Cesky Krumlov

 After my taste of the mountains in Slovakia I was hungry for more outdoors. Planned time for Cesky Krumlov was two nights – I stayed five. With Jens – who I met in Slovakia – in tow we headed to CK and arrived late at night hoping like hell we would be able to get into our hostel (the whole town pretty much shuts down after about nine in the off season). Success. The weather forecast wasn't looking fantastic for the next couple of days – in fact when I woke up the first morning it was raining – but by the time we got our A's into G it had stopped and we'd decided upon a stroll up the highest mountain around the town. Reaching the top of Klet, at 1,084m, a couple of hours later we were disappointed to find the restaurant open but not serving food...?? so headed up the tower for some panoramic views - not so great on a cloudy day.

Back that afternoon and we lazed around eating at the restaurant back in town for lunch then heading out for traditional cuisine in the Old Town later. A couple of quiets with some others from our hostel at the world's smokiest bar rounded off our day quite nicely.

Day two saw us strolling around the Old Town, the Castle and it's gardens and dining at a highly recommended vegetarian restaurant for lunch – while delicious I still very firmly hold onto my “it's not a meal unless it's got meat in it” philosophy. Up to the supermarket to buy supplies for the next couple of days – including dinner, fourth and fifth time cooking on this trip in total. Poor effort – but I much prefer the locals to do it for me.

Mountain biking was on the agenda for the following day, and after choosing bikes whose brakes actually worked we were off back up Klet. We wound our way up and around the mountain and through some villages and the forest as my very low fitness levels rapidly deteriorated. Bike riding up hills is hard yakka! After recouping and lazing in the sun it was time to make our descent. Fair to say there were a couple of hairy moments but I only completely came off once. “You count that as a success?” the people at the hostel gaped at me as I recounted my efforts. “Yes, of course! I mean I only fell off once!” And I did, and I did it very elegantly in a dazzling display of acrobatics over the handle bars and landing on my feet. The only thing hurt was my pride. It could have been so much worse.

So what do you do after a day of mountain biking in Cesky Krumlov? You watch the horror movie 'Hostel' in the town that it was filmed in. I was feeling very on edge walking through CK by myself to the pub on my last night after that!

The next and final morning, feeling like I'd done seven hours of back to back intense spin classes the day before, there was only one thing for it... (tender) bum back in the saddle. I ogled the map for a good hour figuring out a route that would be less of the up and more of the around for that day. This was counteracted by the distance we covered, and still included a lot of inclines. We had a little picnic for lunch before beginning the 25k journey back to CK. Ambling through the forest paths we stumbled across some castle ruins and decided to check them out for another well earned break. I headed out that night with a great big bunch of Aussies – turns out besides me (kiwi) and Jens (Danish) everybody else in the hostel pretty much the whole time we were there were Aussies. They're not a bad bunch but they sure are everywhere!

So that was it, my last full week. But I had a lot of firsts in it – I played chess properly for the first time, said the name of my home town properly for the first time, mountain biked for the first time, had a sword fight for the first time and came across bed bugs for the first time. Yick. And with that it was off to Oktoberfest for the grand finale of three months traveling.

Cesky Krumlov from the Castle

In the forest

View from Klet

Castle Ruins