Cesky Krumlov

Now here was a place I was looking forward to for some time, and I was worried that my expectations wouldnt be met, but I was wrong.

I arrived in the evening (again without any accomodation sorted) and got the view of the city at night that was simply amazing. It's described as a "mini prague" and while I hadnt seen Prague yet, it was the sort of thing I was expecting from the capital of Czech. The cobble stones, the castle on the hill and the old tower. This felt like a little fairy tale city. This was exactly the sort of place I was looking forward to seeing for the whole trip.

Now, I arrived intending to stay for about a three days, but ended up staying for a week. During the week, people asked me "oh so you have been here a while, there must be so much to do...". Um, no not really.

I think the reason I loved this place so much was that there wasnt a lot to do, except drink, relax and talk to other travellers - something this place had in droves. During the day there were American and Japanese tour groups everywhere, but it quietened down at night.

I ended up staying at the Travellers Hostel, which had a very cool bar frequented by many of the other backpackers in town. It was possibly the best hostel I have stayed at in terms of meeting people. The shower/bathroom facilities werent the best, but as far as a good social hostel I've just never had any better. Dont know why, but for some reason I spent most of the week with two groups of West Aussies, including some Perth Girls.

One of the activities that I ended up doing was rafting down the river which pretty much encircles the town. Now please dont get confused - this was NOT an adventure sport, with the river barely getting more then a foot deep and for 99.99% of the time being as flat as a pancake, but it was a good way to spend an afternoon anyways. And one of those ways you know you are in Eastern Europe...."heres your boat, your paddles, your life jackets....and heres your bottle of absenth." Quality.

After an evening of drinking at the bar at the hostel, a couple of locals asked if we wanted to continue drinking - which of course we did - so they took us down to one of the local bars. Myself and a Melbourne couple were the only tourists in the place, so we kept a close eye on our kidneys!

On another night (or was it the same one....so hard to remember!!) the bar had some live music. Ok so it wasnt traditional Czech or anything (it was bongos and a Didge!) but it was very entertaining all the same.

All in all I would definately recomend the place for at least a couple of days...but its so good you can easily get caught there.