Checking out the Czech Republic

I’m writing this from Cesky Krumlov, a medieval town due south of Prague. It’s our last night in the Czech Republic before heading to Vienna tomorrow. 

Prague was a wonderful big city. We enjoyed exploring there, but Jeff and I are not exactly “go see the big city” people. We did the “main” touristy things: watched the astronomical clock’s hourly show, explored the castle, walked across the Charles Bridge (here we over-achieved as we did 2 round trips, one each day), took a boat ride on the Vltava River, saw Lennon Wall (where since the 1980s people have painted a wall with John Lennon-inspired peace-oriented graffiti), wandered around Old Town, etc. We had a memorable dynamic tour guide: a twenty-something originally from Tunisia who spoke 5 or 6 languages fluently, And we had some delicious sushi….and added Czech Republic the list of countries where we’ve had Japanese food. 

This morning we demonstrated our competence with the transit system: we walked to the tram, took that to the subway, changed onto two different subway lines, and got to the train station for our train to Chesky Krumlov without any difficulty. All with a pre-caffeinated Jeff since our train was at 8:02am. 

The train ride was very pleasant. Our “section” had 6 seats and 3 other occupants — a woman from Melbourne, a Czech man who’d lived in Colorado for awhile and had excellent English, and a “silent” woman. The Aussie and Czech male chatted quite a bit and we eventually joined in — fun to compare things like election processes, medical systems, education systems, human rights (gay marriage and disability support), etc. with people from 3 continents. We were intrigued that in the Czech Republic the private universities cost more than the public ones and provide a lower level of education — seems as long as one passes entrance exams and then annual exams, public higher education is free but if one doesn’t pass one must leave school and to earn the same diploma in the private system is quite pricey. 

<Here’s where we got the news from American Airlines and stopped writing to address it. Long story short, “I” was able to contact them from my sister’s home in Arizona and we now have return flights from Vienna, leaving about 45 minutes later and arriving home over 2 hours earlier than what we expected. We may need to ask for a ride home from either Sunset or Elmonica MAX so let us know if you’re available at about 9pm Saturday October 7.>

Cesky Krumlov was a fascinating medieval village that UNESCO has designated a World Heritage Centre. It’s got a 13th century castle, the Vlatava River meanders in an S-curve through town (and later reaches Prague), and cobblestone streets. Definitely worth exploring, and nice to see something besides the big city in Czech Republic. We explored the castle, meandered through town, and decided to take a 1-hour raft ride through town on wooden rafts that the tour guide in the back poles. Unfortunately, we decided a wee bit late, so just missed the 3:30, the 4:30 was full so we ended up with the 6:30…meaning we serendipitously had a sunset cruise but had a late dinner. There were about 6 others on the raft, all Czech speakers who listened to the main tour guide at the front of the boat while we had a “private” tour given my the man poling the raft who seemed concerned about the limitations of his excellent English. 

While rafting we learned a bit about the town’s history. They have a synagogue in town but the only Jewish person is over 90 years old. There’s a Jesuit boys school on one side of the river and on the other side of the river the girls did the family laundry….it becomes a more interesting story with the facts that the girls wore white dresses without undergarments….seems the students were exceptionally efficient at doing their homework on washing days. Eventually the Jesuits purchased the land across the river so laundry had to be done elsewhere….no news on how this impacted academic performance. More recently, and more sobering, there were major floods in 2002 all along the Vlatava — both in Cesky Krumlov and Prague. 

We’d give two thumbs up to Cesky Krumlov. And we’re now in Vienna getting to see familiar faces and meet new ones. We are the token North American volunteers in a group that includes people from (at least) Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Jersey, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland.