Officially, this was Cruise – Day 15 – Budapest.
However, today’s “Cruise Brochure” comprises – “After breakfast, it is time to farewell your fellow passengers and disembark the ship.”
And that’s what we did !
Then, we set off on our “Post-Cruise” tour.
We have another 9 nights (and a car !!) to take in some of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia before we get back into Hungary and Budapest for our last couple of nights before heading home.
Today we whizzed through 3 countries – Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic – and we are at Hotel Gold in Cesky Krumlov. Ahhh, Europe – it’s such a small place ! Across 3 countries in less distance than LA to San Francisco and there, not even another US state within cooee! But I digress …………..
Disembarkation was pretty smooth and quick. Our packed bags had to be outside our cabin by 7.15 am. They were out by 7.10am and as we left for breakfast 5 minutes later they had already been whisked away. It is “all hands on deck” for the crew in organising all the bags ! Even the head chef was lugging and sorting the bags. We had our last breakfast with Therese and Bob and after collecting our remaining luggage, we were at reception just after 8am to wait for our 8.15am taxi to take us to collect our rental car. The taxi driver was already waiting and Csaba, our cruise director quickly headed out to the dock to find our bags and help lug them to the taxi for us !
The morning traffic was again busy but the car pickup went smoothly and just after 9am we were driving across the Danube and out of Budapest. It was not long before the city made way for farmland scenery. We have a Hyundai I30 for this leg of the trip and it drives quite nicely. About an hour into our drive we passed through the town of Gyor in Hungary. Not significant in itself however I have a 95 year old client who was born there and fled the country before WWII to make good in Australia – up till about 10 years ago he owned the Sydney Tower Restaurant business !
Over the next 3 hours or so, we almost retraced the last 4 days of our cruise, passing not too far from Bratislava, Vienna and Melk to name a few – 4 days of cruising in 4 hours in the car and I think we crossed the Danube a number of times also ! On crossing into Austria we stopped at a service station for a coffee and to collect our vignette for the Austrian road tolls. The drive was beautiful- clear blue skies, green forests and fields dotted with the occassional bright yellow canola crops and brown plowed plots. As we reached the Czech Republic, the towns became smaller as did the roads – supposedly “major” routes almost one lane back roads !
In Cesky Krumlov – the river next to our hotel
It was about 3 pm when we reached Cesky Krumlov and checked into our hotel – right on the river in a picturesque location. Adrienne had a walking tour prepared for us so off we went. The old town is situated low down in a gully on a little tight bend of the Vltava River and the castle towers above. We walked through the town stopping at all the lookouts which either had a view of the river or the castle, or both. We then followed the winding lanes then up through the main castle – which has a number of courtyards – to the castle gardens at the top of the hill. Retracing our steps – and stopping to take so many photos of the spectacular views on a picture perfect day – we again reached the town and decided to have an early dinner at Hotel Dvorak and watch the boats float past on the river.
Cesky Krumlov – panorama of the old town from the castle
In the first castle courtyard
Late afternoon reflections on the river below the castle
After dinner, we strolled back to the hotel to put our feet up. We were very lucky in arriving later in the day as a lot of the tour groups had left or were leaving so the town wasn’t too crowded. We knew we were back in an old “Eastern Bloc” country when we went to bed – the bed was as hard as a rock ! Thankfully we only had the one night to cope with it ! Overall, we really enjoyed our visit to Cesky Krumlov – certainly made by the gorgeous weather !
Today’s “Tour Trivia” – from the end of World War II until 1989 the town fell into decay. With the fall of Communism, restoration efforts began in earnest, leading to its inscription into the UNESCO World Heritage List only 3 years later in 1992.