Our last tour of our trip was to Český Krumlov.
A beautiful 13th Century city that’s been being restored over the past decade.
The Vlatava river cuts through the city and brings a lot of people for canoe trips, however there is a section of the river that isn’t safe, and when we went to Český Krumlov that part only had warning signs up in Czech. One of our teachers almost died when they had gone on a canoe trip on the river before we got there, unable to read the sign or unaware of the danger.
At one point in time no one lived in the city. Because during the war Germany kicked out everyone and filled the town with Germans and then when they lost the war American’s came in and kicked out all the Germans. But through the past decade they’ve been restoring the buildings and the city back to its original grandeur. This building in the photo above is one of the few buildings left that hasn’t been restored. (Or at least hadn’t been when I went) They were trying to decide what they wanted it to be, the original wish for it was to be turned into an Alchemy museum because of the towns history with Alchemy and the past rulers infatuation with it. The castle is covered in an alchemy recipe to produce an heir.
Our tour started with a walking tour, we met with a local who showed us around, which I highly suggest. She told us about the history of the city from the infamy to ghost stories and hauntings to about the thriving community of artist and art stores. At the end of her tour we were free to check out our options, we could go up in the tower, check out a beer brewery which a tour of was about 130czk, or go through the castle. A group and I went through the castle first, over the bears in the moat to head to the gardens. We didn’t do the castle tour which is is 160czk with student ID (250 without). Another option would have been to check out the museum of the artist Egon Schiele.
They have four bears in the castles moat, Vok and Kateřina, and their two cubs Daxi and Hubert. Bears have been kept at the castle since the 16th century and have been known to have been in the moat since 1707.
The garden is mostly a bunch of beautiful greenery and well trimmed hedges and a lovely fountain, but not many flowers. There were roses towards the end of our trip in the garden.
After our trip through the garden we went up the tower, which is a long walk, to the top where you can have a breathtaking view of the city. The tower is a 162 step climb and houses four bells. It was a fun trip, the other department that followed us later to Prague also visited Český Krumlov, but on their view up at the tower got a surprise attack from a bird.
Český Krumlov is about a three hour drive away from Prague. Every June they have a Renaissance festival, but when we went it wasn’t going on. It’s a beautiful city and if you have time I highly suggest stopping by, maybe even staying for a couple days.