A Tandem Tour of CZ and Austria

Cesky Krumlov
Day 6: Thursday, May 27

We started the day with a nice breakfast, eaten outside on the terrace overlooking the river. We got an early start since we wanted to be at the castle when it opened in order to avoid the crowds we'd read about. We walked up the hill to the castle to see about tickets and get a tour time (tour times are assigned by the ticket office). We were given the time of 11:20, so we had nearly two hours to wait until our tour started. We decided to walk up to the train station (uphill the entire way, about a 20-minute walk) to see about trains to Austria the next day. En route we walked through a newer residential area of Krumlov, and got to see how the most of the town's inhabitants lived. It looked a lot like a small German or Austrian town, just a bit more plain. After determining that the 8:14 a.m. train could take bikes, we headed back to the old town and to the castle for our tour.

The castle tour is offered in English and is very interesting. The original castle was founded in the 1200s and gained much of its present shape in the 1500s and early 1600s when it was owned by the Rosenberg family (a complete history and an excellent guide to the castle buildings and grounds can be found online). Guided tour costs and hours of operation change according to the season and can be found online.

We finished the tour around lunchtime and decided to pick up some food at the nearby grocery store for a picnic. The store is small, but has a decent selection. We bought two pre-made Czech sandwiches on long rolls (22 ck each), some yogurt, fruit and drinks, and headed back to the B&B intending to eat on the terrace. Unfortunately, the door to the outside was locked and we couldn't get out, so we ended up eating on the balcony instead and watched hordes of canoeists paddle by. Lots of school groups, from the looks of it.

I had been looking forward to doing a 2-3 hour canoe trip in the afternoon, but the weather turned quickly and became dark and rainy, so we didn't get to go. The Vltava is this area is a very popular canoeing river. There are a number of canoe rental companies in town and we saw photos of hundreds of canoeists on the river in the summer. Multi-day canoe trips are popular in CZ. Detailed canoe maps and guidebooks are available for many Czech rivers, and along the Vltava there are pubs, hotels, and campgrounds catering to canoeists. Our little B&B even had a sign on the river and a dock for canoeists. It would be very interesting to go back and do a multi-day canoe trip along the river.

After the bad weather passed we walked around town a bit more, circling the outskirts along the riverbank, and then climbed high above the town to the castle gardens. Unfortunately, they were not in bloom yet and were somewhat barren. We stopped by the tourist info center to use their Internet kiosks to check e-mail and weather for the next day, and then wandered back to the B&B and sat out on the balcony, read our books, and watched even more canoeists go by.

We headed off to find dinner somewhat early, around 6:00 p.m., hoping to eat outside as we usually do. Because of the chilly weather no restaurants were seating outside, and the two places we were interested in were full inside. So, we ended up back at Restaurant Mastral, eating inside the restaurant this time. The interior has an interesting dark, medieval feel, complete with stone walls and log tables. Dinner was excellent once again and we didn't regret our choice. After dinner we headed back to the room to pack, and asked for breakfast at 7:30 so we could get an early start. We had been vacillating whether to ride to the border and take the train to Austria from there or to take the train directly from the Krumlov station, but after talking about it we decided to keep riding. We had planned all along to take the train from the Czech border to Austria in order to avoid the large hills we had read about when planning the trip.

We managed to pack and get to bed early, but our quiet nighttime reverie was shattered when the group of German motorcyclists returned from a night of partying at 3:45 a.m., waking us up in the process. Thankfully we quickly fell back asleep, but not after thinking unkind thoughts about our fellow two-wheeled travelers.

Daily costs 5/27 (in CK): B&B: 1200; lunch: 118; castle tour: 300; dinner: 400; souvenirs: 140; drinks: 50. Total: 2208 ($84 US).