The Allisons

Czech Republic: Cesky Krumlov

This was a cute little border town. There's a river that encircles it, making the town like an island. There were a ton of shops, restaurants, and another "castle". I think the colorful tower in this picture was a part of the castle. It took forever to get our food at lunch (I had vegetable soup in chicken broth with homemade noodles--very good and Mike had a trout with french fries), so by the time we were done, we didn't have a whole lot of time for anything else. We took a quick run through the "castle". It was built into a rock hill. It was long and we basically just went through the courtyards; in one side and out the other. This bridge spans the gap between one rock hill and the other. We took this picture of the city from that bridge. We basically followed this walkway all the way through the castle (it was much bigger than what you see in the picture).
This is one of the churches in town. The bottom, right picture is just some colorful buildings along the river. In the next picture I am standing in front of the fountain (but you can barely see me) in one of the castle courtyards. I'm not really the focus of the picture. :) You can tell by the number of pictures we have of the tower, it was the prettiest thing in the city and it dominated the skyline. At the end of the castle walkway, we found ourselves on a bridge over the bear habitat. You probably can't tell a whole lot about his size, but let me assure you, he was a big'un.
Truth be told, I might have enjoyed this little town more than Prague. I don't think Prague quite met my expectations. I mean it was pretty cool, just not as "bohemian" as I had hoped.
We stopped for supper in Austria and I had some goulash. It was awesome! Not like Meme's "Garrett goulash", but good nonetheless. ;)