The beautiful town of Český Krumlov

Our next stop in the Czech Republic was the charming town of Český Krumlov.

We checked out of the hostel in Bratislava and headed on towards the highway. We found the right way soon enough and crossed the border into Austria. After a quick breakfast pit stop at a rest area, we crossed the Czech border without problems (thanks to our EU passports) and reached Český Krumlov 30-40 minutes later.

The town is filled with medieval architecture and surrounded by the Vltava River, running through town in an S-shape. This town was given a UNESCO World Heritage status in 1992. Our destination was the Pension Danny, which was a little tricky to find and we circled the town centre for a while before locating it. After parking and checking in, we went for a wander around town.

Upon seeing the river we saw lots of people floating down in various kinds of floatation devices, boats and anything that would float. The weather was wonderful and we really wanted to join them, but as we were a bit short on time and only really had the one day, we chose to explore around town rather than float in the water.

We walked past the local brewery, Eggenberg (great beers which we tried later on), which was closed at the time of our visit. We continued through the beautiful streets of old town up the castle where we got an overview of town. From here we had panoramic views of the town which we enjoyed for while before we found a spot to sit down for a few cold local beers.

Later that night, after dinner and a few more beers, we were keen on finding some sort of club to go to. But, it’s a small town and it was a Sunday night, so without luck, we tried a couple of cocktail bars for a while, walking between them and met some Australians that seemed to be looking for the same as us. We found one place that was pretty nice and just spent some hours there talking and exchanging experiences. Whilst at the bar, an interesting thing happened. The TV in the background was showing the Fashion channel however was switched over to, how to describe this, a more adult type of content. This only lasted for a few moments before it was changed back and the owners issuing apologises to everyone, we just sat and laughed about the whole thing.

The following morning, after breakfast, we set off for České Budějovice, about 20km to the north. This was not really a detour as it was on our way to Prague and we wanted to visit, not necessary because of the city but because of it’s brewery, the original Budweiser, also known as Budvar, the real deal, not the watered down American Budweiser. We got the full tour of the brewery, which was fun but if you’ve seen one you’ve basically seen them all. Haven’t stopped me from going to a lot of different Whiskey distilleries though.

After enjoying some beers at the end of the tour in the brewery’s bar, we left and drove back to Prague, and the next morning we caught our flight back to Dublin.  

Český Krumlov was by far the best place we visited during our small Eastern Europe trip.
Despite its size, the town’s atmosphere, architecture, and vibe was so much better than the other places. Our only regret was not having a couple of extra days to spend here and it would be very easy to spend lots of time on the river just relaxing. Ah well, we will just have to try and come back another day!

Highly recommend this town to anyone!