Cesky Krumlov Floods 2013

Did they say the flood reduction works would stop a once in a century sized flood?  This argument was used to justify the destruction of Cesky Krumlov's historic riverside and island, the grubbing out of a channel creating a speeding river where once had been a slow one, and the replacement of soft river banks with man-made concrete and granite walls. Well on Sunday the reduction works experienced their first test and failed.

In 2002 Cesky Krumlov and Prague suffered devastating floods as waters released from Lake Lipno rushed up the Vltava. This time the cause was different - we have had unseasonably wet weather last month which meant the ground was saturated when on Saturday the heavens opened for a massive downpour which lasted over 36 hours.

The water having nowhere to go ran off the fields into the streams turning them into torrrents and from there the waters poured downhill into the waiting River Vltava.
Residents in Cesky Krumlov's riverside properties were woken around midnight to sirens and the warning that the flood was on its way. The floods not only hit the area along the Vltava, but also along the little rivers and streams. As we drove into Cesky Krumlov the following morning along the Chvalsinska Road, we could see that a small stream had turned into a monster and swept across the road, flooding properties and car parks. A white car lay crushed against a fence. 

By the time we arrived in Krumlov historic centre the flood levels had already dropped 1.5 metres, but the sight was still impressive. We went to Laibon Restaurant on Parkan, which was open despite having been under 10 cms water earlier that morning. Life goes on, as it has done after countless floods over the centuries.

The truth is that no flood reduction work could ever be fully successful in Cesky Krumlov. Floods have been a way of life in this town and without raising the town by several metres they will remain so. The reduction measures have even had a disastrous consequence, which was foreseen by the former civic engineer Mr Pesek, namely the walls of the houses in Parkan are showing large cracks, due to the drying out of their foundations. Let's hope the Town Council doesn't see this as an opportunity to throw more money at failing to address the floods and so ruin this lovely town.

Englishman Swimming the Vltava River

Paul Whitaker is a keen sportsman, but (he says) by no means an elite athlete. Nevertheless, in October 2009 he set himself the daunting challenge of swimming from České Budějovice (leaves 28 June) to Prague (arrives 17 July). That's 175 kilometres, which is about 174.90 more kilometres more than I could manage. He plans to swim three hours a day, followed by back-up boat containing two Czechs and hopefully a barrel of beer.

Apart from the usual British "because it's there" motive, Paul is doing this to raise money for a Czech charity, Asistence, which supports people with disabilities. And I reckon we expats should be supporting his efforts. So come on dear reader put your hand in your pocket for Paul.

Donations from within the Czech Republic the bank details are bank account 235376432, bank sortcode 0300, from outside it is IBAN: CZ3103000000000235376432, BIC: CEKOCZPP, Bank: Československá obchodní banka, a.s., Radlická 333/150, 150 57 Praha 5, Czech Republic.

Paul has a website on http://www.vltava2010.cz/en/ if you want to know more, and includes a blog for Paul's diary.

Update - Riverworks

My last but one post dealt with the changes that have taken place whilst I was away, however one thing remains as it was - the state of the riverworks. This is probably for the good. Just before I left Cesky Krumlov, I met with an excited friend of mine, the owner of a restaurant on the river below the castle. “I heard it on the radio,” he said, “UNESCO are coming for a visit. Because they have had letters from people about the island and the river. Bloody marvellous!” And he shook my hand.

This coincided with a rise in the river levels due to summer storms. The unstoppable riverworks stopped. And they have not started again, even though the levels are down again. The town is agog, what has happened? What has UNESCO done and said? No one knows.

On Friday I met my restaurant friend again, “What has happened? You heard what happened in Dresden.” I had heard that the UNESCO world heritage status had been removed from the Elbe landscape as a result of a bridge being built there. However I explained UNESCO have a sort of football referee system, yellow card first and if you don't mend your ways you get the red, quite a lot of places have yellow cards and very few are taken off the pitch (like Dresden/Elbe). If the UNESCO visit found, as we all believe there to be, failures and irregularities in developments in Cesky Krumlov, then the town would probably go on the at risk list, the yellow card. We must wait and see.

Meanwhile the diggers lie idle on the banks, a temporary throroughfare of smashed rocks and rubble is still in the centre of the river waiting their return. And life goes on, the island is turned a canoe park and even as in this photo a beach for bathers. The ducks are back.

PS Readers of my previous posts on the subject might be interested to know I never did get a reply to my letter to the Mayor, even though he was obliged to give me one within so many days. No surprise there then.

The Devil's Wall

As I am in the UK at the moment I have decided to write a few posts about some of my favourite walks and other sights around Cesky Krumlov.

At a place on the road from Lipno to Vyssi Brod, a little way after you pass Loucovice, you can pull into a carparking area called The Devil's Wall. This remarkable piece of geology sits at the top of an oxbow in the young River Vltava as it makes its way down from Lake Lipno. It is a large cliff of granite slabs left there during the Ice Age by a glacier and nothing is going to move it, not even modern engineering.

Having an afternoon free I decided to make a walk around the area. I parked at the car park but resisted the temptation to stand on the top of the cliffs, that could come as a climax to the walk, instead I followed a path indicated by red lines on the trees down through the forest to where Lake Lipno II (the smaller sister of the larger Lipno to the west) sat in the valley. I followed the path (now a small road) into Vyssi Brod and then took the circle route which runs back first along the northern edge of the lake and then along the northern bank of the River Vltava. The route enters a steep canyon where the giant slabs of granite lie in the riverbed and line the sides of the path.

I crossed the single-track railway line and left the cycle route to enter a nature reserve. The walk had been lovely up then but here it was stunning. Here the path runs right alongside the river which rushes and gushes its way, forcing its path through large granite boulders. This part of the river is called Certovy Proudy, the Devil's Torrents, and with some cause. The river is utterly impassable by canoe here and a sad tribute can be seen to one canoeist who presumably tried and failed. The woodland floor was covered with lily of the valley and other woodland flowers.

Having walked back along the road from Loucovice (a rather sad dull place dominated by its paper mill) towards my car, I took the short track to the top of the Devil's Wall. It was already dusk, but the views along the valley and of the trees clinging to rock were still impressive. I walked back to the car park, delighted to have another lovely walk to add to my collection.

Beachcombing on the Vltava

By way of making amends for not blogging for a week, here is the second post in 24 hours.

On arriving back in Cesky Krumlov I went for a favourite walk of mine along the banks of the Vltava River through the town. Already preparations are underway for the so-called improvements to the river – barriers have been put up ready to exclude people from the worksites, large concrete pavements are being laid to carry the heavy machinery. Then of course there are the sad stumps of the trees which had shaded and softened the walk in happier times.

I decided that I would take the opportunity to beachcomb one more time. Along the river there are small beaches covered with all sorts of treasures. In a matter of 15 minutes I had collected shards of pottery (some of it old), pieces of old tile, slag from some metal working and granite pebbles. In this medieval town you can find your own piece of history and put it in your pocket. The supplies are constantly renewed, as the river rises and falls with the seasons. On the riverbed, I gather, there are more treasures – people who have dived near the castle say there are cannonballs in there and larger rubble. Of course all this will be destroyed with the “improvements”. Have they done an archaeological survey? I doubt it.

Flood Control and Willows

The Town Council is arguing that the way to control floods in Cesky Krumlov is to cut down the willows and to remove the natural banks on which they stand with concrete walls. There are several arguments against their plans - a) the aesthetic one, most of the time the river is low and the concrete will look awful, especially in this UNESCO heritage site, b) the heritage one, they are destroying an island which has been around for centuries, c) wildlife - the island is home to nesting birds and even occasionally plays host to otters. But I for one am not convinced that what they are proposing is the best way to control flooding either.

The key thing to note is that flooding is not common in Cesky Krumlov - in fact they are planning for a 100 year flood event. How can such a rare event justify such vandalism? Now as it happens flooding is common in Gloucestershire (my English home), indeed it is pretty common in Britain fullstop. In the UK we have rather moved away from constantly resorting to concrete walls, preferring to "focus on ways that work with nature, not against it" (in the words of the UK Government). Part of that strategy is the use of willows and other riverside trees to bind the river banks. There has been some fascinating approaches which create riverwalls from living woven willow (example shown above).

Equally important is to address the cause of the flooding rather than the flood. Locally the general view is that the last big flood was caused by someone opening the sluices on Lake Lipno and releasing a huge amount of water into the River Vltava, which swept down and flooded the towns, such as Cesky Krumlov, along its banks. The simple answer would then appear to be, don't open the sluice gates like that!

For an account of the open meeting of the Krumlov Town Council, visit http://krumlovbrit.blogspot.com/2009/03/protest-update.html.

If you want to help the protest you can do two things - 1/email the Town Hall (addressed to the Mayor, Ing. Luboš Jedlička) c/o Bozena.Kaliskova@mu.ckrumlov.cz adding your name in support of the petition of March 2009 that asks for the retaining of the small island under Lazebnicky bridge
2/ write to UNESCO and ask whether they are aware of this situation, the citizens' protests, and the extent of damage the projected works may cause. The name and contact details are:wh-info@unesco.org

Snow Melt

The Vltava River on its way through Cesky Krumlov is high with meltwater from the mountains. The river is a mass of brown gushing water lapping right up to the doorsteps of the riverside houses and restaurants. The owners hold their breath fearing more snow in the Sumava or a sudden thaw. The grass where the Two Marys and Laibon restaurants put out their tables is covered and the islands opposite submerged.

How different the scene is to that in the summer when the river is full of canoes and rafts, as I described in my previous post More on Water and the Czechs, when the water is so shallow that people walk right out to the middle. No one would venture out on to the river now for a leisurely trip downstream.

Smoke

The other night I was walking down the street and was struck by the scent of woodsmoke on the frosted air. It doesn’t matter where in the world I am, I just have to smell woodsmoke and I am in the Czech Republic and in particular in Cesky Krumlov’s narrow renaissance streets on a Winter night. Somehow scent is the most powerful of the senses for triggering memories. I only have to smell new-mown grass to be taken back to the playing field of my secondary school, and the smell of earl grey tea transports me to my college rooms at Oxford. Woodsmoke on a winter night takes me to my second visit to Krumlov.

It was January and a very hard winter. I stayed with my friend in Prague, where the Vlatava river was part covered with ice so thick we walked on it. She suggested we take the train down to Cesky Krumlov, where she had a small house, and stay a few nights. I had already visited the town in the previous summer and loved it and so accepted the invitation eagerly. My previous visit had not prepared me for the impact of Cesky Krumlov in winter. Gone were the tourists, I was virtually the only non-Czech there. The town lay blanketed in snow. In the wind-less streets the smoke from the wood-fired stoves hung and diffused the light from the street lamps. It was totally magical and I was hooked.

More on water and the Czechs

In a previous post I talked about Czecho not having a sea - Wot No Sea. Anyone visiting Cesky Krumlov during the summer will have noticed that the Czechs enjoy messing about on the river.

The river on a sunny day will be full of Czech holiday makers in canoes, rubber rafts and even rubber tubes making their way down the Vltava. It is something of an institution for young people to have a holiday travelling down river by boat from the river's beginnings at Lake Lipno, sometimes all the way to Prague. Their goods are stored in plastic barrels, bottles of beer are trailed in the water to keep them cool and everyone has a wonderful time. There are campsites for the travellers along the river banks. There is a clear appeal to young couples - beer, freedom, and scantily clad females, but you will also see whole families in rafts making their way north.

Part of the fun is taking the various rapids along the way and falling in. The capsizing Czechs make for great free entertainment for the people lining the banks and bridges at Krumlov. People who make it through the rapids successfully get cheered and those who fall in in style are also applauded. If you fancy a go yourself there are shops which will hire you the equipment and even take you upriver to your starting point or collect you from your chosen destination. You don't even need to go far, the ox-bow bends in the river at Cesky Krumlov mean that you can just go round and round easily. Perhaps by the end of the day you too can take the traitorous rapids and stay afloat.