Czechy czechy czechy!
Jun. 4th, 2002 07:07 pmOk, for some reason the "full options" update won't work. Blah.
I'm in Cesky (pronounced Cheskyi) Krumlov, a UNESCO World Heritage site, apparently, almost directly south of Prague, near the Austrian border (find Cesky Budejovice on the map, it's just south of that. It's a gorgeous little medieval town, with little winding streets and old houses and a castle overlooking the whole thing. The hostel I'm staying in is in an old house and has uneven stairs all over the place and a sloping floor on street level.
If I could only ever visit one place in Europe again, I think this would have to be it. Everything I've heard about this place has been positive, and I have to agree. The town is not so big, but the atmosphere is amazing. Shops and services are all in ancient houses, like the bookstore I walked into that had lovely old wooden floors that smelled so good. You can rent rafts or little boats to float down the Vltava, have a drink in one of the many restaurants and pubs, or just walk around town and relax.
Last night, I went to the coolest restaurant ever with a bunch of crazy Aussies who invited me along not five minutes after I'd dropped my things beside my bed. The place looks like a wine cellar, with low domed ceilings and little alcoves along the walls. There's an open fire for cooking, and lighting is provided by candles and the open front door. The tables are like picnic tables, made of big, smoothed wood, and the waiters are dressed in peasant clothing. They make a delicious garlic soup served in a round bread, and meat skewers and half chickens and the likes.
The crowning glory of this place, however, is the wine. It's on tap, so you can get it by the pitcher or the glass, and when they mean glass, they mean a big ceramic cup filled to the brim. So you're paying 25 koruny for this huge amount of good, cool white wine, which amounts to paying not even 75 cents for a usual restaurant-size glass of wine. Marvelous! I was feeling tipsy after only two of those glasses, so I retired to the hostel with one of the other girls, who didn't feel up to pub-crawling either, and we indulged in drunken conversation until the others came stumbling in at about one in the morning.
One thing that was worrying me for the past couple of days is that I've almost filled my little journal. At the moment, I think I have seven pages left. I was trying to find a general store or something like that to buy another notebook, but the thing is that here, you don't have convenience stores. You get food in one store, shampoo and soap in another, clothes in another, and souvenirs and postcards in another. I managed to find a paper store, so I'll be stopping in there on my way to the post office, later on; I still haven't mailed my post cards from Prague, and I bought more here so I'll have those to mail as well.
In other news, when I had my laundry done in Prague, I included my big blue hoody, which turned my towel a pretty shade of sickly grey-green and dyed a pair of my panties, faded from too many washes, back to their original colour. The wash also shrunk the hoody, so now it actually fits me properly and I don't have to roll the sleeves.
The pillows in the place are gloriously huge and fluffy and the beds are comfortable.
This place is awesome.
I'm in Cesky (pronounced Cheskyi) Krumlov, a UNESCO World Heritage site, apparently, almost directly south of Prague, near the Austrian border (find Cesky Budejovice on the map, it's just south of that. It's a gorgeous little medieval town, with little winding streets and old houses and a castle overlooking the whole thing. The hostel I'm staying in is in an old house and has uneven stairs all over the place and a sloping floor on street level.
If I could only ever visit one place in Europe again, I think this would have to be it. Everything I've heard about this place has been positive, and I have to agree. The town is not so big, but the atmosphere is amazing. Shops and services are all in ancient houses, like the bookstore I walked into that had lovely old wooden floors that smelled so good. You can rent rafts or little boats to float down the Vltava, have a drink in one of the many restaurants and pubs, or just walk around town and relax.
Last night, I went to the coolest restaurant ever with a bunch of crazy Aussies who invited me along not five minutes after I'd dropped my things beside my bed. The place looks like a wine cellar, with low domed ceilings and little alcoves along the walls. There's an open fire for cooking, and lighting is provided by candles and the open front door. The tables are like picnic tables, made of big, smoothed wood, and the waiters are dressed in peasant clothing. They make a delicious garlic soup served in a round bread, and meat skewers and half chickens and the likes.
The crowning glory of this place, however, is the wine. It's on tap, so you can get it by the pitcher or the glass, and when they mean glass, they mean a big ceramic cup filled to the brim. So you're paying 25 koruny for this huge amount of good, cool white wine, which amounts to paying not even 75 cents for a usual restaurant-size glass of wine. Marvelous! I was feeling tipsy after only two of those glasses, so I retired to the hostel with one of the other girls, who didn't feel up to pub-crawling either, and we indulged in drunken conversation until the others came stumbling in at about one in the morning.
One thing that was worrying me for the past couple of days is that I've almost filled my little journal. At the moment, I think I have seven pages left. I was trying to find a general store or something like that to buy another notebook, but the thing is that here, you don't have convenience stores. You get food in one store, shampoo and soap in another, clothes in another, and souvenirs and postcards in another. I managed to find a paper store, so I'll be stopping in there on my way to the post office, later on; I still haven't mailed my post cards from Prague, and I bought more here so I'll have those to mail as well.
In other news, when I had my laundry done in Prague, I included my big blue hoody, which turned my towel a pretty shade of sickly grey-green and dyed a pair of my panties, faded from too many washes, back to their original colour. The wash also shrunk the hoody, so now it actually fits me properly and I don't have to roll the sleeves.
The pillows in the place are gloriously huge and fluffy and the beds are comfortable.
This place is awesome.
tes aventures sont plus en plus amusantes!
Date: 2002-06-05 05:15 am (UTC)je vais y allé avec toi!
ce que tu as décrit... c'est une très belle ville
en tout cas, je voudrais avoir un beau étamp dans mon passeport aussi ;)
amuse-toi bien!!
G.
no subject
Ok..C'est quoi le rapport entre Bob Ray and Mme Cormier déjà?? I know there is one but I just can't remember what! =)
Re:
From:no subject
Le big insane spag est presque prêt
Date: 2002-06-05 02:48 pm (UTC)Journée grise et pluvieuse. Berk! Mais il y a eu au moins deux joies: ton message et ton masque. Je suis allée le chercher ce matin chez la gentille Mme Prévost. Très joli ce masque. Ton costume d'Halloween est déjà tout pensé...
Et le fameux musée art déco?
Et après la République Tchèque, où vas-tu en direction ouest?
Des becs.
Mamansan
fun fun fun
Date: 2002-06-05 04:17 pm (UTC)En tout cas, continue de bien t'amuser, mais reviens nous, sinon j'ai bien l'impression que G va se sauver en Europe a ta recherche (quoi que ca ferrais un bon scenario de film ;)
Charles
Re: fun fun fun
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2002-06-06 07:14 am (UTC) - Expand