Sydney Lights

Hi people!

Only a few days after I had arrived back in Germany I spent 6 days on a vacation with my mum and my brother. We went to our neighbor czech republic, respectively the little town Ceski Krumlov. It's a beautiful site with a medieval centre and lots of water. The river Vlatlava (Moldau) flows through it and meanders its way through it.
Czeski Krumlov is a relatively unknown (because of its size: 20000 people only) but increasinly popular place among czech and international tourists. Even the big Lonely Planet recommends it for backpackers. And indeed the town is full of young internationals that stay in the town's various hostels. You won't believe it but you can meet not only german, french italian and english people there but also people from the other side of the world. For example I had 4 Australians from Melbourne on my room and 2 japanese girls.
So what makes this town so attractive for foreigners? Well, it's something you only realize after you have already spent at least 2 days there. It's the town's river that brings a certain kind of relaxed and laid back mood into the town. It is present almost everywhere and there is plenty of gastronomy on the riverbanks and a couple of historic bridges.
So you can always enjoy a cappuccino or a chilled beer there and just watch the river flow gently through past the town. On the river, and that is one of the regions most popular attractions there are many people moving down the stream with little canoes or rafts. It's nice just to watch them going down the river. On one of the towns watergates (Schleuse) there are always many people just watching those ones with the canoes overturn since its a hard exercise balancing down the turbulent water there.
Anyway the atmosphere in the town was just amazing, the people very friendly and helpful although not all czech people spoke english. But the czech women are of a very natural beauty indeed. My brother always said the town had a good Chill Factor. He is definitely right.
So on the first day we hired some bikes and explored the region a little bit. We came past towns where there was a lot of gypsy population which were often living in shabby old communism houses. But the landscape we passed was very beautiful and showed lots of green. The same like in the german summer. But just something I hadn't seen in for while in down under. On the second day we rented out a raft and did like all the others and rode down the river for 40 km until short before the Czech town of Budweis, where the famous beer comes from. This was one of the best things we could do there. Just being on the river got us in a chilled relaxed mood with no hurry because the river was flowing quite fast and made it not too necessary to row the boat quickly. The third day we hiked on the "Klet", a mountain in the area from where we enjoyed a fantastic and far 260 degrees view. One the fourth day we went to Budweis and explored the town. It has the biggest central marketplace in the whole czech republic with 130m side length and a square shape. You can calculate how many square metres that is.
Before I finish there is one thing I still wanna mention: It's a good idea to begin your evening in Ceski Krumlov with a restaurant visit. The food there is affordable (A big portion of excellent food hardly costs 10 Euros) and the quality was outstanding without exception. We were very surprised because normally in a little czech town like that you can't expect such good value for your money.
So alltogether it was a very relaxing, interesting and culinaric holiday without being pricey and I am pretty sure I will come back one day.

Enjoy the photos in album No. 12

 Cheers!