Český Krumlov

While planning our summer excursion to Bohemia, I have found the trilingual – Czech, English and German – information site of possibly the most beautiful part of Bohemia, the South Bohemian Region. Among the many useful infos the most spectacular one is this interactive map of Český Krumlov, where you can read the detailed description and history of each building by clicking on its image.


This detailed inventory of monuments – as I got to know from a volume that I found by chance some days ago in a bookshop in Vienna – was compiled in 1992 as a part of the legal documentation when the town was included in the UNESCO World Heritage list. Perhaps this is the reason that, although several Bohemian historical cities sell such beautifully designed 3D maps, unfortunately none of them are put on the web in a similar interactive edition.

Český Krumlov is a peculiar place not only because in spite of the deportation of the German population after 1945 and the massive devastation during the Communist era it still appears such an intact medieval town as if 13th-century masons, knocking the plaster off their trowels, said “well then, this is Český Krumlov” and the town has remained ever since like that. But also because the Vltava river, in a truly astounding way, describes a large S-crook in the middle of the medieval town with several meters of difference in level. If you stay at the bottleneck of the crook, on the side of the town theater at the beginning of the Horní Brána, you can see the same river flowing almost above you to the right side, and deeply under you to the left. Your sudden vertigo will be effectively soothed in the beer-house Barbakan right across the street.


Update: We have uploaded here the map of restaurants in Český Krumlov. We will update it soon.