Moving Day - Prague to Český Krumlov

An 8 a.m. departure from the apartment to Prague’s Main Train Station. The tram runs from just around the corner and travels to within 200 m of the station—just a short walk through a park.

The old historic station isn’t visible from where we entered, but once inside we see a sign for it, and that’s where you actually board the trains. That part of the station is two levels up. The station is bigger than I was expecting—or maybe it’s just what you’d expect for a capital city. For some reason, I was picturing the Budapest station we used, which was quite small.

We have an hour to wait for our train—enough time for a coffee and a short sit-down. There are seven boarding platforms and an underground tunnel to access them all. We head to the seventh platform on the far side for our train to Český Krumlov. The train pulls away right on time at exactly 9:20 a.m. It’s equally as nice as the one we took to Ljubljana. It gets along quite quickly and is super smooth—none of the banging and rocking like some trains we’ve been on. It’s great to be back using trains to travel around.

We sit back and listen to podcasts while watching the countryside slip by—a mainly rural landscape with cropping farms and plenty of trees. Not many animals to be seen along this route.

There are only a few stops along the first hour. It’s a 2.5-hour journey in total. The train slows for the last 30 minutes, perhaps due to different terrain or tracks. Once we arrive in Český Krumlov, it seems most passengers are taking the flashpacking approach and walking the 1.6 km into town—perhaps they know there aren’t enough taxis to cope? We were going to walk anyway. It’s not far, the temperature is pleasant, and it turns out to be mainly downhill.

We can’t check in until 3 p.m. and it’s only midday, so once we get to the city centre we find a small café to park ourselves for a while. A coffee for me and an ice cream for Sarah buys us a nice breather. We’ve got a view of what turns out to be part of Český Krumlov Castle, and it’s a quiet spot.

Just after 1 p.m., we decide we should either purchase something else or make a move to another place. There’s a park on the far side of town about 500 m away, so we head there hoping for seats and shade. We’ve barely gone 200 m when we hit the main square, which has several seats under umbrellas—not owned by cafés, unlike in many places we’ve visited. We’re lucky enough to find a free, shaded seat, so we decide to hang out there reading our books.

At 2 p.m., we get a message advising our apartment has been cleaned and is ready for an earlier check-in. Great news. Even better, the apartment is just 150 m away on a street immediately behind the square where we’re sitting.

The apartment is one big room containing a couch, queen-size bed, single bed, TV, and free-standing closet. Off to the side is a kitchen with a small dining table and a separate small bathroom. It looks spotless and very bright. It doesn’t have a washing machine or air-conditioning, which was our compromise to get something in the inner city for around $200 NZD per night. It looks like it will be perfect for our three nights here. We unpack a few things and I make a coffee.

Next priority: supermarket shopping. There’s a Co-op-branded supermarket just outside the city, and it turns out to be pretty good. We grab the basics—milk, cereal, cheese, beer 😉, etc. We decide to get mince as an easy option for dinner, probably nachos again. The lady behind the counter doesn’t speak any English but does know the word “pig.” She indicates some of the mince is pig mince and the other—something else? We start the guessing game: beef? cow? Neither registers with her. “Moo?” Yes—she laughs—“moo!” OK, we’ll have the moo mince, thanks. 😂

The even funnier thing is, come cooking time, Sarah notices the packet has a picture of a pig on it anyway. Perhaps it was in the wrong stack. It tastes fine, albeit slightly different to normal beef nachos.

I haven’t said so yet, as many of you will already know about Český Krumlov. It was recommended to us by Dad (and Mum) from their visit here years ago, and I think the Baumfields mentioned it too. For those who don’t know of it—it is a picture-postcard, fairytale-style town that’s as pretty as any medieval town you’ll ever see. Hopefully our photos over the next couple of days will show it off to you.

After dinner, we did a short circumnavigation of the inner city where we’re staying. We suspect there’s more “inner city” just outside this area. It’s an interesting topography, with the river meandering in multiple oxbows separating the town. We are fully contained in one such oxbow, but there are two more. Further orientation to be completed tomorrow.