It takes time to fill up

Hluboka nad Vltavou

At the front desk Ms. Lady Receptionist is talking with Mr. Whoever, so I bellied up to the bar, so to speak. Did you see that? Ms. LR broke off her chat with Mr. W and gave me a not quite “Well, what now?” look. I said: “Sorry to bother you again, but the toilet doohickey in my room fell apart—again.” She responded, not altogether contritely, that it would take some minutes to send the maintenance man—the same one who “fixed” it the first time. I assumed. (And I've got an unflushed load on my mind--to put the frosting squarely on the cake.) I'm beginning to lose my cool and remind her a bit tight-lipped this is the second time today this problem has occurred.

Suddenly, Mr. Whoever, who seems to be somebody with authority, comes to life as if he had suddenly been plugged in and says in a few words and gestures to follow him. OK, so we go back to the “castle” room and he in his turn fiddles with the doohicky (which is obviously broken since the whole thing comes off in your hand) and says: “It just takes a little time to fill up.” With a straight face, mind you! “What! Time to fill up you say?” “Yes.” “Oh really!” says I and yanked the lid off the toilet tank. “Look! This tank is as empty as it was when I went to the front desk. This tank is obviously broken, can't you change our room?” putting the lid emphatically back on the tank with, perhaps, a slight bang! He nodded solemnly and said: "Yes, please gather your things and we'll exchange the key card.”

the king's room

splish-splash

Problem solved; and the thing that had us in stitches and oohing and aahing is that they gave us an upgraded room—a “king's” room, which was more than three times as large as our budget “castle” room. In fact, the green and dark red pseudo-marble bathroom, was nearly as big as our previous “castle” room. We just stayed in and lounged around in the “king's” room for the rest of the evening—and slept, of course, on a king size bed.

A fairy tale ending in a fairy tale castle.

In the morning we toured the castle and wandered around pointing the ever present camera here and there. Below is a selected sample of the pictures I like best. 

Patience! Patience! I've come to the end of this absurd but true story. 

Zamek Castle, Hluboka

landscape garden

Zamek Castle from the side

door knob

spiral stairs

church in downtown Hluboka