24-25 June 2011 - Czech Republic pt3 Ceske Budejovice

I'd planned to come here long before setting off having used the town in an Urban Design paper for university. It's stunningly beautiful and at the heart of everything is a large square which, in a previous draft of this had about 8 paragraphs written about it! Consider yourselves lucky I've been up to quite a bit since then and need to get cracking updating the blog so will cut it right down.

Anyway, before all that, I'd got to town at 2ish, to find the hostel I'd booked didnt open until 5, it was above a Cuban themed pub, once you were in and had a key, you could come and go as you please, but before them, nothing to do but wait for it to open up. Again it was baking hot so found a park bench and grabbed a book. Within 5 minutes a tramp came to keep me company and as I hadn't got and Czech Koruna yet, had a fun negotiaton over a donation for him - 5 Euros? no I've only got 1, 4? no, 3?...

After that, two immaculately turned out young men were passing and caught sight of my English language book to introduce themselves as Americans. Turns out they're Mormons on a mission in the city for two years there to do the door to door knocking. After a long, long chat - to be honest there was nothing else to do - I was invited to a free meal that night to hear more Good News.

Directions to the Ceske Budejovice Mormon church / temple / house?

Cooking for myself in the hostel later started with a nutritionally balanced meal:

Ceske Budejovice is the home of the original Budweiser (now 'Budvar') brewery

But then I fried up some soup - everyone needs a break from heavy meat dishes sometimes:

Soup 2.0, if you're going to eat something healthy, at least fry it

So, to the point, Ceske's main square is the second biggest in this part of Europe, and beautiful. Surrounded with varied coloured and textured buildings (I really want to say 'rhythm' and 'pattern', but have left my urban designers regulation funky specs at home).

Ceske Budejovice square from the 'black tower'

Just as I was about to get my full geek on about how well they do car parking and a whole load of other little bits (the square is too big to feel comfortable in so they park cars facing inwards which makes it feel smaller and safe because of the constant movement and being overlooked), a load of bikers turned up to save me, and you, the pain of all that rambling.

You could hear them from miles away

There were hundreds of bikes

Never did get a call back...

Turn's out it was a bank holiday weekend and the local bike club was doing a big ride out, a policeman marshalling the event told me their name but it was one of those you'd have to write down. With that, another quiet night catching up on photos and e-mails, it was on to Austria the next day...