Spring

I love the Czech springtime - in particular I love the spring flowers. As I indicated in an earlier post spring has a habit of arriving with bang, overnight even. The countryside, which is at first brown from what are usually several months of snow, starts to turn green. The first flowers appear and spring is definitely sprung.

One of my favourite spring walks is past the Castle Gardens above Cesky Krumlov and up to a little hill above the town. Here among the woods is what looks to be an old hunting lodge of the Schwarzenbergs. And all around the hunting lodge in late March you will find lovely purple buttercups (see above), which form a sheen on the forest floor. You circle around the hill and drop down to the Cesky Krumlov Castle Gardens. If the Gardens are open go in and wander in the less formal area around the revolving theatre and pond. Here you find even more spring flowers. One Easter I spent a whole afternoon lying on the grass among the flowers looking up at the tree branches just breaking into leaf. Among the flowers are Stars of Bethlehem, white anemones, and little cowslips (which my Czech friend calls primroses, but they are unlike English wild primroses). I am working on getting the walk together as a pdf for our website www.ceskykrumlovholiday.co.uk - will let you do when I do, so you can download it and discover the walk for yourself.