Fairy Tale

Day 241
After chatting with some people at the hostel over breakfast I headed out. Chesky Krumlov is one of those places where you plan to stay for two days and then end up staying for a month. I was determined to not get sucked in. It has a medival street plan that is formed around a tightly bent river.

There is actually very little to do here. The few museums in the town are either not worth looking at or closed for the winter. Bummer. Still, I could see right away how leaving could be a challenge. It was just so beautiful.

No playing around for me though, my blog was calling. After a couple of hours working I went to check out the castle. The first thing I came to were the bear pits. About 500 years ago the ruling family wanted to associate themselves with a more powerful Italian family who had bears on their coat of arms. This connection was false. The other thought is that is the bears leave the castle will cease to exists.

Today there are three bears in the wooded moat. It was redone just about ten years ago, before that I imagine that it was exactly like it sounds, a bear pit. I could see one bear playing around. Later on I found out that I was pretty lucky to get to see him. Apparently people will stick around way longer than intended never to see one.

The signs warning people to stay away were pretty humorous, they showed people being impaled on the fence. I found out later that some years ago a guy, dared by his friends, jumped into the put. One of the bears mulled him, because, well, that is what bears do. The bear was shot. I think they should have shot the idiot who jumped in.

I had planned to visit the castle, but my stomach was grumbling and I headed for lunch. I had some fabulous fried cheese and worked on my journal for some time. Afterwards I went back to the hostel and spent some time reading before making dinner.

For some nighttime entertainment I went out with Gaynor and Fannie from the hostel. The first stop was the Horror Bar, complete with skeletons hanging from the ceiling and coffin tables. It was a bit quiet though. While we were en route to the Gypsy bar we ran into the guys from the hostel. The group included an American from Missoula. The Gypsy bar was packed and there was live music. We didn't stay long though and soon moved to the last bar in town. It was a bit empty and we didn't stay long.