Using an eSIM in Český Krumlov

What Český Krumlov is like on a phone

Most people give Český Krumlov one or two nights after Prague, or stop here on the way down to Austria. The old town sits inside an almost-complete loop of the Vltava, which means everything is a climb or a descent and every distance walks longer than it looks. The visitors are day-trippers, photographers and, in summer, people floating down the river on rafts. Connectivity here has less to do with being central than with whether you are up on the castle terrace or down at the waterline.

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There is no airport and no direct train. Most arrivals are coaches from Prague or Vienna into the Český Krumlov bus station by the supermarket; rail passengers change at České Budějovice and land at a small station on the hill above town, a twenty-minute walk down. If you drive, know that the old town is closed to cars and you will be leaving it in an outer car park such as Jelenka or Horní Brána. Turn the line on before you board or before you leave the car — once you are in the lanes there are no street names to ask about.

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Up on the castle terrace and the tower walk you can see the whole valley, and that is where the phone is happiest. Down at the waterline and under the stone bridges you are at the bottom of a gorge, and it feels like it: slower, and with your position drifting. The riverside road out towards the Šumava forest turns properly wooded faster than you expect, and the rafting and canoe stretches through the deep bends drop out at intervals. In a sub-zero winter the battery falls away much faster than usual, so carry a power bank even in a town this size.

What a day here costs in data

A day here costs less data than a big city, roughly 400MB to 900MB, because the walking is short and there is no transport app to keep checking. What actually eats it is photographs and short video from the viewpoints above the river bend, shot several times over while you wait for the light. Spend the day on a raft and upload it all at night and about 1.5GB is a fair guess — but budget battery more carefully than data.

Districts travellers ask about

• Vnitřní Město, inside the river loop — The heart of it, and the tightest lanes in town; positions drift enough that Svornosti square is a better meeting point than any pin.
• Latrán — The strip of shops and hotels under the castle wall, squeezed between masonry and water — reception varies block by block rather than street by street.
• Plešivec — The lived-in quarter up the slope south of the river: quieter, cheaper beds, about ten minutes into the old town but all of it downhill.
• Horní Brána — Car parks and the road-side way in; this is where drivers take one last look at the map before going the rest of the way on foot.

Day trips out of the city

• České Budějovice — The nearest proper city, about forty minutes by bus on open road, connected nearly the whole way, and its huge central square is an easy place to use a phone.
• Hluboká nad Vltavou — A white castle on a rise you can see from far off; the approach and gardens are fine, while the thick-walled state rooms inside drop off noticeably.
• Lipno lake and the Šumava forest — This is the one to download offline maps for before you leave town: the forest roads and the trails around the lake run through country where masts sit a long way apart. Understand too that an emergency call does not behave like a data connection — take your guidance from the park authority and official sources, not from hearsay.