Cesky Krumlov

We had been wanting to visit Cesky Krumlov for several years now, with so many of our friends raving about it. Lonely Planet calls it a "pocket sized Prague", and given that the capital wasn't on our itinerary this time around we were even more keen to get to Cesky.

Most importantly though were the bears. Our mate Tane had been going on for years about there being bears in the castle moat in Cesky Krumlov, but for most of this time I hadn't believed him. I mean, how could there be bears in a castle moat? In this day and age?? (Perhaps he was meaning 'beers'?!). We just had to go and see for ourselves...

The very pretty town of Cesky Krumlov

The town of Cesky Krumlov sits in a bend of, in fact almost encircled by, the Vltava river, watched over by the impregnable fortress-castle. It is indeed a very quaint, and very picturesque village full of very well restored Renaissance and Baroque buildings, narrow cobblestone lanes and an elegant town square. It seems to have managed to escape much of the wrath of two world wars.

View of the castle

Pretty, pretty, pretty!

We had a good amble around the old town, through the castle grounds and to the local brewery, but once again we were quite keen to limit our exposure to the crowds of tourists descending upon us - although it was pleasing to see as many local tourists and school groups as American summer schoolers and large Texan families.

View from the Round Tower

The artisticly "interesting" example of 'Tromp l'Oeil' architecture - there's no blocks, it's just painted on!

The other priority for Eric was of course the Pilsner. It was a bit of a shame that we didn't manage to make it to Plzen, the actual spiritual home of the frothy amber liquid, and Eric's favourite beer in the entire world, Pilsner Urquell (well next to Grolsch at least). But we were able to taste a fresh brew at the local Eggenberg brewery followed by a trip to the supermarket to obtain a bottle of Urquell with our very last Czech Koruna, which made a good compromise.

Oh, and about those bears? Yes! There were indeed bears in the castle moat!!!

And here's some proof...

If you look really hard...

Blimey it's a real bear!

And yet another!

Isn't he cute?