As our publisher’s three-week hiatus quickly approached near the end of July, we figured the best plan was not to have one. So we rolled the dice and started scanning for last-minute deals a la last year’s Thanksgiving in Turkey.
Spain’s Costa del Sol? The Canary Islands? Malta? We were all over the place and we hadn’t even left the living room.
However, nothing seemed to fit and we soon discovered that the German concept of last-minute travel is planning a vacation only a month in advance.
So, with the clock ticking the day after we got back from Paris, we threw together a laid-back, five-day roadtrip through the Czech Republic, including Passau (Germany), České Budějovice, Český Krumlov and Prague.
After a short overnight in Passau, which sits at the confluence of the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers (where it’s always time to get Ilz) we crossed the border into the Czech Republic.
We discovered very quickly that in addition to making delicious Bohemian fare, the Czechs know their way around a brewery. Our second stop, České Budějovice, is home to the original Budweiser. Some accounts said a disgruntled employee brought the recipe to Anheiser Busch, others suggested Busch tried to buy the rights to the town’s name (which it declined) … and in the end you have two distinct beers that share the same name.
We couldn’t get enough of Budweiser’s dark lager (and could only find the lighter version in stores) so we made a special trip to the brewery on the way out of town to get a case for the road.
While most of our trip centered on city exploration, another highlight was a quick paddle down the Vltava River, which snakes its way through the quaint, very walkable Český Krumlov. The paddle included a few manmade chutes (some rafters took the plunge, literally) and a riverside tiki mojito bar. (A longer river trip just might be on the agenda next summer).
A few days later we made our way north to Prague (with a brief, bone-chilling stop at a church in Kutná Hora). Though it was probably our fifth trip there, Prague continues to surprise and impress us in novel ways each time. We wandered through new neighborhoods and practiced our “prosíms” and “děkuju” (please and thank you).
In the end, despite our lack of foresight, the trip turned out better than we could have planned.
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