chocolatebuddha » Archives » Cesky Krumlov : Meeting and Parting

The town is so tiny that you can walk from one end to another in 10 minutes. And it is so tiny that you’ll start seeing the same faces more than once, this being totally at the opposite spectrum from all the previous places we have visited.

Last night alone, we bumped into the two Australian girls twice, once on the way to dinner and again on the way out of dinner. All four of us knew we’d see each other again today at the main tourist sight – the castle. Indeed we met again in the morning, as expected, in the castle and decided to meet up for dinner and drinks later at night. Only on this fourth encounter we exchanged names.

Laura and Tam told us about a gem they found during breakfast – a lovely English bookstore with new and secondhand books. I didn’t realize that being surrounded by English books could be so satisfying – then again, I didn’t realize how much I missed being in an English environment.

At the counter of Shakespeare Bookshop is an eccentric lady with long frizzy hair, both on top of her head and underneath the arms, and generous bosoms proudly unhidden from the blue sundress she was wearing. Here I restocked my vacation reading with an autobiography of Franz Kafka, a more suitable read now since I have been acquainted with his city of Prague.

A brief picnic by the riverside with the castle on our foregrounds saw painters putting the views down on canvas and kayaks rowing along the rapid stream. As the sun shone gloriously on us through a cloudless sky, we spent the afternoon catching up on our reading and writing.

Briefly before 7pm, we met Laura and Tam for dinner at an outdoor terrace overlooking the castle tower. The castle tower is painted brightly like the colorful icing that would decorate a birthday cake. Over roast duck, beef, rabbit, dessert crepes with cottage cheese and 2 litres of beer, we exchanged stories about where we have been, where we are headed next, what inspires us, what we were seeking and where we eventually want to be in life.

We bade our goodbyes four hours later without exchanging emails or last names but a concurrence about how much travel meant to us. A brief encounter it may be but an encounter we probably won’t forget. As the saying goes, a rolling stone gathers no moss.