Cesky Krumlov (http://bit.ly/jyBxtM) was very cute and quaint and in the evening and in the bright morning light looked perfect.
Lovely view of the castle and the castle tower.
View of the town from the castle.
The town square.
During the day with swarming tourists, the place looked a little more like Disneyland than a World Heritage site. The other factor about the town was that, as my Italian friend pointed out, there is no one living within the old town and everything seems to be for show. We saw many Asian tourists, a bit more Chinese and Koreans than Japanese. I’m concerned that sooner or later tourists would be figuring out that the town is somewhat fake…
A blog by Ayako Mathies 
[…] any tourists and any touristy gift shops open to disappoint me as was the case in the village of Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic where I visited in May, […]
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No one lives in the old town!!! That’s so bizarre, and more than a bit disappointing. One of the really great things about Matera, another World Heritage site, in Basilicata, is that in this people do live in the town’s oldest structures–buildings fronting caves dug into the ravine that composes the town. In fact it make you envious as you clamber about. Ken
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Italy is very much like that and my Italian friend mentioned Italians would never travel to this kind of Disneyland-esque town because they have real historic towns with real people living in them so this just does not make sense.
Would love to visit Matera!
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[…] So the city of Vigan in the Philippines was named a “cultural” World Heritage site in 1999 by UNESCO which was the reason why I decided to take this trip to visit Vigan. Unfortunately as I have experienced with some of my past visits to these World Heritage sites, this one was somewhat run down and was a Disneyland type of site. […]
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