Cycling: Czech Republic and Slovakia (13 – 18 Sept 2009)

After a last minute decision to jump on a train to Prague, we sat down and made a rough route plan. It looks like our path from Prague to Paris is going to trace out a line on a map of Europe that will look remarkably similar to the tracks of a drunk staggering home from an overlong day at the races. First the steps backwards into Slovakia, then a quick trip forwards into Munich, via the dog-leg of river valley. Then another stagger off route, down across the Alps and into Italy. And finally a loop up through Switzerland and into the Black Forest, around into Germany, and back through Luxembourg to Paris.

It was 7.30am as we sat on the station platform in Prague and hooked our panniers back onto the bikes. A little odd at first to be cycling again, we spent the morning wandering around Prague, a lovely little city filled with old and beautiful and characterful buildings and churches and synagogues and clocks and giant metronomes and rivers and bridges and such. And a golem. Maybe. And definitely cobbled streets. My posterior has vivid memories of the cobbled streets.

 

The doors next to the astronomical clock, Prague

 

 

The steps up to the attic of the synagogue where the golem of Prague is reputedly kept

 

 

Prague

 

It was afternoon by the time we started cycling out of town, having acquired some food, a map, and some Kroner, as well as looking at an awful lot of things (including popping by to see Franz Kafka’s grave). The suburbs seemed endless, as they often do, and there wasn’t much in the way of bike lanes, although the footpath generally seemed fairly hospitable for bikes.

 

Leaving Prague and heading out into the countryside

 

The countryside we were entering was rolling and picturesque, and much more interesting than the plains of Poland (sorry Poland, I’m sure you have your good points, I just didn’t happen to run into any of them). The last of the summer crops were being harvested, silage was being heaped and covered, land was being ploughed, shiny new tractors were rampaging around – the farming technology has certainly leaped forward as we’ve come further south, just a few hundred kilometres north of here we saw a man ploughing a field with a horse just a few days ago. The trees were turning, and there was a chill in the air as night fell – much earlier than it did a few weeks ago. Autumn was on the way.

 

Czech countryside

 

The rolling terrain seemed to become steeper as the days passed, and the hills became a lot more like hard work. At the end of the day we’d have notched up around 1000m of climbing, without having got any higher. There were a few wildlife sightings: a group of pigs wandering around in the undergrowth by the side of the road, and a deer trying to hide behind a leaf. The terrain was lovely, forrested and rolling, and we travelled through a succession of nice little towns, on good roads, with scenic mist hovering in the distance, but no precipitation landing on us directly. Life was good. There were even lots of open wireless networks! And we hit 7000km.

 

7000km

 

 

In the town square of Pelhrimov, Czech Republic

 

Cycling through Jihlava, we found our first non-charming Czech town. It was just a bit too noisy – although it does have fort walls. Brtnice was nice and conveniently unpronounceable, and had statues of men with moustaches. We arrived in TÅ™ebíč later that day and experienced our first Czech campground; after a few nights wild camping in patches of forest. The manager seemed to have about the same grasp on German as I did, so we got along fine. The following morning we had the pleasure of cycling up a nice steep hill to get into town, and then some more cycling up and down steep cobbled streets all morning as we wandered around the Jewish Quarter and Old Town.

 

Looking out over the roofs of Trebic, Czech Republic

 

Leaving town in the afternoon, the roads were getting even steeper. Thanks to a headwind (or perhaps it was a sidewind), we only managed to cover 35km before giving in for the day. Thanks to the steep roads we’d still gained over 900 metres altitude (while losing the same amount in downhill coasting that didn’t even coast fast thanks to the wind).

 

Fields of drying sunflowers – we cycled past quite a few

 

Rain the following morning prompted a sleep-in, but eventually we rose and discovered the land was beginning to flatten out again, making cycling a much saner proposition. As we drew near the border with Austria and Slovakia the terrain became even more interesting, lots of lakes, rivers, castles, grapes and holidaying Czechs. The area is apparently included in the UNESCO list for world cultural and natural heritage.

Later that day we ended up passing by a roadside stall with large containers of suspiciously red liquids. The sign on his stall proclaimed that the liquid was burcak. We ended up camped opposite the stall, and after seeing some other people in the campground wander past with some, we found out that burcak is a type of young wine brew, legal to be sold on the roadside due to tradition. We purchased a bottle (it comes in plastic softdrink bottles) for the sake of experimentation, and found it to be quite tasty, like a mix between wine and ginger beer.

 

A tasty cylinder of goodness, purchased at the last town before the Slovakian border. It unravelled from the bag for eating, and was delicious and we never found them for sale anywhere else… UPDATED – It was Trdelník

 

The next morning as we were cycling towards Slovakia Alex got a front flat (to be followed up by another one later in the day, and then one from me as well). Once in Slovakia we stumbled across the Iron Curtain Greenway, and decided it was a much more pleasant option for cycling than the horribly busy narrow road we’ve been on.

 

Slovakia, yay?

 

The Iron Curtain Greenway proved to be lovely and quiet, and filled with interesting bunkers. Come afternoon we attempted to cross over into Dürnkrut in Austria. According to our map there should have been a bridge. According to reality there was no bridge. According to the drunken Slovakians Alex went to talk to, it’s a long-weekend this weekend, he should drink beer with them, and there is no bridge (and the map-makers were drunk).

 

Along the Iron Curtain Greenway (the demilitarised zone), Slovakia

 

Unimpressed with the lack of a bridge, we decided we were happy to call it a day. A brief hunt along the Greenway turned up a spot to camp and relax for the evening, undecided about whether to return north or head on south to Bratislava.

 

Greenway camp, Slovakia

 

Distance cycled: 428km
Average cycled per day: 65km
Rest days: None, but the cycling was following two weeks of enforced rest
Food highlights: Trdelník!
Flagginess: Low?
Sleeping arrangements: Wild camping and a couple of campgrounds
Days of rain: 3/7 (nothing very heavy though)
Public toilets: Available
Bike friendliness: Quiet country roads were nice
Free wifi availability: Pretty good