Bohemia Autumn – Adventurings

when you move to sobo (southern bohemia), the first thing everyone tells you to do is go to the top of klet’ mountain. at 1,084m (3,556ft) it is the tallest mountain of the blanksý forest, southwest of ĈB and northwest of ĉesky krumlov. to put it in comparison, mt. erie in anacortes is about a third of the height at 388m (1,273ft). they say on a clear day you can see the austrian alps! so, it wasn’t exactly a clear day…. but we finally made it there.

we took the train 35 minutes south to holubov, a hamlet popular with outdoor enthusiasts and mushroom collectors (ie, pretty much all czechs). on the way we passed a “firemans’ day” happening in the village and unintentionally wandered right into an arena where several people where about to test their skills with a firehose! i ran to get out of the way of the spray, but one such hiker not far behind us got completely hosed.

upon reaching krasetin, we encountered a lift up the hill. yes please. both of us had assumed this would be your normal, run-of-the-mill funicular…. and it turned out to be a chairlift. that was different… and i had a good laugh afterwards when i realized it was alex’s first ever chairlift ride.

(above, looking down at the chairlift track or lannovka to the north)

it was actually the foggiest day i’ve ever seen since moving to CZ but that wasn’t going to ruin my klet’ plans! there is a decent restaurant at the top where i chose something from a menu i couldn’t at all decipher and ended up with fried pieces of cauliflower over potatoes with a salad, so not bad.

we took the southern trail down as it was only 6.5km to ĉesky krumlov… and there happened to be a festival going on– st. wenceslas day, a state holiday commemorating the death of the czech prince st. wenceslas and is usually marked by food, drink, music, and folk dancing. and in krumlov, they always know how to put on a good festival. it was fun to watch the children singing, dancing, and tapping to traditional songs that i’m sure everyone knows besides us while sitting in the sun drinking a glass of wine. there was an amazing crafts market as well that made me wish i’d brought along a few more korunas.

funny that we ended up here even though we weren’t planning on it! and finally conquered klet’. lovely sunny autumn day in southern bohemia.