A Czech Cat

This is the first and the only cat I saw during the entire Vienna-Cesky Krumlov trip.  Where are the cats??  None in Austria?!

Dinner in Cesky Krumlov

Having arrived in Cesky Krumlov (http://bit.ly/jyBxtM) sometime after 7 pm on Friday, May 6, we took a quick tour of the area around our hotel.

Our lovely little hotel on a lovely little street.

View of the castle tower from our street. This was actually taken the following morning.

Czech Pilsner - always good and cheaper than water!

We ate in a rather interesting hotel restaurant with a medieval theme.  Won’t go into details but we saw a group of Chinese tourists dressed in period costumes having dinner…  The food was good.

So at last in Cesky Krumlov.

From Vienna to Cesky Krumlov

The second destination on my agenda on the recent Golden Week trip was Cesky Krumlov (http://bit.ly/jyBxtM)  in the Czech Republic, a UNESCO World Heritage Site I had so badly wanted to visit since the last time I was in the Czech Republic visiting Prague.

We were to leave Vienna on a Friday afternoon which turned out to be a fabulous day, sunny and warm, and that may have been the cause of the delay as our shuttle service was 2.5 or 3 or 3.5, cannot remember anymore, hours late for our pick up in the city – something we were very very unhappy about.  I kept being told it was due to bad traffic and the fact that the driver could not quite find his way to our hotel which we did not believe but once we got started, yes, we saw that there was very heavy traffic.

Just as we were leaving central Vienna, saw the Spittelau incineration plant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incinerator) designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser (http://www.hundertwasser.at/index_en.php) whose design works I thought I would never get to see.

Can someone please tell me if this is the River Danube...

On the Austrian side, many small patches of field mustard. On the Czech side, they occupied much larger spaces.

The border on the Austrian side.

The border on the Czech side - a casino!! (There was actually a separate "border".)

Our ride finally arriving in Cesky Krumlov after a three-hour drive.

Simple but Beautiful

From the hotel we were staying in Vienna.

I’m wondering if it’s a variation of the lamp designed by Adolf Loos for Cafe Museum in 1899.  Or just inspired by it.  Either way, very nice.

http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/cafemuseum/index.html

http://www.architonic.com/pmsht/goldman-pendent-lamp-woka/1034832

The Secession Building

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Secession