As we approached our designated day off Petr and Tom suggested we visit Česky Krumlov, a UNESCO protected town two hours south of us. We had a look on-line at top places to visit in South Bohemia (the region we are in) and not only did it come up as number one, the next few things where all IN the village!
After some hesitation, its quite a while to travel for a day out, we decided to go for it. Tom said we should leave the day before, after work and stay in a hostel so we had more time. But we didn’t want to spend too much, so we opted for an 9 am bus that would get us there for about 11. Giving us a good five hours before getting a 4pm bus back. We would have to make two changes, one in the next town and another in Tábor, I think. Nothing to worry about though, as the stations are small and there wasn’t long waits between them.
We invited the other volunteers to come along, Constantine had already planned to go to Prague but the Australian couple, Tania and Richard, where up for joining us. And so our plan was set. And seemed invinsible.
I was hoping to be able to annotate the map, but I cant work out how with my current apps. Oh, where art thou Microsoft Paint?
We are in Votice heading to Česky Krumlov.
We all piled on our bus and asked for tickets only for the driver to say that it didn’t go there. Luckily Tom had given us a piece of paper with the bus times and stops written on, which I showed to the driver and he nodded and gave us tickets to the first stop.
Our first stop however was, wierdly, in the wrong direction. Olbramovice is just north of Votice and too small to warrant putting it on the map. Literally three min journey.
As we drew up the bus driver signalled that we needed to cross the road to the stop on the otherside. So we all piled out again and got across the hideously busy high road to see a bus pulling away from the stop. It couldn’t possibly be ours though. I mean, it would have been impossible to get across faster and besides my phone said 9.07 not 9.08.
30 minutes later we decided it must have been our bus.
This is where we where stuck.
For an hour and a half.
At first we thought its fine, we will just get on the next one.
We looked at the time table.
We couldn’t even find the bus we missed let alone work out when the next one was.
Eventually one came along but it was going to Votice.
So back to the time table we went.
I mean, there wasn’t much else to do. We where stuck in a shelter with a giant bone on a highway.
I suggested that we go back home, do our five hours and try again the next day. Everyone agreed that was a good idea. Right. How do we get back though? We had just said no to the bus to Votice 10 minutes ago. Nobody had a 3G phone. Esther where where you?!
We contemplated walking along the road, it would probably take about an hour but it was pretty busy road.
We contemplated walking over the field pictured above, surely there must be some old roads liking this mini village to Votice?
However there was a restaurant on the other side of the the road, so we sent the boys over to investigate wifi, while we stood guard and contemplated hitchhiking without them (they had already stated that there was no chance anyone would pick up all of us). The plan was to contact Tom on Whatsup and ask them to collect us.
By they returned unable to add him, although they got internet. By this point the time tables started to make some kind of sense, I worked out that there was no chance of us getting a direct bus to Česky Krumlov. However there was a place called České Budějovice, which surely must be close or at least in the area. If we got there perhaps we could find a connection… And sure enough when I checked our planned return journey one of the connections was there.
So we abandoned plan Get Home and managed to get a bus at about 10.30, which promptly drove straight back to Votice before heading to Tábor in about 40 mins (we spent about an hour and a half on the train there!). We got into České Budějovice and just as Tania found the first english speaking person of the day we spotted a bus to Česky Krumlov and ran for it! We where finally on track again! if not a couple of hours later than planned!
Traveling Bugs and other Animals 