Our last day in Krumlov found us walking behind the fortress to the formal gardens. The French gardens have that clipped, manicured look we see in France. Naturally it starts with an over the top fountain streaming water from frogs, nymphes, and unknown mythological gods. This garden certainly doesn’t rival Versailles formal gardens. I give it a three legged cockapoo rating.
Behind this garden is an exquisite summer house for royalty to get away from the pomp of the castle and make shall we say, certain relationships blossom. The pink and white structure has wonderful exterior hooped steps enclosed by intricate ironwork in patterns of flowers punctuated with a fleur-de-lis in the center.
Oddly in front of the royal play house is a small modern stadium that moves 360 degrees with lighting towers on several sides. This structure is used during the summer months for plays and concerts. I am sure it’s very nice, but it’s so inappropriate in its current location.
Behind this area is the formal English gardens. Perhaps by English they meant American, as it’s simply straight pathways between large trees with grass in between. I believe we call this a park. There was a nice pond at the end with great reflective pictures.
The trip home was wild. Fortunately we decided to purchase round trip tickets with reserved seats coming and going. When our bus arrived there was a thriving hoard of people crowding the doorway. A handful of them had reserved seats. After we were seated, more and more people entered for the 3 hour bus ride. Finally all the seats were gone and more passengers were allowed. Standing face to back, face to back, they piled on until people were standing on the steps leading on and off the bus. The last person was so cramped they could only look out the front doorway and from the exterior must have looked like a cut out.
The driver started the engine, adjusted his visor, and started fiddling with his Frank Sinatra album when we heard a small female voice yelling from the back. First in broken Czech and then in stilted English, “Can someone ask the driver where seat 39 is?” The bus started moving, the Czech’s nervously, steely eyed, said nothing. “Hey, your in my seat, I have a reserved seat!”, was ushered from behind. “This is my seat, I don’t own this bus, shut-up”. This continued for 15 minutes and reached a fevered pitch when we made our first stop where 5 people disembarked and 10 people were added.
Finally a young girls started pushing her way to the front and talked with the driver. He immediately pulled the bus over and opened the back door and started shouting at the dead beat who would not give the gal her rightful seat. As the bus started, I looked around, the folks packed around me all had a mona lisa type smile but did or said nothing. I wanted to applaud the justice of the event. The Czech have learned the lessons of patience, justice is not won in a day.
Two in half hours into our sardine factory bus ride a large explosion of sound erupted from under Linda. Did we just hit something or did something hit us? Linda apparently uttered a shallow scream. I looked back and through a small crevice between the standing passengers I saw Linda and she did not appear to be part of the explosion. The driver swerved to the side and got out and checked the bus. Apparently we blew a rear tire. Fortunately for us the bus has dual rear tires so we could continue our commute. He started out slowly, you could hear the tire complain with a “frop, frop, frop”. The bus was leaning towards the left rear. He continued to accelerate, “frop, frop, flip, flip” until we were up to full speed. If that other tire goes you can Czech us off your Christmas lists!
Stopping at a further then scheduled metro stop we exited the bus. I give the driver a big thumbs up and Linda mumbled, “that’s what happens when you overload a bus”.
We arrived safely to our apartment and the routine settled in. Untaping bruised toes, dental and bathroom queues, and a warmly felt greeting to all, “Good Night Bob, Good Night Gayle, Good Night Linda!”
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