A bittersweet end.

We started our last week together travelling around southern Bohemia. We spent this week in Litomyšl, Kutna Hora, Česky Budejovice, and Česky Krumlov. I absolutely loved Česky Krumlov. Such a cute, little, fairytale town. 

Views from the castle in Česky Krumlov.

In Litomyšl, we toured the cathedral, the castle district, and spent the afternoon slowly wandering around the tiny village. We had delicious meals, found a cute Choco Cafe, and went out for drinks that night. We stayed at the YMCA, which was a really cute little place to stay in the castle area.

The castle.

Our delicious dinner and dessert.

The next day we headed for Kutna Hora. Having been to Kutna Hora last summer, I was excited to see St. Barbara's Cathedral again, and this time we toured the old silver mines in the city. That was a really cool experience. At times the path was tiny and narrow and I think I had to duck the whole time but it was fun. I can't even imagine having been down there with nothing but a candle in the medieval times. Scary. 

That evening we all ordered pizza and had some local wine, playing fun games and enjoying our last nights together.

On our way to Kutna Hora, we stopped at this little spot. It used to be a village, and is now a memorial. During WWII, the village was burned to the ground and everyone was killed because of suspicion that the villagers were involved in the assassination of the highest German official in the Czech Republic. This also happened in one other Czech village.

Memorials were the houses used to be. Each stone showed the names of those who lived there.

Touring the silver mines.

St. Barbara's Cathedral in Kutna Hora.

That next day, we left for Česky Budejovice to tour the Budweiser Budvar brewery. I had a lot of fun on this tour and we got multiple samples :) Our guide was the sweetest older man, and he was funny. We walked through the brewery, learned about the brewing process, I'm a pro now thanks to Budvar and Guinness and my home brew, and it was a really fun afternoon. 

The cutest lady serving us tasters.

Pivo prosim!

We left for Česky Krumlov that afternoon, got checked into our hostel, and wandered around the city. It was really like a fairytale village. We popped in and out of shops, they had so many jewelry shops for Czech garnets, had a trdelník, and eventually made our way to dinner at a cute medieval place. There weren't any lights, only candles and a fire, but it was a cool place and the food was good. After dinner we headed to Apotheka, a vintage cocktail bar were we had a few drinks and just talked. I had a basil martini, YUM. This was my favorite day, just wandering around and enjoying the city. 

Our hostel balcony.

A vanilla cream trdelnik.

Basil martini. YUM

On our last day, we headed for a tour of the castle, and went rafting. The castle was beautiful and we had some great views of the city and the Vltava river. Česky Krumlov has a rich history, and you could tell that it was wealthy city back in the day. We saw the castle theatre which was really beautiful and we learned how plays and operas were orchestrated during the renaissance times. That afternoon, after waiting out the rain, we all went rafting. It was pretty cold, but there may have been some liquid courage involved. It ended up warming up, and our rafting trip was really fun, even though I practically broke my knee cap, lol. 

The castle. 

Beautiful views.

Waiting out the rain, with beers of course.

Ready to go rafting!

That night we headed to dinner for our last group dinner of the trip. We had great Czech food and wonderful company. It's bittersweet that our time together is coming to an end. Tonight is my last night in the Czech Republic. I can't believe how fast this program has flown by. But I'm excited to spend these next couple weeks checking the rest of Europe off of my bucket list. I'm so excited to spend the next month living out of my backpack, but I'm sad to leave Olomouc. I'll miss this little city and everyone so much. Who knows when I'll get back to the Czech Republic and to Olomouc. Until then I'll be loving this next week in Spain!

Kutna Hora, Hluboka nad Vltavou, Ceske Budejovice, and other places I can't pronounce.

Thea and I (and sometimes Rudi!) have taken a few trips to some small Czech towns in the past couple weeks. First, we went to Kutna Hora, a little town about an hour outside of Prague. Kutna Hora is famous for its bone church. Buses of tourists stop here, but we were lucky enough to get there pretty early and beat the crowds. The church is seriously morbid and a little weird really, but it was cool to see nonetheless.


Apparently this chandelier is made from every bone in the human body.


The Schwarzenbergs Crest made out of bones.



We also saw the very beautiful, St. Barbara's Cathedral and had delicious lunch, and some Czech wine!











Our next stop was Hluboka and Vltavou, don't even ask me how to say it, I've given up on learning anything other than hello, please, thank you, and you're welcome in Czech. But, it was this beautiful little town with a fairytale castle sitting at the top of the hill. We took a train and spent the day exploring this massive castle that was once home to the Schwarzenbergs, a royal Czech family. We took pictures, climbed the tower, took a tour, and had some ice cream.




Pretending to be royalty :)





















After that, in a nearby town called Ceske Budejovice is a huge Czech brewery called Budweiser Budvar (the original Budweiser if you ask me, but that's debatable). So we took a tour, and got to see how the beer is made and got to sample some pivo too. It was really cool for me, since I didn't know that much about the brewery process to learn what goes on, but Thea and Rudi are brewmasters so they were teaching me too. It so cool to me that beer is such a huge part of the culture here. I love it!