of very relaxed people wandering around in velvet robes, writing plays and composing beautiful music. Actually in its peaceful periods when various factions weren’t fighting each other, the Bohemians were very productive and cultured.

For me, CK epitomises Bohemia. A huge castle with breathtaking walkways connecting various sections, an elegant tower painted externally with frescos, a beautiful church – the list goes on. A river runs through it, with very attractive houses perched high up on the banks.

The one downside is that, although it is not on the Brit radar, it’s on everyone else’s. Particularly the Chinese.

Hoards and hoards of them. Not that I have a problem with that per se, the world is for us all, it’s the group thing. Having been part of a tour group myself , I know how you become part of a collective consciousness. You seem drawn to get in everyone’s way, to talk loudly to your fellow group members in restaurants, you panic if your leader goes out of sight and you literally trample over people to keep up with them. And so it is with the enormous tsunamis of our Asian explorers.

However, it’s all fine and we had a jolly time sightseeing. We don’t do this very often and it was a real treat. We even stopped for ice cream. , I shared a trdelnik with Steve. It’s like a bready, cinnamon cream horn without the cream but with ice cream instead. It was delicious but it defeated us, even Steve couldn’t finish it.

Our B&B is very comfortable and our host, Steven, is taking great care of us. The terrace outside our room is just gorgeous and so perfectly accessorised I would say S is very much in touch with his feminine side. The breakfast he brought us this morning was divine and beautifully presented.

The only downside is that the walls are thin and we can hear things we’d rather not.

The highlight for me of our time here in CK was our raft trip today. We hired an inflatable canoe and paddled down the river. The raft company took us in a van upstream, gave us our boat and we made our way back along the river. What made it really fun were the weir crossings we had to make. I’m usually pathetic when it comes to paddling – I’m worn out after about 5 minutes and then Steve has to do it all – but I think I was a bit better this time (unless Steve was just being kind but that’s unlikely) and we had to work together to line up and get down the rapids without capsizing or getting a boat full of water.

A quick wander along the river to watch other people navigate (or not) the weir crossings successfully completed another brilliant day in CK.

Tomorrow we head to Dobrichovice which will be our base for a visit to the castle at karlstejn and a day trip to Prague.

So far the feedback for Prague has not been particularly positive: over run by tourists and seedy. We shall see.