Lost

It was sometime after three in the afternoon, and we had been walking the quiet valley in Southern Bohemia for about three hours. Coming out from the wood, up a gentle grade past summer cottages clustered at the edge of a meadow, then past several at the edge of a stream, we began to hear traffic passing on a nearby road. The forest gave way to fields, then the occasional industrial building. Next we walked along a narrow road lined on both sides with compact houses. A mother in a doorway could be heard loudly giving out to her child before finally relenting. In ways, the neighbourhood reminded me of certain streets I’ve walked along in Southern California. It was not a prosperous or impressive street, but the houses, each with its small garden, some with wreaths of autumn colours on the doors, reflected pride and a sense of belonging, the acknowledgement of being ‘at home’ felt by the homeowner.

Himself and I, on the other hand, were not feeling at home. We were hoping that, when we came to the end of the street, we would recognise enough of the landscape to discover where we had parked the car. Though neither of us said it to the other, with each step this hope seemed increasingly dim. We were not even sure we were coming into the right village.

There was not much traffic on the road we came out onto. Nor were there signs to identify where we were. I approached a man walking out of the gate of the yard before a small machine shop. ‘Do you speak English?’, I asked.

He shook his head.

‘German?’, I tried, then added quickly, ‘Deutsch?’

By this time, Himself, normally reluctant to ask directions, had reached my side.

‘Bahnhof?’ he asked. The stranger didn’t seem to speak German either, but this much he understood and pointed around the bend to our left.

How far? ‘Wie weit?’, asked Himself.

The man held up fingers. ‘Vier.’ Four. Zero. Zero. Only 400 meters. Good news. Except I was pretty certain by now that we were not in the right village after all. And by now, we were unable to agree on even its name, retaining only the vague sense that it began ‘Tri’ and ended with a V. Or maybe an R.

We were lost.

All Saints Day is a holiday in Austria and, for the first time since we arrived, the holiday fell on a Monday, giving us a long weekend. We decided on a short holiday stay in our favourite Český Krumlov pension. We spent a lazy Sunday afternoon on our room’s balcony, wrapped up against the chill and looking across the river at the fantasy-like painted tower. Later we strolled the streets, quiet and nearly deserted this cool Halloween evening, stopping to watch the play of light on the dark river. In the morning, after an indulgent and late breakfast, we set off to explore the surrounding country, following directions in an old guide book.

Leaving the road from Český Krumlov to České Budějovic, we wound around a small neighbourhood of houses, through fields and into the faded village of Zlata Koruna, site of a 14^th century monastery. Another five kilometres farther, in another village, we turned right to find the railroad station we were looking for, really just a open-fronted shelter at the edge the tracks. We parked in the small car park and a few metres away found the shrine the guide book had mentioned and just beyond it the dusty track also mentioned. Two tracks in fact, one turning to the left and down a shady leaf-strewn hill, the other forking to the right. Studying the posted sign and map at the trailhead – in Czech, of course – we came to the conclusion it was loop trail and decided to take the path to the right and walk full circle on the return. So off we went, crossing a broad field that smelled of a recent application of natural fertilizer. The broad path headed toward a copse of tree away in the distance. Reaching that, it descended under the shade of trees into a valley where the river ran.

Our destination was Dívčí Kámen, the ruins of a castle built in the first half of the 14^th century and abandoned two centuries later, in 1506. It lies in a valley between the Vltava river and one of its tributaries, a stream called Křemežský. Following red-and-white markers painted on trees, we walked along the winding path as it crossed and recrossed the stream, shaded by dense wood, a drift of golden leaves underfoot. Then, following iron markers indicating hrad, we started climbing again, up the rocky outcropping on which the castle is built. Soon we were climbing stone steps and walking along what must have been the barbican before entering the arch of a stone bastion. We could see the hollow in the wall that must have housed the enormous beam to bar the gate.

The castle stands high above the valley floor, and many of its walls are intact, though crumbling. It is impressively large, and walking around its perimeter, we looked down at the steep hill falling sharply away beneath the walls. The remains of a tower at an outer defensive wall stand, giving a view over the valley. From the floor of the castle interior, you can see massive red, white and grey boulders incorporated into the walls, the stone fissured in neat straight lines. The residence of the castle, at the end of an enclosed courtyard, apparently stood three or four stories high. At the top of the wall large windows also look out across the valley, too high to have been vulnerable to arrows or other missiles. It must have seemed impregnable, surrounded by water, its walls rises several hundred metres above the valley floor. It is currently under restoration; in fact a pair of men were at work with mortar and stone. Still, it is surprisingly accessible, open to all who take the trouble to find it. Rough timber benches have been assembled, suggesting the availability of informational talks and concerts.

From the barbican walls we looked across the quiet valley, trees still thickly leaved, though whole patches of deep yellow and orange stood out against green. Nearby is strange formation of rock, a narrow free-standing wall of shale-like grey-black stone. This natural rock wall stands about 70 metres high and extends possibly 20 metres deep, but it is remarkably narrow – as little as two or three metres at some points. It juts eerily into space, tall and narrow with irregular faceted face, water at its base, trees growing around it and from it. It too must have formed some natural defence for the castle.

The castle ruins, hidden in the wooded valley, the brooding wall balanced beside it, the dark waters of the winding stream and wider river, and the pale late-fall light seemed other worldly, as though we were lost in a mythical place, beyond time, beyond the familiar. And so it seemed as we picked the path, heading along the trail now marked with yellow-and-white symbols painted on trees. We considered how far we had walked. Two or three kilometres? More? I ventured it was as far as from our house in Ireland to the barracks at the juncture of the road to Cahir.

Did I really think it was that far, my husband wondered?

I didn’t know because we haven’t yet seen how far we had to go.

And so we walked, uncertain when we would return to the loop trailhead, talking of this and that, trying to remember how many bridges we had crossed along the way, stopping to look at overhanging rock formations, wondering if the summer houses we passed had been, before the Velvet Revolution, those of Communist party officials.

‘I don’t remember those red buildings,’ he said at last. Nor did I. Clearly we were not yet at the end of the trail.

The noise of traffic from the road was louder as we approached a slip road. But which way should we turn? Himself thought left; I favoured the right. And soon we were walking that direction, lured by the yellow-and-white symbols I saw along the way. Not long after that, we found ourselves on the small street of houses, then out on the main raod where the stranger pointed us in the direction of the bahnhof.

Which, when we found it, was not the train station where we had left the car. We were now in Holulov, and we had no idea how far it was to the car, or even which direction to turn. We stood near a mounted tourist map, though, and we were able to locate our starting point. It was Třísov, and it seemed to be about two kilometres away. A school boy, about 12, sitting on a bench near the station, didn’t speak either English or German. However, he gave directions in Czech, delivered with incomprehensible fluency and accompanied by a succession of motions indicating that we should go straight, then right, then left then right and . . . .

To us, bewildered tourists, they made no sense at all.

There was no one else about. The tourist office, signed with the familiar green i, was closed, as was the café next to it. We looked around at roads going right, left, up and back in the direction from which we came. At last, we looked at the train track, its twin rails pointing neatly, inevitably, unequivocally to our destination.

And so we started walking again, in the fading afternoon light, through the broad countryside, stepping from railroad tie to railroad tie between the iron tracks.

 I was nervous, periodically looking over my shoulder. Shouldn’t we walk along side the track, I urged, starting every time a car or truck engine roared in the distance.

‘Don’t worry,’ Himself assured me. ‘You’ll feel the vibration as well as hear it.’

I knew he was right; still I tried walking to the side of the rails. I found myself stumbling over rubble, scraggy shrub and the corners of ties, however. It went smoother stepping neatly along the ties, some of them creosoted timber, some smooth concrete. Passing markers every tenth of a kilometre, we counted down our progress. I was relieved when the rails crossed the river to find we were not on a narrow trestle but on a wide earthen bridge nearly indistinguishable from the surface we had been crossing.

The midday blue had drained from overhead; the sky faded to monochromatic pale tones. To our right, hills curved gently upward where here and there dark cattle and sheep grazed. To our left, the land dropped off into a shallow valley where the bright gold and russets of the trees were also dimming to shades of monochrome. Distant trees bristled blackly along the horizon. The grey tarmac road cut diagonally across the broad fields and the tracks, then disappeared. We wondered aloud at the strange sight to passing drivers we must make.

It was late now, and I was getting tired. I stepped from tie to tie with less energy than before. It had been many hours since breakfast, and I began to stumble, catching the toe of my boot on the edge of the ties or on the protruding spikes. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if, in the face of an on-rushing engine, we could jump clear in time.

At last, though, the gentle curve of track unreeled and I could see, in a grey-toned space at the edge of the world not far from a wood, half hidden by a red car behind a white one, a navy blue car.

‘The car. I see it!’

It was indeed our car, though we were still about five hundred metres from it. In my excitement, I began leaping again with enthusiasm, nearly running.

‘Slow down,’ said my husband. ‘Hang on!’

I did so, reluctantly. However, there were just a couple hundred metres to go. Then, finally, we were in the car and out of the chill, boots replaced with soft shoes, tucking into the food we had packed – cheese and ham and pâté, apples, rolls and fresh tart.

‘Hunger makes the best sauce of all,’ said Himself.

And he was right.

Český Krumlov

We arrived in Český Krumlov on a mellow fall afternoon, the sky blue and cloudless, the sun warming but not scalding. Perhaps because I had not seen pictures of this remarkable town and had little idea what to expect, on first sight it stunned me.

Located on a nearly perfectly round peninsula in the River Vltava, the same river that runs through Prague, Český Krumlov is late medieval-early Renaissance village in the Southern Bohemia region of the Czech Republic. On the recommendation of a neighbour, we had stopped there on our way to a week’s visit to Prague.

Overlooking the town from the top of a low outcropping is a large castle, the second largest in the country after Prague Castle. In one of its many courtyard stands a tall tower. This is painted with elaborate designs and motifs in russet, peach, pink and jade and topped by an arcaded galley and a domed copper roof gone green with age. It was this tower standing stark against the pale fall sky that I found so startling.

It fills the skyline and rises above a tall arcaded walkway that is almost as startling. Looking at the arcade from below, you stare through a series of high arches in a white wall that, on the day of our visit, framed the intensely blue sky. People standing on the loggia looking down seemed tiny in the distance. It reminded me of a painting by Italian surrealist Giorgio de Chirico, though not so brooding.

Virtually encircled by the river, the town is an UNESCO World Heritage site. Few cars are allowed in the city’s narrow cobbled streets and platzes; visitors park in one of three municipal car parks. (Lot 1 is the most convenient.) As we made our way from the car park through the town to our pension, our suitcases bumped behind us over the timber planks of the bridge crossing the river and then over wide, uneven cobbles, through narrow streets heaving with people.

After leaving the bags in our room, we climbed a steep narrow street and entered the broad main platz. It’s surrounded by Baroque buildings, each with its decorative façade of curves and pediments. People sat in benches in the sun watching the fountain. Others sipped coffees or beers in front of the cafes ringing the square. From an incline beyond, the steeple of St Vitus church rose above the square. The tower and large Renaissance-style castle dominated the view from the opposite side.

As a destination, Český Krumlov seems like a playground, an historic site qua theme park, filled with tourists of all types: Groups following tour guides, parents pushing strollers, families with children trailing, others with dogs on leads, middle-aged Americans in matching wind breakers and white athletic shoes, young couples holding hands, stopping to kiss each other deeply every few steps. Voices and accents revealed nationalities from all over Europe, America, Australia, Japan and China.

Narrow streets are lined with small museums, gift shops displaying carved wooden toys, amber, both honey-coloured and green, scarves and gloves, and typical souvenirs of the type found the world over. But it’s not only kitsch that’s available.

For a short time, Český Krumlov was the home of expressionist artist Egon Schiele, and a museum in his honour offers exhibitions of contemporary art and helps foster a lively cultural scene. There are galleries, too, selling original work, colourful art-glass, prints and reproductions. There’s even an English-language bookstore. (Imagine me as a kid with nose-pressed against the glass of a candy store.)

The river flows rapidly for most of its circuit around the town, but near the old mill, its waters collect in a wide placid pool before rushing over a weir. Next to the weir lies a submerged ramp, its incline sharp enough to produce shrieks from the paddlers of  canoes, inflatable rafts and kayaks as they plunge over it and splash into the brown waters below. Sometime the crafts capsize, and their passengers scramble for paddles before re-boarding and continuing downstream.

Despite their playful shouts, and despite the profusion of shops and tourists, there is a serene air about Český Krumlov, as if one has stepped away from reality to enter another world, one as nearly cut off from the quotidian world as the town is islanded by the river.

On this gold-drenched day, it was peaceful wandering its river-side lanes. The trees on the steep hillside into which the town is tucked were just beginning to burnish; gentle light flashed and sparkled on the river’s surface. As evening set in and the sky paled, then darkened, we could see from the castle overhead pin-prick flashes as people tried to capture the experience digitally. It would be a hopeless effort, we agreed; the sense of the place was ineffable.

The next morning, we followed winding streets to the castle, then stood staring over a stone parapet into its moat where, about 50 metres below, a tame bear lumbered around a shallow pool. We climbed the steps to the top of the tower and looked out at the town below us and the hills that surround it.

We toured the castle and were guided through rooms filled with period furniture and lavish decorations. Many of its walls are covered with elaborate, fanciful frescos or coats of arms. Even the plain exterior walls are covered with trompe-l'œil paintings, giving the castle the appearance of a Renaissance palace decorated with bas relief sculpture.

From there, we passed through the arcaded walkway and climbed the hill to the castle’s large formal garden. In the sunny warm morning, we wandered among its clipped hedges and disciplined flower beds, stopping at a monumental fountain poised on a series of steps looking toward the castle in the distance.

At last, though, we followed the scent of wood smoke to a small building tucked away in a corner. Through the door we entered a dark passage that led to a low-ceilinged room. Here we found a chef barbecuing steaks, chops and sausages over a large wood-fired grill. We had not planned to stop for lunch, but the sweet scent of burning logs was enticing, and we settled at a plank table where we could watch the cook work. Moving ceaselessly, he placed thick cuts of pork and beef on the grill, meticulously repositioning them as necessary, adding logs to the fire as it burned low.

The beer was good, the food wonderful and we relaxed in the cabin-like retreat, warmed by the fire, for a time far from crowds and remote from the exotic grandeur of the castle, its courtyard, tower and gardens, lying just beyond the threshold. Then we walked out into the soft September light, heading toward our car and Prague.