After our nice travels throughout Praha, we decided to go somewhere small and obscure...a nice change since for most of our European travels we are hitting up the larger centers. We had to take what we thought would be a simple train ride, with one connection, to get to the southern town of Cesky Krumlov. About half way through our first train of the journey, a very stern and I-mean-business-type train lady comes to our seats and babbles a whole speech to us in Czech. J-Sak and I simply nod...knowing that nothing we say to her or she says to us will be easily understood. We now believe that her babbling was specific instructions about our not-so-simple train ride ahead!
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| Something's up... |
Our train ticket shows one connection that we have to make about 2 hours after our departure from Praha. Jeni and I are leisurely sitting on the train as it comes to a halt at a dinky train platform (not station, platform) in the middle of nowhere. About 2 minutes after we have been stopped, the stern train lady comes whipping past our seats and yells at us in Czech. Alarmed, we grab all our stuff and bolt off the train as she keeps rambling at us in Czech...pointing...and then some more rambling. Has she realized we freakin' don't understand her? It think so, but the rambling still continues. Once we departed the train, we were left standing on this platform wondering what the H was going on...and, though I have made the train lady out to be a sour crusty thus far, she really did help us out...though I think she was cursing under her breath every minute of it. She grabbed Jeni's arm, still blithering in Czech, and started hauling her away, out back, behind the platform. I quickly follow behind Jeni hoping that we will soon reach the Promised Land without anymore hiccups. We are lead and shuffled onto a bus that takes us on a 20 minute joy ride to a small train station where we board yet another train that FINALLY takes us to our original transfer station! Our last train, departing to Cesky Krumlov, is a two coach, mini, chug-a-lug that winds us through the Czech countryside before reaching our final destination an hour before sunset. What a journey!
With that all said, Jeni and I enjoyed our laid back time in Cesky Krumlov...we met a couple of other travelers and spent our 2 days hanging out with them...one was from Taiwan (so I got to brush up on my Chinese) and the other was from Korea. Cesky Krumlov, in the off season, is a sleepy town but beautiful nonetheless. The second largest castle (next to Prague Castle) surrounds the Old Town area of Cesky Krumlov and we explored that for a day. We ate more classic Czech food while there and had a couple of naps during our stay to recover from the past two weeks of travel. After 2 days, we were happy to be moving on to another country: Austria. Then after that: Switzerland! Woooooo, Alps here we come!
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| Panoramic view of Cesky Krumlov |
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| 'Aint it beautiful? |
Side note: the hostel we stayed in in Cesky Krumlov, Traveller's Hostel I think, had the cutest dog ever ever...named Oliver (said with a Czech accent).
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| Watch out for those hedges! |
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