Cesky Krumlov is a fantastic little town, tucked away in the hills of Southern Czech Republic; it was left in peace for centuries and was able to maintain its rustic medieval look…there were no phone lines until the 1990s!
The Germans took the place over during the war, but there was more important stuff to do than muck about with the town and it survived intact. Post war, it was taken over by the Soviets, but because there was no money, they could not demolish the place to make way for the planned “workers paradise”. The town has always seemed to live a charmed life; when the Swedes were on the rampage through Central Europe Centuries ago, they missed Cesky Krumlov because of a fog and went on to pillage nearby Cesky Budovice and burn it to the ground instead.
It was even a bit of a struggle for us to get there. From Prague it was only a little over three hours by bus, but I was nervous about this short trip and what might happen on the post communist backwater road on the way there. In the end however, it was the creature driving the bus that was of more concern. He seemed to be a thing from a future alternate Earth, bent on conquest, which was to start with any duck unfortunate enough to cross the road in front of his vehicle. I was pleasantly surprised that he actually took us to our destination and didn’t take us to some kind of secret conversion facility, to turn us all into loyal, mechanical-human hybrids.
The charmed life of the town has now been channelled into local flavour. All the buildings in the main part of the town are strictly controlled in terms of external appearance and all proposed changes must be approved by Baroslav Bigolvyc*. In the fashion of small towns everywhere, Baroslav is not only the town planner, but also chief gypsy wrangler, garnet appraiser and coffee shop owner.
In line with the rest of the country, Cesky Krumlov has decided to introduce customer service in the year 2012. At first when I heard that the concept of being nice to customers was a foreign concept, I scoffed. I mean, how can you do business with American tourists without pandering to their vanity every few minutes; but when I went out into the shops and markets, I quickly came to believe. For the most part the waiters and shop keepers weren’t openly hostile, although it did seem that they have preferred that we didn’t darken their door.
I became really frustrated with the obliviousness of serving staff after having hit my head twice on the way down the second smallest spiral staircase in the world, only to find that the waitress was completely happy to ignore me as I chased her through the ancient catacombs that made up the coolest restaurant I had ever seen. It was more even more frustrating however, when I asked her if they had a table for four, to have her say no without even looking up from the goat she was sacrificing to Satan.
