i am in the picturesque czech town of cezky krumlov for an easter escape; it’s very cold & has been raining quite a bit, which is a bit of a shock after india, but there are plenty of museums, galleries, shops and cafes in which to lose oneself away from the weather. the vlatava river (moldau) curls around the old town which is nestled beneath an impressive middle-ages castle. the streets are narrow and cobble-stoned, there is barely a straight wall or a square angle to be found – the whole place reeks of oldness. having grown up in a country where anything more than about 50 years old is considered old, i don’t think i’ll ever get over my fascination with being in places where i can actually touch things created by people many hundreds of years ago. i’ll also never get over the feeling of being able to jump in the car, drive for four hours, and not only be in another country but be somewhere where a different language is spoken, a different currency is exchanged, different road rules apply … and the complex history of thousands of years of human habitation, power struggles, agriculture, developing society …

it is quite a touristic town, and i am also here purely as a tourist. it’s still very cold – remnants of the heavy snow of europe’s winter were all around us from the bavarian forest into the bohemian forest – and it’s been raining quite a bit; but there are still enough tourists around to cause traffic jams in the castle’s tower, & for people to be turned away from the very nice vegetarian restaurant we went to last night. i’m not sure that i would want to be here in the tourist season, as the town is tiny and must just become nothing but a tourist place. however, the baroque theatre at the castle – which i’m told is a must-see – is only open for tours from may … so we will have to return, in the high season …

but never mind that we can’t see it now; today we’ve been in the castle museum, up the tower, and to the egon schieler gallery; still to come is the mirror labyrinth, marionette museum and the historic fotoatelier siedel. we might go to České Budějovice tomorrow (where the main square is named after otakar II – already i am thinking of tintin and king otakar’s sceptre … ) & to the nearby “tscheschien neuschwannstein”, schloss hluboká. we might, but then again – we’re on holiday; we don’t have to be tourists every day …