Day 16: Prague (again)

I'm writing in a Net Cafe with Zafeer waiting to go do one last tour around the Stare Mesto, so some quick quick blogging of the last few days.

• Thursday (night) Nothing more of note after the last post, except that on the way back to the hotel I decided I wanted one last beer before bed, and popped into a grocery store for one. I grabbed a can of the cheapest stuff they had, paid my 15Kc ($0.75) and was off. Unfortunately, the beer was horrible. Which is fine, I can drink horrible beer, but it was also warm, which was just too much. So, once back in my room, I had to commit a cardinal sin and pour the last two thirds down the drain.
• Friday Went down for a day trip to Plzen, taking a plush bus for only 80Kc ($4) each way. In Plzen there wasn't a lot to see, but I checked out the cathedral, toured the Beer Museum, and poked my head into the Pilsner Urquell brewery, though I was too late to take the tour. I did grab a pint on the brewery patio, then headed back into Prague and wandered around the old town a bit before heading in for an early night, since on...
• Saturday ...we had an early morning in order to get on the road south in our fancy rented Skoda. On the way down we stopped at Karlstejn and Hlutova nad Vltavskou castles (I'm guessing at those spellings since I don't want to look it up). We got to Cesky Krumlov about 6pm, found out every hotel, pension, and hostel in town was fully booked, and took off back up the road to try and find something nearby. We found a guesthouse (sort of half camping, half hostel, half pension) a few clicks up and also found out we'd gotten into town in the middle of the Festival of the Roses, hence the lack of hotels. We drove back to Krumlov (lovely) walked around the festival a while (festive), had dinner (all right), then walked around a bit more and heard a South Bohemian rock band doing "Like a Rolling Stone" (unique!). Then, back to the hotel, unfortunately too early to catch the festival's fireworks.
• Sunday Got up early to see Krumlov castle, then hit the road to make it to Konopice before its castle closed. All these castles were nice, by the way, but after the third one they start blurring together. After that last castle, we had some Italian for dinner, hit the highway and were back in Prague by seven (after having to drive on the sidewalk to get around a fender-bender between a Fiat and a cement truck). Now, it's almost nine, and we've got to be up by 6:30 tomorrow to return the rental car and catch our flight. So, like I said, it's one last tour of the Stare Mesto, one last crossing of the Charles Bridge, then it's bye-bye Prague.

Tomorrow, the early morning I just described, then it's Spain by the afternoon, my family by evening, and at night the Spain-Tunisia match.