The last three days I've been extremely busy enjoying beautiful weather and beautiful scenery in Bohemia. I've been to three different Czech towns outside of Prague, and it's been great to see a little more of the country!
On Saturday I took the train for Prague to Kutna Hora, a town about an hour away. It seems a pretty popular day trip for Prague dwellers and tourists alike, so I figured I'd check it out. The main train station is about 2 and a half mile outside the city center, but pretty close to one of the town's most famous sights, so I decided to start there.
This is the Ossuary, or Bone Church as it is more commonly known. I guess the story goes that a monk went crazy and decided to decorate the monastery with hundreds of human skeletons. That picture is of one of the pyramids of skulls he built, but he also hung some from the walls, and made a chandelier out of them too. It was a pretty creepy place, but weirdly cool, once you got away from the human skeletons as decoration thing, and just took it at face value. Not my idea of good interior design though...
After leaving the Bone Church, I headed toward the city center. It was completely dead: I hardly passed a single person on my way there (I guess the tourists usually take the bus too and from the Bone Church, but as usual I was happy to save 2 dollars and walk). Even in the town square, there were only a few people milling about: quite a shock after Prague! But I found myself near a wall overlooking a beautiful valley, with some small towns nestled in there, which I guess all those bus takers missed! Then I stumbled across the silver mine, which had been on my list of things to see. I went in and was told that the next tour left in 30 minutes, so I signed myself up and wandered a bit more, never straying too far for fear of getting lost and not making it back in time. When it got to be time to make my way back over I did, and found that there was only a Czech guide, but an English text for me to read along. It was hard to follow the text, since I couldn't tell where we were in the tour, or what we were looking at. Also, weirdly, there were only 3 other non-Czech speakers on the tour of 30 people, so I guess not too many foreign tourists do this. Strange, because it's one of the town's main sights. When we went down into the mine, though, there was an English guide who came with us and translated (so I don't know why he wasn't just there the whole time).
The mines were... Mines. Nothing too exciting to report there, but something fun to do for a while.
The last major thing on my list was St. Barbara's Cathedral, an enormous cathedral set up on a hill. It was beautiful, and the view from the top of the hill over the town was even more beautiful. I decided to head back toward the train station to catch the train back to Prague, but in no rush; I thought I would just meander through the narrow roads for a while and see the smaller churches and sights that I hadn't yet. It started to drizzle a little, but not too hard and not for too long, and I still count it as a sunny day after all the rain in Poland and Prague. Unfortunately, I arrived back at the train station 7 minutes after the train left, and there wasn't another one for two hours. So I decided to walk up a hill into the neighborhoods of the town. As it turns out, the extra time to stroll was worth the two hour wait.
I eventually made it back to Prague around 8:30, packed up, and got ready to leave the next day.
I had been planning to spend two days in Cesky Krumlov, a town in the south of the Czech Republic, but when I looked at the train schedule I saw that I had to connect in Cesky Budejovice, another town that I've heard a lot of good things about, so I decided to get off and spend the day there before continuing on to arrive in the evening. When I got on the train, the conductor said something in Czech, and I just nodded along. Luckily the guy sitting across from me realized that I hadn't gotten any of it, and translated that we would need to change to a bus for a couple stops because of repairs on the train rails. So just like being in DC, except I didn't have to drive around in beltway traffic for hours and actually arrived right when we were supposed to. The town was small, but pretty, and the south of the country is so beautiful (I've heard that on a really clear day you can see the Alps, but I didn't see quite that far. Did get some good hill and lesser mountain views though!). It sits on a river, so I spent the better part of the day winding my way back and forth across it and soaking up the sunshine! Here are some mermaids:
The town also has an enormous town square. I've heard that it's one of Europe's biggest, and surrounded by picturesque houses and a tower:
There was some activity, but not too much, possibly because it was Sunday. Not wanting to arrive at the hostel in Cesky Krumlov too late (and knowing that the train station is situated somewhat far from the center) I took the train down there at 4:00. It was local train that stopped in all the tiniest villages (sometimes horses and cows and sheep were wandering right next to the train tracks), up and down valleys and hills.
When I got to Cesky Krumlov, my only real directions to get from the station to the hostel were "walk downhill". So down a hill I walked:
Those two towers there are the town center. The walk back up to the station was much worse! I found the hostel with only a little local help, and found that I was the only one staying there, which was very weird, especially after Prague where there were a ton of people staying there (mostly young drunk high schoolers en route to Oktoberfest). At least it was a pretty attic room.
Bored and lonely, I decided to go out and find dinner and something to do. I stumbled (literally... I fell and twisted my ankle terribly. Good news is that I can walk on it and the swelling seems to be going down, and it's now more of a light blue than a dark purple) into a small restaurant where I ordered goulash because Katie Radin told me to:
(This entire meal cost 5 dollars, beer and tip included).
There was a guy sitting at a table near me and as he was getting up he asked if I was a tourist. I said yes and invited him to sit. He's from Japan, also traveling alone so we talked while I finished eating and then headed out to do some exploring of the small town. We walked the length of the town twice, and then decided to look for a bar. We only found one that was open and had people inside. So really the opposite of Prague.
The next day I tried to sleep in but woke up at 7:30, so spent a sunny morning wandering through the cobblestone streets (hard on my ankle which at that point didn't fit into my sneaker!).
I went up to the regional museum where I learned anything and everything about Southern Bohemia, including that there is an area that, after World War II, to avoid being incorporated into Czechoslovakia under an oppressive government, wrote to the United States asking to become a 51st state. I guess that didn't work out. I also went over to the castle. A lot of it was closed because it was Monday, but I did get to wander through huge palace gardens, and then cross the bridge over to the main palace building, and walk through the courtyards, whose outer walls were all painted with fake stones and statues, and a lot of colors! I did get to go into the museum, housed in just a few of the 300 rooms of the castle, and climb the tower. That turned out to be not really worth it... The view of the town is much prettier from the bridge and on the walk down from the train station. Leaving the castle, I wandered through the district called Latran, where a lot of shops are, and then I headed back. I ended up back at the same bar as the night before, because it was the only one that looked like it had any activity. Plus, I liked this poster:
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