Rain, Gardens and Krumlov

Finally the weather broke - in a big way. It rained last night and much of the morning, but gently. The temperature dropped about 30 degrees, though. We actually wore pants today. Despite the rain, we had a great day. The first half was spent in Prague and the last half in the southern Czech town of Cesky Krumlov.

We spent the drizzly morning in Prague looking at St. Nicholas church (top photo & right outside our front door) and the palace gardens (middle photo). The gardens were interesting in the way they stepped down the steep hillside. They were mainly green (could have used some more color, in my opinion) but it was sort of enhanced by the effect of the water making everything glisten. We had about four hours to kill before our bus left town and so we had the rare opportunity to linger. It's a very different experience to be at an enjoyable site and be thinking "I wonder how long I can make this last" rather than "I wonder how quickly we can move on to the next thing?" I wish it were practical to approach things that way more often, but it's not.

The little Czech town of Cesky Krumlov was relatively important about 400 years ago, and then it's power and wealth faded, and the town was mostly forgotten and left in tact. This has made it a wonderful time-in-bottle sort of place (much the same story as Bruges, Belgium).

We got there on a bus. It was an odd experience. The bus was very modern and included an attendant serving drinks and free wifi. We had trouble finding finding free wifi service of any kind in Bavaria and here we were in the Czech Republic on a bus surfing the net!

The town of Cesky Krumlov is absolutely adorable. Our hostel is a quirky, hippy sort of place with a carved wooden dragon on the front door (bottom). We'll have more on the town and the hostel tomorrow. It's late and we're all pretty tired...