#2980 vacation memories - day 10 Cesky Krumlov and Prague (Sunday 14 Sept 2025)

 

Prague!

Our time aboard the Viking Aegir was over. The river cruise was fantastic and I had such a great time on the ship. We met nice people, saw a lot of cool places, ate some seriously delicious food, and crushed a little (or a lot) on the handsome captain of the ship. It was time to move on to phase two of our vacation adventure and head east to the Czech Republic.

The Amazing Candice, our travel advisor, arranged for a private transfer to pick us up from the ship and drive us to Prague. It's about a five hour drive from Passau, Germany to Prague, and we were excited to have a stop a couple of hours into the drive at the town of Cesky Krumlov (pronounced chesskey crumblauv.) It was very rainy in Passau and for about an hour of the drive. The countryside was green and gorgeous with lots of hills and trees. It's Hansel and Gretel vibes. It's Snow White's woods. It's where Aurora meets Prince Phillip. The countryside is a fairy tale come to life, and Cesky Krumlov is part of that fairy tale. 

When we got to the car park, our driver advised us to climb the stairs to get up to the castle, walk around up there, then make our way down to the town. He said he would meet us back at the car in a couple of hours, and then we went our separate ways. I was fine with that, and so was Lizzie. We'd had a week of people talking at us and we were ready to roam on our own, even though we didn't really know what we were looking at.

As with most castles, this one is one a hill above the town and it is an assortment of grand buildings. First we went to the top of the hill to the gardens, and you know what? I liked them quite a lot. 

castle garden in Cesky Krumlov

This photo does not do the place justice. The grounds are so big that there was no way I could really capture it all. This is just the lower part of the gardens - there was lots more that we didn't even see. The sky was cloudy and gray, but it wasn't raining, and the temperature was nice.

in the castle

We wandered down the hill through the castle. An interesting note is that all of these buildings you see are stone or concrete or something, and all the decorations and even the stones are actually painted. It really just added to the overall Disney-esque vibe I felt about the place. The buildings are pretty and colorful and a façade

double click to get a bigger view of the buildings and notice all the detail is painted

We found a tiny doorway from which people were pouring out of and there was a bit of a crowd waiting to get in, so we had to check it out. WOW. The view of the town was...well...look:

Cesky Krumlov

am I looking at a fairy tale town?

Another interesting thing about the castle is that the moat has bears in it. Big brown bears. The moats of the castles of Bohemia were patrolled by bears. I saw two bears, and they seemed to be okay. They don't have much patrolling to do anymore. 

Lizzie and I walked down into the town and looked at a couple of shops. We saw a restaurant patio down by the river and we wanted to have a bite to eat before we got back on the road. It was a little chilly down there, but we enjoyed a beer and a plate of cold cuts, cheese, and bread. It was just what we wanted.

at the restaurant by the river

Soon enough it was time to meet our driver, but first we stopped in a cute little bookshop where I bought some stickers and oh yeah, I think a postcard, too! It began to rain, but we had our umbrellas, so no big deal. I enjoyed the time in Cesky, although I did come away with a blister on the pinky toe of my left foot. My shoes were comfortable, but it was a little wet and my foot slipped around a on the cobblestones. No big problem, though.

Reunited with our driver, we continued on to Prague. From Passau to Cesky, we'd been on the back roads, but from Cesky to Prague, we were on the freeway. The car was a smooth-driving BMW and our driver was very good. When he pointed out Prague ahead and to our right, I was delighted to see a dim rainbow over the city as if it was greeting us. I was immediately enchanted. 

We drove over a bridge past the Dancing House (google it!), then along the Vltava River to the old town. I remember looking out the car window trying to soak everything in and wondering if I would be walking around those same streets in the next few days. (Yes, I would!) We had to park across the square from our hotel since the area around the hotel is pedestrian only, which is cool.

The Hotel Grand Praha is right on Old Town Square directly across from the Astronomical Clock. The location is wonderful, but from the moment we walked into the hotel, the possibility of our stay in Prague being not-so-good was strong. The first thing was that we were "greeted" by a somewhat surly young man. He wasn't very nice, but the woman who actually was working the front desk was nice. The second thing was that we had received notification that the tour we'd booked for the next day to the castle had been cancelled because there was some event involving crown jewels or something going on and the castle was going to be closed on Monday. The third thing was that there was a prominent sign on the registration desk informing us that there would not be water in the hotel on Tuesday from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm (oy!) The fourth thing was the room they put us in. It was on the top floor, then we had to take a steep and tiny staircase to the attic. It was a big room, but it gave serious Cinderella-in-the-attic vibes.

the attic room

The only furniture was the bed and that table with two rickety-ass chairs you see on the left. I was worried that I would sit up in the morning and bash my head on the slanted ceiling. We sat on the rickety chairs, barely moving a muscle, and Lizzie, bless her heart, decided to find out if there was a room with two separate beds available. I'm so glad she asked because there was  such a room and we were able to go to it right away. The surly fellow came up and took our (heavy!) bags down the tiny stairs and down a floor or two to our new room. The new room was sort of monastic, but better than the attic.

the nun's quarters

The bed was kind of weird. The pillows were odd. It wasn't what I was expecting, I guess, but the bathroom was nice enough and we didn't really spend a lot of time in the room anyway, so it was fine. The location kind of made up for the spartan sleeping quarters because when we walked out the door of the hotel lobby, we saw this directly in front of us:

the Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall

Then I turned to the right and I saw this:

Old Town Square

And when I took a couple of steps forward and looked up, I saw this:

Church of Our Lady before Tyn

It was the golden hour and Prague was showing off. My goodness. I couldn't stop looking at this church. Those spires! The way the sun made the building glow! Dreamy!

Lizzie and I walked around to get a feel for the city. Yes, there were gobs of people everywhere. You couldn't shake a stick without hitting a trdelnik shop - it's the Czech version of the Hungarian chimney cake. There was also wonderful architecture everywhere you looked. It seemed that no two buildings were the same. I was in awe. Here are a couple of pics:

Powder Gate Tower

Wenceslas Square and the National Museum in the background

I was deeply enamored with the city already. It was stunning. We stopped at a restaurant close to Wenceslas Square and had tasty schnitzel, potatoes and beer, of course. (Czech beer is very good.)  After dinner, we made our way back to the hotel and arrived at the square in time to see the Astronomical Clock do it's thing - it's kinda like the Glockenspiel in Munich in that there are moving parts and sounds every hour on the hour. It draws a crowd, and it's pretty cool. I took this pano of the square. People were moving, so they look splinched:

pano of Old Town Square

So, yeah, I felt lucky and happy to be in Prague. I decided to shake off the kind of ominous start to my stay with the sort of weird vibes I got from the staff and I was looking forward to having two more days to spend in the city. 

Next up, our first full day in Prague!