"Really, Český Krumlov thrust itself upon me. There, one learns to appreciate the world from above."
- Egon Schiele, 1911
The town of Český Krumlov, pictured and described above, is really beautiful. It was about a 4-hour train ride from Prague, populated by about 15,000 South Bohemians, and home to a very pretty old medieval castle. The real reason it's famous, though, is because of this guy:
That's the painter Egon Schiele, and yes, I'm working on a hairstyle like his. He spent most of his time in Vienna studying with Gustav Klimt and painting with the other members of the Vienna Secession, until he died of Spanish Flu at age 28, but his mother was a Czech from Český Krumlov, and for a year or two in his career, he lived there doing landscape paintings and living, quite scandalously, with a 15-year-old model called Wally, who he later married. He was run outta town by the locals because he used to paint Wally naked in the garden all the time, which was pretty unacceptable, I suppose. He also painted creepy erotic portraits of her like this one.
After this trip, and after seeing his work at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, I'm a huge fan of Schiele, and it was cool to see his ancestral town, including, the Cafe Fink, where he used to drink and soak in the Bohemianness:
Here's me, soaking it in, too:
When we arrived at the train station, we saw a sign advertising free lodging in return for work, pinned to the station wall. We called the number and it turned out to be an American transplant called Bryce, who was totally hilarious. He picked us up from the station, and asked me what my mandolin was (my case was slung over my shoulder). When I told him, he said, "Dude, I've got some Grisman on in the car right now!" and we sped off to his 16th century farmhouse, just outside the town, where we spent 3 days hauling huge trashpiles of broken concrete, cleaning out store rooms, and burning brush so that he could get the place in working order. It looked like this:
We only worked in the mornings, then explored in the afternoons. It was a beautiful town. Here are some images.
A yellow house on the canal:
The chimney above the bicycle factory:
An old Catholic shrine, obviously torn out by vicious, godless, bloodthirsty Soviets of the bygone days:
The Hodinarstvi:
The castle, the Lord:
When we left, Bryce, who had been smoking a lot all week, said to us, "Yeah guys, go on, don't worry about it... The cycle must continue." We nodded our heads. It was the truth. Then we drifted down to Vienna.
