So we drove on from the Danube, knowing
we would see it again, heading north, back into the Czech Republic,*
our destination the Rickie Stevie League of Undiscovered Cities town
of Ceski Krumlov. It also happens to be another World Heritage Site. We found it easily enough, and though the only
campground location we had was on GPS, we found it easily enough too.
What we found, however, had no RVs or Wohnmobils, only tents,
hundreds of them. Many hundreds. We thought maybe it was a Czech
Woodstock. The throng was gentle enough, however, mostly young, and
many with young children. We generally feel safe around young
children. Anyhow, we found the recepcion and paid our 10
dineros, and all was well, if somewhat goofy, until the mother
of all thunderstorms hit. We probably were the only persons in the
campground who were not flooded out.
What we had wandered into was a 3 day
Czech weekend, in the summertime, and one of the national past-times,
floating the gentle and shallow Vltava river that wraps itself almost
entirely around Ceski Krumlov. From Wulingyuan in China, to Ceski
Krumlov in the Czech Republic, I continue to see river floating as
one of the great humanizing activities, one in which people show
their true nature. Etc. The Czechs appear to be a very orderly and peaceable lot, if a bit prone to sunburn. We saw no river drunks and no water fights. At the TI, between her
English and my Czech, I discerned that the holiday celebrated the two
saints who had brought Christianity to the Czechs. A fitting occasion
for weekend water sports, I thought. We hoped we might also join in
the festivities until we learned that every boat in the county had
already been rented.
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The lower of three levels of tents; from the middle, looking
up-river |
 |
Ditto, looking the other way; you can see our camper
middle-right; there was another such campground, a few
hundred meters up the river with, presumably, hundreds
more tents |
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| The campground cafe/pub, just before the deluge |
 |
Next day was sunny and warm; the less quiet parts of the
river are navigated through little chutes, thus |
 |
| And thus |
 |
As I said, they are an orderly people; here passing by a
cafe where we had stopped to snack |
 |
| From the castle heights, queuing up for the portage |
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| And re-embarking |
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| I think this may have been a mandatory beer stop |
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| Another chute, another queue; another day on the Vltava |
*our primary motivation here was to
avoid the Austrian autobahns, heading west, which require a hefty
“vignette,” or usage fee, or rather, for our size and weight,
purchase of a “GO Box” that uses GPS to track and charge for
usage of said autobahns. Austrian restaurants charge for bread by
the piece, ordered or consumed. Similarly for autobahns. It would be
an outrage for the Czechs to so charge for use of their “autobahns.”
