Bonjour-Mundo!

After Prague, Alex and I made our way about 3.5 hours south to the little sleepy village of Cesky Krumlov. This town was one of my absolute favorite thus far in the trip. The guidebook says the hardest thing about it is leaving, and I would have to agree. Although we only got a few days there, I felt attatched to the place.

Cesky Krumlov was just what we needed after our time in the city. Its extremely relaxing, surrounded by beautiful hillsides, a rushing river curving through it, and has only one sight to see. We basically had lots of time just to relax and enjoy the slower pace of life.

Our hostel, although up many flights of steps, was so cute, we had it basically to ourselves, it opened up into a wonderful stone patio and a yard with views of the countryside. We spent quite a bit of time just enjoying being outside in the fresh air, it reminded me of the tranquility of my grandmothers on Lake Santa Fe. We spent the rest of our time wandering the little streets dining on terraces, finding a great english bookstore!, horseback riding, and exploring the castle…Now, before I go any further. The guidebook describes the castle here as towering above the city. It made it seem like the hogwarts castle, but more awesome. The krumlov castle is neither big nor towering. In fact its kind of nestled within the city. The church tower I think is taller, so we are still a little bewildered by that. But in anycase, it was still beautiful, still had real life bears guarding the entrance in a moat, and still had a great tower for us to climb.

As I mentined before, we also got the chance to go horseback riding which was great. The countryside around krumlov is rolling hills and forests, and we got to explore areas we never would have made it to on foot which was awesome.

This city along with puerta vallarta, capri, and a few others has made my list of little places I would someday retire and open a guest house.

So, at the current moment I am Budapest, and have some blog catching up to do…however, some of the keys, specifically the z and y are switched up, so if I make some typos, apologies in advance.

Ill start things off with prague…Alex and I stared our brief eastern europe tour as I think I mentioned in the last blog in Prague…absolutely awesome city! We both loved it. It did manage to warm up a bit, and the city was just so pleasant to walk around. The architechture of the buildings is beautiful, the streets are cobblestone and colorful, and everyone seems to have a very positive outlook. The only downside I would say is that prague is VERY touristy. If you can get off the main streets its great, but main town squares and bridges are packed with tourists.

But, we managed to make the best of the crowds and had a great time. We walked a TON, and therefore saw quite a bit in the time we were there. We climbed up all the towers and hills we could for great views of the city, explored the grounds of the prague castle, a beautiful hill of flowering trees, made a wish on the five star cross on charles bridge, and even walked through a house of mirrors. The inside of the cathedral in prague castle was absolutely breathtaking, the most amazing stained glass Ive ever seen, period. The city is full of amazing sculpture, and it seems like everything is accented with gold in some way or another…hence the title.

We also made our way through the jewish quarter, which turned out to be really interesting. There is a spanish synogouge, modeled on the alambra, the moorish palace in granada…just gorgeous. All gold and amazing patterns on the ceiling and and covered in moorish arches. After that we went to another synagouge, something pinko (I dont recall the name). This one was much more powerful in its statement. It was a memorial to the many thousands of czech jews killed in the halocaust. The walls of the building were done in a vietnam memorial fashion, covered ceiling to floor in verz small print with all the names of the 80,000 jews killed in the world war II atrocities. It was extremely powerful. The names seemed to blend together and just go on forever.
At the top floor of the synagogue was a collection of childrens drawings done by children living in the czech jewish ghetto of terezin during the war. Apparently a teacher at the time had discovered a coping strategy of some sort that encouraged children to express themselves and the despair thez felt through art. Although she eventually was sent to one of the concentration camps, she left behind two suitcases with over 4000 drawings from the children of the ghetto. Many of these were what we saw. Its amazing how a simple childrens sketch can truly express so much.
After that synagouge we also visited the jewish cemetary, which was really incredible to see. Apparently its 12 layers deep, they had run out space. The grave stone are in a complete random state looking as though theyve fallen out of the sky…although some are pushing there way up through the ground. They are piled up against each other, leaning this way and that, many areas resemebled to me a crooked mouth of teeth. I wished I had taken photos, but I felt like it would have been disrespectful as photos werent allowed in any of the other places.

In any case, this blog is getting quite long, so Ill end it there. I hope you all are well! I sent a bunch of postcards from prague, but I dont know if the lady gave me the right postage, so hopefullz they will make it!