Central Europe - Lost in Cesky Krumlov

Self-Guided Tour of Central Europe, Day 8-9 of 12
UNESCO World Heritage Site #7 on this tour



Cesky Krumlov is a very special town, probably my favorite place in the Czech Republic. Sure it is a commercialized tourist draw teeming with thousands of visitors from all corners of the world, and every house seems to be a souvenir shop or a restaurant. But it is not yet too crowded for a leisurely wander in this cobblestone maze of a town and in its colourful castle. And its location makes it a good base for exploring a wide range of sights and activities in southern Bohemia.





The Sights:



By far the best activity is to just relax, drop your map, and get lost. You see, the town centre is almost an island entirely surrounded by the looping River Vltava, except for a very narrow strip of land serving as the main entrance into the town. The town square occupies the centre of the island, with narrow streets radiating out in all directions towards the river. These narrow streets are then somehow interconnected by a series of irregular, winding paths. Imagine a spider web with curved threads...that's what it would look like from the sky.







The thing is, my sense of direction requires a constant knowledge of which way is the North. If the street turns 142 degrees to the left and then 128 degrees to the left again then I get lost very quickly, which was what happened in Cesky Krumlov. My wife's system is entirely opposite and depends of remembering pictures along the way, which didn't work great either since every little street looked vaguely similar.



Shopaholics can consider the entire town one huge shopping centre, with an emphasis on jewelery and crystals. Everything from the higher end garnet, amber, and Moser glassware, to cheap crystal bracelets and beads were being sold at prices sometimes substantially cheaper than in Prague. We bought some crystal jewelery here, but I really should have bought my Mucha prints here instead of at the Prague airport...



Then there's the main attraction, the castle of Cesky Krumlov, which is remarkably large and well-preserved for a small town of 10,000. Beautiful frescoes cover the entire castle courtyard and the tower, and big chubby bears roam the moat. The bear-raising tradition had something to do with the family name of one of its former rulers, so we heard on the castle tour.



The English-language tour of the castle interiors cost CZK180 (CAD$10), but the guide's (probably a summer student?) English pronunciation was less than understandable and left all the Americans and Brits smiling at one another in confusion. I think I would have learned more had I taken the Czech tour with an English info sheet.



A much better value was the entrance to the round tower, which for a small fee (CZK35 during our visit) offered a great view of the town.



The castle boasts one of the only intact baroque theatres in the world, though our itinerary prevented us from taking the tour (available only at 12:00pm during our visit). The castle is also famous for its other theatre, a relatively new rotating theatre located in the castle's garden which hosts an annual festival in August. The walk to the garden is also a great place for a sweeping view of the town and the rolling hills in the background.



With its swooping curved rooflines, the whole town looked like a collection of funny toy houses from the castle.



If you're like me and enjoy quiet romantic walks with no crowds, the best place is on the other side of the Vltava, where you can watch the reflection of the timeless town on the river as paddlers drift by. The lack of shops on this side of the river means a lack of rowdy tourists. For a moment I thought about walking down to the water for a quick drink, but then I wondered if this centuries-old town has a sewage filtering system...









The Food:

Na Panske
Cesky Krumlov, Panska 18



This was by far the best pork knee I've ever had in my life. Incredibly crisp and succulent. No other restaurant comes even close.



Na Panske was a plain, traditional-looking pub at the street corner of Panska and Soukenicka, a block northwest of the town square. Old wooden chairs, good dark beer and a brass fireplace -- that's what it feels like inside the eatery. In case you're wondering, yes that is MY PORK KNEE being grilled on the fireplace. As in most Czech pubs, pork knees are braised for long long hours. But the major difference here was that the waiter/cook meticulously slow-broiled it on open flame -- first setting the rack high above the flame for roasting and getting rid of the excess fat, then dropping the rack down to the flame level to crisp up the skin. The result was a flavorful, moist shank with a thunderously crunchy skin. The fat was mostly removed by the roasting, and the rest had deliciously dissolved into the meat. But the most amazing was the soft cartilage, tender and slightly chewy like beef tendons in East Asian dishes -- except cartilage has calcium in it...so how did they manage to get this smooth soft texture out of it?



That's not all, as my wife had the best roast duck of the trip here. Unlike the roast duck at Telc the previous day, this time the meat was moist and intensely flavorful. My wife probably had 4 duck/goose dishes in our 5-night-stay in the Czech Republic, and she ranks this meal way above all others.



Last but not least, this was our first introduction to Czech dark beer, a Krusovice. We've since become big fans of Czech beers ever since, and even as I write this article now in Canada I have a Krusovice in my fridge!




Transportation:



Cesky Krumlov is reached both by train and by long distance bus, but a major factor is that the train station is a half-hour-walk from town, while the bus terminal is just five minutes away. Naturally we took the bus. Direct buses connect the major cities of Prague, Plzen, Brno etc, and there is even a seasonal bus to Linz and Vienna.



Most bus connections go through (or originate from) the regional hub of Ceske Budejovice, which is where we boarded our bus into town. Ceske Budejovice's bus terminal is at the top floor of a bold new western-style shopping mall, which is humorously surrounded by old run-down baroque buildings. The supermarket and the over-priced western shops are good places to kill time while waiting for the next bus, though we only had to kill 45 minutes.



Accommodation:

Penzionek Olsakovsky
Cesky Krumlov, Parkan 114
http://www.ckrumlov.info/docs/en/uby72.xml



This was the most amazing accommodation on this trip, or perhaps any of our trips. We slept in a Renaissance-layout vault dating back to 1526, which in turn was built upon an even older former town wall. River Vltava was just outside our window, with the backyard directly facing the frescoed tower of the castle. What more could a history-loving traveler ask for?





According to the town's records, our barrel vaulted room on the ground floor was part of a late Gothic house. We had to duck through a series of semi-circular arches just to get to our room -- apparently the 16th century inhabitants were shorter. The room's outside-facing wall was the remains of the two-feet-thick old town wall, with a crude medieval window dug through it. Despite its age, the room was equipped with the basic modern necessities of an ensuite shower, toilet, and TV.





The building's exterior is only a little newer, reconstructed in 1635. It seemed the all the neighboring houses were from the 16th or 17th century, one being a hostel which wittingly called itself the "Moldau Hilton."



The Vltava from the backyard. Fly-fishing sportsmen walking by revealed the shallowness of the Vltava here, while paddlers on kayaks occasionally flowed downstream.



The double room price of CZK990 (CAD$55) included a large breakfast for two. If the weather was warmer we would have taken the food outside to enjoy the view of the tower. Ah but you can't have everything going your way.


Our Ideas for Day Trips

We only stayed for one night, but if we stayed longer (or come back in the future), there are a number of good options for day trips and activities:

- Ceske Budejovice (http://www.c-budejovice.cz) is the regional transportation hub only 30 minutes away by bus. The town is known for its huge, prototypically Central European town square, as well as the original Budweiser beer.

- The well-preserved Bohemian village of Holasovice is another World Heritage Site and is reachable by a 20-30 minute bus ride from Ceske Budejovice. Note that this bus runs infrequently and it's best to check the schedule before you depart.

- Hluboka is a downscaled copy of England's Windsor castle, reachable via a short bus ride from Ceske Budejovice. It's popular with tourists but we thought it would be out-of-place in the middle of Bohemia.

- Paddling the Vltava sounds like great fun. The local boat rental company (see links below) can arrange a drop-off for you and your boat upstream, then you can slowly paddle through the beautiful Czech scenery. Or you can quickly take a 45 minute paddle from one end of the town to the other. The company even offers a (overpriced?) scheduled wooden-raft ride.

- Other activities include horseback riding, touring the local Eggenberg brewery, and the town's small graphite mine.


Miscellaneous Comments:



A sweet tempting smell filled the streets leading down from the castle. "Trdlo" is a soft, sweet dough wrapped around a rotating steel rod, roasted over open flames and smothered in a flavored sugar of your choice. Ours had a cinnamon-flavored, crisp pastry-like skin and a wonderful soft crumb.





Links:

Official Site - http://www.ckrumlov.info
Train and Bus Schedules - http://idos.cz/ConnForm.asp?tt=X&cl=E5
Interactive Town Map - http://www.ckrumlov.cz/uk/atlas/i_cmm.htm
Castle Tour - http://www.ckrumlov.cz/uk/zamek/i_p.htm
Boat Rental - http://www.malecek.cz
Brewery Tour - http://www.krumlovtours.com
Horseback Riding - http://www.jk-slupenec.cz
Other Cheap Accommodations -
http://www.skippy.wz.cz
http://www.ckrumlov.info/docs/en/uby132.xml
http://www.krumlovhostel.com
http://www.ubytovani-kozakova.cz
http://www.pensiondanny.cz
http://www.ckrumlov.info/docs/en/uby77.xml
http://www.ckrumlov.info/docs/en/uby63.xml
http://pension.na-kovarne.cz
http://www.adalbert.cz

Central Europe - Romantic Telc

Self-Guided Tour of Central Europe, Day 7 of 12
UNESCO World Heritage Site #6 on this tour



Some destinations are meant to be savoured on your own (Mount Athos comes to mind); others are meant to be shared with your significant other. It's not that you can't go to a place like Telc as a single, but being surrounded by its tranquil beauty and history, and the fact that every tourist you occasionally see are in amorous pairs, I would feel out of place without my wife, you know?



The Sights:



Telc is a sleepy little town in southern Czech Republic, inscribed in the United Nation's World Heritage list for its remarkable Renaissance-era square, but not yet discovered (and thus ruined) by mass tourism. Simply, there are no crowds, just a few sporadic tourists, and yourself. Organized tours pass by to take photos and to keep the restaurants and souvenir shops alive, but none seem to stay for the night. Shops close at 17:00, and by 20:00 even most restaurants are done. Apart from the sound of the occasional car leaving the square, the only thing you hear at night is the thrashing of the carps in the lakes. This is the kind of quietude that Telc offers, and as you gaze upon the 16th century houses, time stands still.



The town square and its houses were designed by craftsmen hired from Italy when the town was burned down nearly 500 years ago, and has mostly been unchanged ever since. Most of the houses are still private residences, with the ground level functioning as souvenir shops, eateries or general stores. Some have recently restored exteriors and look sharper, but still visually coherent as a square.







At the middle of the square stand the typical features of any Central European square -- a plague column and a fountain. There is also an old manual pump for drawing water from the town well. I tried a few pumps, but didn't persist long enough to verify whether it still worked.



The north end of the square is dominated by a baroque chateau, originally built in Gothic style in the 15th century but received many facelifts over the years. We went into the courtyard to take a few photos, but passed over the tour in favor of more time for shopping the souvenir shops on the square.





The long corridor under the square's facade was a great place for discounted souvenir hunting, as all the typical Czech souvenirs could be found there -- wooden toys and puppets, ceramics, jewelery, and of course, Bohemian crystals. We bought some crystal jewelery here, where the price turned out to be a lot cheaper than in Prague.



The town's other famous attraction, besides the square and the chateau, is the ring of man-made lakes encircling the town. Many centuries ago the fields surrounding the town were deliberately flooded as a defense against invasion, and have since been serving both as a moat and as fish ponds.



Nowadays the footpaths along the edges of the lakes have become the perfect date-spot, where lovers can promenade beneath the sweeping willow branches and enjoy the mirror-reflection of the town's historical beauty on the lake surface. Seriously, every visitor I saw came in pairs. And most importantly, the peace and romance of the lakes has not yet been spoiled by stampeding tourists.



There are two main lakes, one located on the eastern side of the square and the other on the west. We found the western one to offer better scenery, as well as a nice footpath with a bridge leading across the centre of the lake and providing a great place for camera tripods.




The most amazing sight in Telc, IMHO, was the town square at night. After 21:00, there were no tourist remaining, no restaurants still open, and of course no bars or any signs of modern night life -- you'd have to walk farther outside the square to even find an old-fashioned Czech pub. Now the entire square is yours. Aside from the few parked cars and the dim yellow street lamps, the town had slipped back into the 16th century. It's one of the rare places in the world with the atmosphere to transport a visitor to another era in time.





The Food:

Hotel Cerny Orel
Telc, nam. Zacharise z Hradce 7
http://www.hotelcernyorel.cz

In my mind, the most representative Czech dish is the Veprove Koleno, or pork knee. In fact I had 5 pork knees during my 5-night-stay in the Czech Republic. It was really that good, and it all got started in Telc.



Beautiful isn't it. It really was a meat-eater's dream, with mouthfuls of juicy, succulent meat in a generous wrapping of slightly charred skin and fat. The marinade was a little bland which was why horseradish and mustard was always provided with pork knees. And this wasn't even close to being the best pork knee of the trip.



The other representative Czech dish on the menu was my wife's favorite -- the roast duck -- which turned out to be half a duck. I don't think she had ever finished half a duck by herself, but then I had never finished a 1 kg chunk of pork in one sitting prior to that meal. I guess we had already adapted to vacation-sized meals at that point. Those dumplings though were out of the question.



Of course, what's a proper Czech meal without a pint of the famous Czech beer? As an introduction the Czech beer, we ordered a Staropramen to compare against something we're familiar with -- the Stella Artois. Not as rich as the Belgian stuff, but easier to drink for my wife and still nice and flavorful.



Somehow we still found room for dessert -- an apple strudel, which we somehow missed during our stay in Austria. The entire bill including service cost around CZK470 (CAD$26), pretty amazing to us for a meal of this size.

A whole tour of Japanese tourists arrived (as scheduled?) during our meal and were served...salad and soup and some sort of pork chops? The tour company was depriving them of the best stuff!



Transportation:

Telc is served by trains and long distance buses, though its fringe location on the rail network necessitates a lot of exchanges if you try to get there from places like Prague or Cesky Krumlov by train. The reliable long distance bus system is probably more convenient for most tourists, with direct buses to Ceske Budejovice, Brno, and Prague. Search for train and bus schedules at the IDOS site listed in the Links below.

However, Telc is not on the most popular tourist routes (which is also the main cause for its unspoiled beauty). This means if you're starting from places without direct buses to Telc (eg. Oloumouc, Trebon, Znojmo) chances are nobody can tell you how to get there. It happened to us, which is why I wrote an article on "Czech Long-Distance Bus How-to" Hopefully you'll have better preparation (or luck).



Accommodation:

Pension Steidler
Telc, nam. Zacharise z Hradce 52
http://www.telc-accommodation.eu/



We stayed in a wonderful bed-and-breakfast, situated inside a UNESCO-protected 16th century Renaissance-style house on the town square (the green building in the foreground). We can't say enough good things about this B&B -- a very clean room, clean modern bathroom, a shared social room with a mini-kitchen. Excellent value for CZK800 (CAD$45) without breakfast for a double.



And the best part was the view of the lake from our bedroom window -- the peaceful lakeside scenery that Telc is famous for.



The backyard garden has a long corridor of blooming plants leading to a flight of stairs to a lower level garden. And there, right at the edge of the garden, was the lake. I can't think of a better location in this town to spend a night and be surrounded by the beauty of Telc.





You can find links to other B&B's and the few hotels in the Links section below. But I think the coziness of a B&B is the way to go in this quiet Moravian town.



Miscellaneous Comments:

This is a little story about the friendliness of the Czech people, and about the town's historical heritage.



Just when we were about to go for a walk around the lakes, we passed through our pension's corridor and caught Mr. Steidler opening a small, heavy wooden door into a dark underground vault. Seeing the inquisitive look on our faces, the owner invited us in for a tour of a hidden historical remnant of his town. The small stone arch opened into a large, long chamber, seemingly built out of rock. It had been fitted with dim, old electric bulbs and now served as storage for the owner's old bicycles and hardware tools. At the end of the chamber lied an old water well, surprising to us but practical if you consider the original anti-siege purpose of the surrounding lakes. "Namesti!" Mr. Steidler pointed up as he explained in excitement. The Czech word for "town square" was one of the few I understood -- the chamber stretched so long that we were actually standing underneath the square. The other was "Historisches!", a German word which I fully agreed and appreciated.



Links:

Official Site - http://www.telc-etc.cz/
Telc Chateau - http://www.zamek-telc.cz/
IDOS (train/bus timetables) - http://idos.cz/ConnForm.asp?tt=X&cl=E5
http://www.accommodation-telc.com/
http://www.telc-accommodation.eu/
http://www.volny.cz/privat.nika/gb/ubytovani.html
http://www.kotrbam.eu/menugb/index.htm
http://www.pantof.com/pictures.htm
http://www.penzionvacek.cz
http://www.hoteltelc.cz/
http://www.hotelcelerin.cz/
http://www.hotelcernyorel.cz

Central Europe - Czech Long-Distance Bus How-To

(Or...How NOT to Screw Up Like We Did)



This story is about a minor bus connection screw up. It turned out okay and we didn't have to sleep in a train station or something. But it had the potential of turning into a bigger mess up, and I'm hoping someone will read this and avoid the same kind of mess.

Now I don't proclaim to be a trip-planning veteran, and the places I travel to usually have sophisticated public transportation systems (Japan, North America, Mexico, Southern Europe), and connection problems are usually quite manageable. The Czech Republic is no different: searchable timetables on the Internet, a wide and reliable bus network, and punctuality is generally quite good. So how did we manage to screw up?

Let's start with the morning of our Day 7 in Vienna. My trip-planning sheet read as follows:

May 16 (Wed):
Wien Floridsdorf-Znojmo
(1.(P1/2) 8:11-9:11 (P1) Retz (P21) 9:18-9:44
2.10:11-11:44
3.12:11-13:44)
Znojmo-Telc (Bus 13:05-15:05,13:30-15:25,15:00-17:40,16:00-18:15)

It looked pretty clear to me at the time. Take the train from Wien Floridsdorf Platform 1/2 at 08:11. Arrive at Platform 1 at Retz and hurry to Platform 21 to catch the train to Znojmo. Arrive at Znojmo at 09:44 and tour the town for a little over three hours. Then take the bus from Znojmo to Telc at 13:05 or 13:30.



08:00. The day began on a ominous note, as the normally punctual ÖBB (Austrian rail) cancelled our 08:11 train. I kept rushing up and down the stairs for a half hour to get the latest departure prediction between the platform display and the departure screen at the concourse level. At the end we managed to board the next train, originally scheduled to arrive at 09:11, at around 09:25. So instead of catching the 09:18 connection at Retz, we had to settle for the 11:18 connection, and to arrive at Znojmo at 11:44.



11:18. Well, nothing we can do about it. So we stayed positive to enjoy the scenery. The half-hour trip from Retz to Znojmo was actually the most amazing train ride in our entire tour. Perhaps the Czech-Austrian border had been devoid of human activity during the Cold War years and still hasn't recovered, but it was like a wildlife safari! The train seemed to have disturbed everything into running across the fields: deers, wild hares with huge long ears and legs, pheasants, and then a hawk flew towards our window and perched on top of a tree beside the rail tracks.

11:44. After getting off at Znojmo, we walked over to the bus station hoping to locate our next connection, and then perhaps have a quick tour of the town and take a few pictures beside the famous Znojmo Rotunda before we depart at 13:30. This was where the real screw up happened.



The bus station was irregularly layed out over a long, wide street, with at least 15 bus-stop signs for both local and long distance buses. Each sign served multiple buses, and the timetables for each bus was posted below the sign. So, in order to look for a particular connection, one had to go through each timetable on each sign. It's a hassle, but not yet a problem.

The real problem was that my trip-planning sheet did not write down the connection's bus number, nor the final destination. I could not find a bus whose final destination was Telc, and so I asked the locals at the bus station. I asked fellow travellers, store keepers, some guys just loitering and having a smoke, and the small ticket office. Nobody knew how to get to Telc. Some people even suggested going to Prague first and change there. Mind you, I do not speak Czech and I understood perhaps 10% of what the folks were trying to tell me.

12:30. Frustration and disappointment started to set in. It was past noon and my wife was hungry and tired, and I had to make a decision. We decided to just go to the train station's cafeteria and have a simple lunch, and to find alternative ways of getting to Telc without my trip-planning information. Fortunately Telc is also reachable by train, but upon querying the connection times at the ticket office, the next reasonable connection to Telc would leave around 15:00, involve a few interchanges along the way, then get to Telc no ealier than 19:30. We were started to get really disappointed.



13:00. Decision time. The plan was now to try and find the hypothetical 13:30 bus connection to Telc, and if that failed, we would take the train and arrive at Telc in the evening. I found an accurate geographical map at the train station and refreshed my memory on the relative locations of the bus destinations...hmm...Jihlava sounds like a reasonable candidate. So I set out to re-read the bus timetables again, hoping to find a connection that goes to Jihlava that departs at 13:30. And I found it...actually...two of them.

Both would depart at 13:30. Bus #1 would go through some place I've never heard of, take a long scenic route, then terminate at Jihlava. Bus #2 would go straight to Jihlava and get there faster, and then the bus would carry on and terminate at Prague. More decisions. At this point I tended towards taking Bus #2, which would arrive at Jihlava earlier and hopefully we would be able to catch a connection to Telc.

13:22. Bus #1 was the first to arrive. My wife urged me to talk to the driver and get some info, so I lined up and waited for other people to get on first, then fielded my question to the driver, in the simple form of holding a piece of paper and uttering one word: "Telc?"

Short questions often produce the most complicated answers. The middle-aged driver fell into his deep thought, tapping his pencil on the forehead and frowning deeply. After a minute he said something to me. I didn't understand a word of it, but his body language meant "come on board, I'll show you how to get there."

At that point, Bus#2 arrived. This time the decision was easy, as I simply had no better schedule information than the calculation inside that driver's head. We would board Bus #2 to some place we've never heard of.



The bus went through a lot of small towns, picking up some elementary school kids and then dropping them off as it went through the rural villages. After more than an hour, we reached a small countryside intersection with a highway sign of particular interest: go straight to Jihlava, left to Telc, right to Trebic.

The driver summoned us and with his body language he said: "Take the bus that goes in that direction. The time is now 14:40. Your bus will arrive at 15:10. That particular direction." I didn't have the Czech words to express how much I wanted to thank this man; "Dekuji" was the only word I knew. He smiled and carried on with his journey. Then sharply at 15:10, the promised bus to Telc arrived, though the small collection of bus schedules posted there did not contain any information about it.



End of story. Beginning of lesson. Here is my revised, tried and tested instructions on trip-planning with the Czech long distance bus system.

1) Go to http://idos.cz/ConnForm.asp?tt=X&cl=E5 and select the language you're comfortable with (eg. English, German, Czech).

2) Entering your "From", "To", Date, Time and search for connections.



3) Let's take the complicated example to get from Karlovy Vary to Cesky Krumlov. You'll see many trip suggestion, some using buses, others a combination of trains, buses, and even local transportation.

4) Carefully note the transfer time between each connection. I would not recommend anything less than 15 minutes, for reasons of possible delays, as well it often takes time to drag your luggages\backpack around and locate your desired bus in a large, unfamiliar station. It's quite possible to make it, but be prepared to take the next connection if you fail.

5) The really important part is after you've decided on a particular trip suggestion. For each bus or train connection on your trip, note down the BUS/TRAIN NUMBER (eg.Bus 370003) as well as basic stuff like bus's final destination, departure time, name of the stop to get off at, and arrival time. The Bus Number will immensely help, especially when you're standing in front of 10 timetables for buses going to Prague and you're trying to pick one out.

6) Now you're equipped, and common sense should take you from there, like confirming your desired destination with the driver. I've seen older buses with multiple, self-conflicting destination signs and I almost boarded a bus that had a Ceske Budejovice sign but was really going to Brno.




7) For the most part, tickets do not need to be pre-purchased at the ticket office (though it's a good idea for popular long trips like Cesky Krumlov to Prague). Just walk up to the driver, say the name of the destination (learn a little Czech pronunciation before setting out), and he'll calculate the tariff for you and give you back your change.

8) Finally, if you're getting off in the middle and you're not sure where, let the driver know and he'll watch out for you and signal you to get off. Sitting close to the driver is a good thing.