Journey Along Romantic Danube River - 2 in 1 - Linz & Cesky Krumlov

We were still in Austria, Linz to be exact.  Today, we were going to see two cities in two countries.  We first docked in Linz and we started our day with some exploration there.  As usual, our ship provided tour but, we decided against the tour this time because the old town wasn't so big and from the map, not to difficult to navigate.  Surprisingly, Linz is the third largest city in Austria and the capital city of the Upper Austria.  So, a freedom for us this morning...Yeah!  We did study the city map a little and marked which attractions that we wanted to see (which was not many).

Ref: http://www.planetware.com/map/linz-map-a-linz_c.htm

From where we docked, there was a bit of walk before reaching the city center, I would say no more than 10 mins depends on the pace.  Along the way, we passed Lentos Museum of Modern Art.  It was a box shape glass building, very modern as its name.  It was opened in 2003 sat right near the South bank of Danube river.  After passing the museum, we took the over-pass to cross a street to the left and entered the old town.  

Once we got off the pass-over, we arrived at Hauptplatz.  It looked like a typical town square of this region with the Holy Trinity Column in the middle.  Basically, this column was erected in 1723 to commemorate the city survival from war, fire and plague...that was a lot to celebrate for.

We took sometimes to get the best picture of the column but, what was more attractive to us than the column was a farmers' market that was set up just behind the column.  This kind of market was certain to have local and interesting food items.  We all agreed that we need to check it out. 

There were fresh cheese, cold cuts, honey, different seasonings and organic vegetables.  They even had roast chicken.  They all looked so good.  If we were staying there for a day, it would be very good idea to buy these produces for a picnic on the river bank.  Too bad, that could only be in our dream and so we moved on.  We took the main street (or so we thought), Landstrasse.  We planned to see about two churches and anything else along the way.  The first was coming up quickly on our left.  Ursulinenkirche was a yellowish Baroque church.  

From the street, it seemed like the church was being squeezed between the two walls.  Unfortunately, it looked like the church was under renovation.  So, we moved further and turned right on Bischofstrasse cuz, we wanted to see the big cathedral.  On our way there, we found that this street was actually quite a cute.  On both sides, there were quite a few small shops; flower shop, gallery, souvenirs...

Before we got the clearing, we looked over a wall on our right and found a pastel building in pink with a pink tree.  Actually, it was a fully bloomed tree, don't ask me what kind.  But it was awesome.  It was as if the tree wanted to show off for attention.  We wanted to know whose house was that, aristocrats, government officials or what.  Now, I know that that was Bischofshof or more simply a bishop house.  

From where we were walking, we could already seen the cathedral with its very tall spire.  That was Neuer Dom or the New Cathedral, looked pretty old to me.  Apparently, there is another cathedral call the Old Cathedral or Alter Dom.  unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to see it.  As for this one, its real name is Cathedral of the Virgin Mary  or Mariendom in German.  The cathedral was built in late 1800s.  This is the largest cathedral in Austria in terms of capacity.  They were going to make it tallest too (as if it isn't tall enough) but it was disapproved.  Why?  Because it was forbidden to build another cathedral taller than St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna...they weren't even in the same city, I just don't get it.  So, they stopped at 2 meters shorter.  Anyway, taller or shorter, I didn't care.  It was tall enough that it was so hard to get the picture of the whole cathedral...another neck-breaking shot.

The cathedral was constructed in Neo-Gothic style.  It felt kind of like stepping into medieval fortress somehow.  Its very high ceiling gave me an impression of the cathedral being very narrow.  It wasn't richly decorated but, it made up by the beautiful stain glass windows.  The pictures on the windows told the story of Linz (didn't know at the time, one downside for not taking tour). 

We walked around the cathedral and found the entrance to the crypt...woooww...gotto check it out.  Actually, there wasn't much down there.  I was expecting (or over-expecting) to see some coffins and bones but, it was just small chapel for private ceremony. 

A bit disappointed, we went up and out the side door of the cathedral.  To head back, we took another route so to see a bit more of this city.  We took Herrentrasse which was slightly on the right of the cathedral.  Once we hit Klammstr Promenade, we turned right and continued till we arrived at Landstrasse and the way we came.  From there, we retraced our steps back to the ship.  

The reason for the rush was that we had a tour to catch before noon.  The cruise offered tours to three very different places; Salzburg (Austria), Gmunden (Austria) and Cesky Krumlov (Czech Republic).  I had no idea that we were close to those places.  I have been to two out of three places (Salzburg and Cesky Krumlov) but, some of our groups have never been to.  If it was just me, I would have gone to Gmunden.  For people who have never been to those places, I suggested going to Cesky Krumlov as I think it is easier to travel to Salzburg and Gmunden.  So, we decided to go to Cesky Krumlov.  I didn't mind going to the same place twice, I love that city anyway.  The buses were scheduled to leave at 11:30am.  So for today, the dining room served brunch so that we could grab something to eat before heading out for tour.  We arrived at Cesky Krumlov around 1pm, that was really quick.  Cesky Krumlov is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and when we got close, it did look kind of like a fairy tale city.

Ref: http://media.photobucket.com/image/map+of+cesky+krumlov+/artnscience/Cesky%20Krumlov/IMG_3029CeskyKrumlovMapabove.jpg

When I was there last time, our tour started from the castle garden which was on a hill down through the castle and out the front gate.  However, this time, the castle was still closed.  It wouldn't be opened until after Easter.  So, though we could go through the front gate, we could not go inside the building which was too bad.  We entered the castle through the side of the 1st courtyard then, went straight to the 2nd courtyard.  

On both sides of the entrance was the bear moat.  The moat was constructed for the defence purposes.  The bears were kept there since 17th century, maybe to intimidate the enemy.  They have done a good job at taking care of the bears because they were so chubby...soo cute.  Wanted to jump down and hug them instead.  Once inside the second courtyard, the guide told us about the castle then, we were allowed a bit of time to look around the courtyard.  Originally, the castle was built back in 12th century by Lord of Krumlov (of course).  However, the family died of around 13th century and the Rosenbergs took over until 16th century and it changed hands again and again.  As the owner changed, the castle got renovated and expanded.  Its present size is as big as half the town.  Being here for the second time didn't lower my excitement at all.  

The things I love about this town is their painted buildings, who wouldn't like it.  Look at the tower, it was like a giant cup cake with colorful icing.  And the wall, the way they painted them, they may it looked like brick walls.  I'm just amazed for their artistic and their patience for painting the whole building.  They looked really real.  I mean from afar, I think very few people would notice that that wasn't real bricks, not until close inspection.  Nothing more to see, we left the castle via the Red Gate.  A simple name, the Red Gate got its name from its color.  A coat-of-arms can be seen on top of the gate, on the town side.  Outside the castle gate, there were more make-believe brick wall building.  

We were led to the right on Latran street.  Almost every buildings along the way were either covered with frescoes or colorful paints.  It felt kind of like walking in Disney World,  kind of unreal but, it was such a joy.

At the end of the street was Lazebnicky Most Bridge (what a difficult name).  Czech names are so difficult to pronounce.  The way they spell words really against what we learned.  They don't seem to need as many vowels.  Anyway, this bridge took us across Vltava River and to the other side of the town.  From the bridge, we got a great view of the castle and tower.

We took Radnicni street from the bridge.  This is the street that lead to the town square but, our guide wanted to show us more before ending the tour.  So, after a few blocks from the bridge, we turned to the right and to Siroka street.  This took us pretty much around the town so that we could see many more beautiful buildings.  

Walking around the town, we could hear lots of Oh Wow along the way and the buildings here clearly deserved it.  It was as if walking in an art gallery.  Some of the fresco on the building even told story about the owner.  There was one building that our guide pointed out, a gray building.  Our guide told us that the family that owned the building was quite wealthy.  Naturally, when they had a son, they wanted their son to marry a girl with equal status.  However, their son fell in love with a peasant girl and that was strongly disapproved by his parents.  The son was told that if he decided to married the peasant girl, he would not inherit any wealth from his parents.  I guess true love took over in this case.  Instead of obeying his parent, he chose to leave his parents house to marry and live with his lover.  According to the guide, he moved away and didn't come back to the house again.  On the building wall, there was a painting of old man and woman, looking out of the window.  The guide told us that those were the parents of that man, waiting for their son to come back home.  True or not, nobody knows but, after the story, the faces on the wall did look really sad.

Anyway, not much time to feel sorry, we moved on.  Around the corner, we found the town square.  The square surrounded with pastel building in different colors.  At the center of he square was a Plaque column.  Most of the city/town that we have been to, at least had one.

The guide told us that we would come back to the town square but, for now, we took a small street across the square.  We had to resist our temptation to stop and look around but, I did get a few pictures.  We were informed that there was a spot with the best view in town.  That spot was a little bit on the higher ground and opposite Jesuit College.  Well, it did have incredible view of the castle.

By the time we finished with our tour and photo session, we were starving.  Though the ship did offer brunch, we were too full from breakfast to take much.  But now, it was time for our missing lunch.  we went back to the town square and started looking for ...food.  Right in front of us, opposite from where we came, were Chinese food and Czech food.  Even though Chinese food was very tempting, we decided that we should get  tasted of local food.  So, we picked the restaurant right next to Chinese restaurant.  The restaurant name was The Old Inn.  It was also a hotel, Hotel Mestak. 

After we settled on the hotel's porch, we got on with deciding what to order.  It was certainly true that when people are very hungry, their eyes get bigger than stomachs.  At that time, I was looking for a big meaty dish.  And I found it, probably the biggest dish in the menu, a roasted pig knuckling.  I only knew that pig knuckling is a famous dish in Germany but, I didn't know that Czech has one too.  So, I assumed the same tender meat and crispy crackling.  I just gotto have it.  But before that, we also ordered some appetizers; roasted cheese and salmon tar tar.  

Both dishes were really good, the roasted cheese was especially yummy.  It was warm, creamy and oozy.  Then, the real thing came.  It was huge!  Usually pork knuckling is rather rounded.  This one looked like the whole leg.

It came with mustard sauce, fresh horse radish, pickle vegetable and grilled apple.  I really like putting mustard sauce together with the horse radish, it helped cutting the greasiness of the pork.  The meat was tender alright but, it was too bad that the skin wasn't crispy the way I like.  Other than this, we also had grilled trout but, I heard that it wasn't so special.  It even looked a little bit strange, propping up on the salad.  I guess the cook whated it to look like it was still swiming in the stream.

After took care the matter of our stomach, we moved off to did a bit of walk around.  We went down Radnicni street and to Lazebnicky Most Bridge again.  

The town was super small.  Because we were on our own, we had time to look around and saw quite a few small restaurants along the river.  

If we had time, we could have searched more and had our lunch there.  Oh well, it was too late anyway.  Once we were done with modeling moments, we went back to the town square to wait for the rest of the group.  When it was time, we left the town via another bridge which was smaller than Lazebnicky Most Bridge but it took us to Three Tiered Bridge.  This bridge was part of the castle, it was the link between housing section to the garden on the hill.  It was quite awesome because it was quite unusual also it was so thin and so tall.  We didn't really stop to look at it but, I did got one snap before being rush back to the bus.

We finally got back to our ship around 6:30PM.  We were quite tired and they announced that the dinner would start from 7PM.  As tired as we were, we just wanted to get this meal over with.  If we went too late, it would be too crowded and we might need to wait for table.  So, after we had a bit of wash to refresh ourselves, we went for dinner.  Luckily, this ship did not require us to dress up for dinner.  After light dinner, my brother and I decided to check out the town (Linz) since the ship wouldn't sail until midnight.  We just wanted to see what it was like at night.  The Lentos Museum lid up into many different colors, it was pink then blue then other colors.  A building across the river also lid up colorfully as if to compete with each other.

In the city, there were very little life.  The shop closed very early.  Most shops were closed already, only restaurants and bars were opened, and sausage stand.  We did have a sample of sausage, not that we were hungry but, the smell of sausage was so inviting ... we were on holiday anyway.  We did took some pictures of the city but, because there was nothing much going on, we didn't stay there for long.  

It was a long day and tomorrow would be another sightseeing day.  So, we went back to the ship for rest.  I think I felt asleep even before the ship set sail to Germany.


... To be continue