May 6, Thursday Now it was time to leave Prague. My impression of that city is that you need many days to explore it, all that which we just had rushed bye. As we are not as fit as before and have some difficulties in walking we just manage one place worth seeing a day. There was such a lot to see, so many beautiful buildings, so many well renovated fronts, so many churches. But in addition to this I have a feeling that we had come to late. It is already too many tourists. A town in middle Europe not bombed during the Great War - this is something miraculous. Just think of that which is destroyed just now a bit more to the south in Europe!
But now our chauffeur Jirí took us up to a castle Konopiste near the town Benesov.
 It was situated on a hill and dominated the surroundings. In the garden the cherry trees bloomed and the pheasants were shrieking. The Castle hold a macaber collection of hunters trophies but there were many nice rooms too. I noticed that they had fresh flowers in nearly every room. This castle once belonged to Frans Ferdinand, the Habsburg heir, he who was murdered in Sarajevo 1914. Now it is owned by the Czech Republic like nearly all these old castles and palaces in Bohemia. A heavy burden for the tax payers but what a cultural act they do in maintaining all these historic buildings!
Luncheon in "The Mill"(Na Spilcí) - a new building in old style. The meny was: a salad, a consommé with quenelles and pasta, fried pheasant and for finish coffee with a mysterious bun, something between buns and pancakes with minced nuts.
Our bus then took us through the undulating landscape with giantic fields, yellow by flowering rape or green by corn or brown newly harrowed. The apple trees were in full blossom. There were lots of apple trees everywhere along the roads on which our bus drove. Early Summer!
We passed the town of Tabor and I noticed there were some blocks of flats with a softer form and nice pastel colours at the side of the older more barracks alike eight-storey houses which we usually noticed in the suburban districts. In the countryside the houses were gathered in hamlets and the houses were surrounded by small gardens. You could see chickens and hens but hardly any cows or pigs. From where do they get all that pork they eat?
Later we advanced into an area where you can see the ponds which are common in the south of Bohemia. It is not lakes but human made ponds, just about one meter deep and they are for fishfarms, carp fish. We could see a pond which was emptied of it's water in order to "harvest" the carp. They harvest the carp every third year.
 
"A characteristic feature of the Czech landscape is the large number of artificial lakes created for fish-farming. They number 21,800 in total and cover about
41,000 hectares. The largest of them are Lake Rozmberk and Lake Bezdrev in southern Bohemia. "
| We arrived to the idyllic little town Trebon (Trebon) The town square is surrounded by nicely restored old houses with pastel coloured fronts. |  | The palace was a longish building with fake stone walls and surrounded by an English park.
There seemed to have been a kind of carnival in the town because we met many masquraded children and decorated trucks. |
But our bus soon went against our goal for this day - Budweis (Ceské Budejovice). The road passed through an undulating landscape with hills and valleys - and suddenly - from a hill top we could see our goal down in the valley at the confluence of the rivers Malse and Moldau. It is a big industrial town but it's name is mainly known by the beer which is brewed here - Budweis. This beer not to be mixed-up with the American Budweiser which is something totally different in taste and content. This real Budweis is made only out of malt, water, hops and yeast and no additions.
We who were on this trip cannot forget the lyrical way in which Leif talked about how a good beer shall be!
We lodged at Hotel Zwon (The Swan) which is situated at the beautiful town square heding th Tawn Hall. We could hear a chime of bells every hour. Our room was a spacious attic room with skylights. The ancient beams were to be seen inside our room - very nice!
Our evening meal was at the Budweis Brewery and all drinks was at the Brewery: Starter Becherovka, Budweis Beer with the meal and Coffee with the dessert
The menu:
A tomatoe filled with cheese cream and chives
a consommé
Bohemian Platter - a slice of roasted pork, a piece of salted boiled pork and a smoked sausage and to that we were served two kinds of Bohemian dumplings and sauerkraut.
As dessert pancakes (palacinky?) with toffee sauce and icecream. Surely everything had some special name in Czech
May 7
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