17. Bohemian Rhapsody

We arrive at a lovely campsite, just on the edge of the village of Chvalsiny (Pronunciation: make the sound of someone clearing a hefty wedge of phlegm from your throat, whilst being punched in the gut. Followed by val-sheeny). It has been run for the last 20 years by a Dutch couple, Jan and Arns (spelling? not a clue here). Naturally, it’s full of Dutch people, which is great, as many of them speak passable English and are generally very laid back.

Chvalsiny 

The village is typically southern Czech: a couple of pubs that serve good beer and cheap homemade food, a couple of shops (one of which is always a Coop), a massive and pretty church, and a couple of technicolour schools. 

They like the colour orange here (as an exterior paint colour), closely followed by yellow or lime green, and the schools are particularly colourful. So are most new houses and flats – often painted in colour-blocked designs of orange (of course), yellow, pale pink, raspberry pink, lime, mauve, and terracotta. You really can’t miss them and they are not very nice, but I’ll give them an A+ for effort.

At the campsite we are surrounded by forested hills and open meadows, so we go for a walk in the woods. We see a fox-sized, fox-coloured animal dart across the meadow, and disappear fox like, into the woods. Steve says, ‘I wonder what that was?’ I mean, seriously?

We both hear the hammering of a Woodpecker, then the sound of chirping coming from a tree nearby: a Woodpecker’s nest, with hungry babies. We skirt away quickly, so as not to freak out the mum into deserting the nest. I was also delighted to see mounds of purple Lupins growing wild beneath the Pines, Silver Birches and Lime trees.

We pass the obligatory shrine, and then stumble upon a couple of old railway carriages on the edge of the woods – and they hum, loudly. One is being used as a massive bee-hive, the other as a shed, by a lovely fellow called Jiri (pronunciation: Yeer-Zhee) which is Czech for George.

My dad used to keep bees, so I know to walk slowly and keep the buggers out of your hair – otherwise they will get stuck there and panic. Jiri invites us into his shed to see how he strains the honey and offers us some if we bring him a jam jar.

We walk back through the meadows, which are spectacular (like the ones you see in films that can’t possibly be real, only better). So many drifts of wildflowers in so many varieties. Butterflies, birds, weird and wonderful little striped bug things, and others that have bright orange arses and a tendency to hover around you like tiny drones. It is magical.

Steve takes a jam jar up to the woods and then rolls back down the hill over two hours later. Jiri has produced, first, a beer, and then his home-brewed Rowanberry liqueur. 52% proof. Not a typo – genuinely, 52%! They have quite a few shots, enabling Steve to happily sit there with bees all over him, while a fully-outfitted Jiri goes into the main carriage and pulls out racks of bee-cloaked honeycomb to show him the Queens in action. 

Cesky Krumlov

(Pronunciation: pretty much how it looks, except the C is a ‘ch’ and the Krum is a ‘kroom’)

10km down the road from us is the medieval town and Unesco World Heritage Sight of Cesky Krumlov. Arns leads a guided walk there every Monday evening, so we go along to get the lowdown from a local. It starts with us all congregating in a pub and having a beer, which is a very good start in my books. And it certainly is a lovely little place.

It nestles in the lee of a vast castle, built around 1250 by the powerful Rosenberg family who owned…everywhere,according to Arns, for about three centuries. The main gates are still guarded by two bears that prowl around a pit that extends under the bridge into the castle. A remnant of earlier times. But it is the gloriously decorated castle tower that dominates the landscape. For my birthday, we climb up the castle tower for a view over the town.

The Old Town itself is circled by a loop of the River Vltava. This means that on a sunny day you can sit in almost any pub, with a beer and a schnitzel in front of you, watching boat-loads of people scream their way over the weirs and then fall in the water – right in front of you. Good times.

The Old Town is incredibly pretty, with many of the buildings being decorated either with paint, or with repeating tile patterns scraped into the stonework. It also boasts a fabulous park on the hill with a revolving theatre.

It was also the home of Egon Schiele’s mum, so there’s a nice museum with some of his work. But I preferred the tiny Museum of Commerce, full of old tills, tins and typewriters, wonderful signage and bonkers mannequins.

The water pump

(Pronunciation: heap of shit)

We drive to the nearest caravan and camping shop to buy a new water pump: the old one apparently felt violated by Steve trying to fix it’s leak, and has now committed suicide. When I say the nearest, I actually mean the only, caravan and camping shop in the Czech Republic. It is 150km away.

Steve installs the new one: it makes a noise like an Apollo rocket lifting off, and now the loo flushes with a certain reluctance.

Grown-up problems. Sigh.

Hluboka

(Pronunciation: Hoo-lu-boe-ka)

We take a day out to forget about the water pump, and find this extraordinary building perched above an unassuming little town.

The Five-petaled Rose

We think we’ve seen the best of southern Czech, and feel very blessed – but then, on our last day, we hit the mother-load. The opening of the Five-Petaled Rose Celebrations in Cesky Krumlov!

This takes place every year and is a three day festival in honour of the Rosenbergs (the five-petaled rose being their insignia). Lots of medieval costumes, and parades, and jousting, and hog-roasts, and people selling huge amounts of weaponry, and mad gothic music. And belly dancing: no idea why, but who cares.

The tiny town is full of seriously over-excited Chinese tourists having their photo taken with Czechs in frocks.

The town square holds the main stage, and when we arrive a series of dances are being performed, by the ladies of the local Exotic and Oriental Dance School. So, lots of belly dancing, and lots of other dances that use props like beautiful fringed shawls or swords balanced upon heads, but as far as I can see are basically variations of belly dancing.

Then a procession led by the Rosenbergs arrives to much fanfare and cheering. All the nobles are presented to the knobs, as kids squirm in linen shirts and velvet dresses, and dogs try hard to look regal whilst sniffing each other’s bottoms.

There are some people that give the impression they’d prefer to dress like this all the time.

There are workshops for all things medieval; leatherwork, pottery, authentic food and medicine making, glasswork, etc., and of course the blacksmith – who shows us the best way to light a fag with a coal.

The market has an abundance of armour and weapons on sale. Ranks of longbows and crossbows, tons of hatchets, scimitars and swords, and a rather fetching brass bra.

Towards dusk, we wander off to another stage set in a park. Arcus, a group described as playing Gothic music, come on and spend a fairly painful-sounding ten minutes tuning up two bagpipes and a couple of stringed things, one of which is played like a guitar, the other with a bow. Not a clue what they are, and also fairly doubtful that I am going to like Gothic music, or anything with too many bagpipes, but curiosity and beer keep me in my seat. They also have long leather skirty-trousers, which are a bit worrying.

The Arcus guys arrive

But they are great. And maybe it is the incessant quaffing I’ve already done, or just the mood of the festival, but once the drums start I don’t give a toss that the tuning up has been largely unsuccessful. I just love it all.

And I’m not alone: the kids all start dancing, and whirling, and doing cartwheels in front of the stage. Then some of the mums join in with their kids (in that way that says ‘I can get away with dancing like crap because I’m dancing with a four year old and I’m lowering myself to that level. I’ve got moves, oh yes, just not doing them today’).

And then, oh joy, some of the velvet-clad, Anne Boleyn-bonneted ladies, (who clearly attend that dancing school), start twirling their hands and hips, and doing something vaguely belly-dancer-ish, but with total abandon. Heads are flung back, arms shoot up flamenco-style, and skirts are twirled until we see the tops of their pops. No on is looking at the stage.

Until the little boys get up on it to show off their moves (or wave to their mums), encouraged by the tall hairy chap in the photo above. One little jerkin-clad moppet is so unspeakably cool, they get him to introduce their next song, and give him and his mate free CD’s.

Aw, bless him

This all leads nicely up to the torch-lit procession back through town, before the serious drinking gets under way to the fire-eating and twirling show (with draped python?). We just have a brilliant time.


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