Bad Hersfeld To Praha-Prague

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Well We thought it was about time you all heard from me and some of my thoughts on the journey so far. The cycling has got a lot easier even though i will never catch up with Robin, he does stop quite a lot to look at birds and this gives me the chance to catch him. My legs have got much stronger and my calves will never look the same again. I think we are eating enough too which is great and we have really enjoyed German bakeries and chocolate, but unfortunately last night I bought some non chocolate from an all night shop in Prague. It beats even Chris´ choclate flavoured cake covering at only 10% cocoa it was horrible. That has been our biggest food folly so far. The cheese in the Czech republic is the best so far and the bread is as good as Germany and at a much better price, but they really like caraway seeds through the bread.

I suppose I should let you know our progress since Bad Hersfeld.
We set off uphill after a relaxing day in town, having done computer stuff and Robin actually managing to buy a cycling helmet big enough to fit over his dreads. 5km later at the top of the hill I was really struggling and realised that my front tyre had lost lots of air, this was quite annoying as it was the new tube, we had only put on a day before when I destroyed the last one with the old pump and my inability to use it. No problem I thought, I´ll use the fancy new pump we had just bought. But I could not get it to fit. This caused lots of stress, as we thought we had bought the wrong pump and the shop was shut and we had come all the way up hill. We managed to coax the old pump back into life and made it to the tiny village at the top of the hill to find the shop shut. Whilst despairing at the thought of having to go back down hill to get food and stay untill the next day to return the pump, a nice woman popped her head out of the window and offered us food and a meal with her for the night. This was great, but then we noticed movement from inside the shop and the shopkeeper let us in even though she was adding up her till at the end of the day. She also filled all our water bottles for us. We found a lovely camp that night, in the forestry and in the morning I went back down hill to the bike shop to be shown how to use the pump. It works now and I suppose I have done some valuable hill training. This was good beacuse we headed off to Thuringer Nature Park inside the Old East Germany. The hills rose up and the forests got thicker. Robin disappeared from sight but I kept cycling enjoing the lazy hairpins that just kept going on and on and eventaully we made it to the top at 830m. We found a forest track off and a clearing by some shooting huts, it was too tempting, we camped in the clearing away from dense undergrowth and ticks and insects. But in the morning the huntsman appeared and told us off with a big grin, as we were in his deer clearing.
We had a lovely day cycling down and down and along the river on a road that was being re-tarmaced so was closed to motor traffic. We got to Bad Blankenberg for lunch and the temperature was 30°C so we found a nice shady park and looked at the maps whilst we ate. During this a nice old man appeared and sat down to give us a lesson in Czech and tell us about a cycle path to the next set of reservoirs (Saal river) we had spotted on the maps. It was a very amusing langauge lesson and he informed us that Slavic people do not speak German, they are Shtum. It took us a while to explain that we knew what he meant by Shtum. Anyway every one we meet here seems to be able to speak some German!

We found the reservoirs and had the nicest swim ever and enjoyed our dinner sitting on the edge of the beautiful lake. We waitied untill it was dark and whilst watching the approaching lightning, which had been brewing in the heat all day, pitched camp at the side of the road. We were up early because of our roadside location, but that morning had a visitor- a VW golf had a massive puncture and pulled in beside us. So we chatted with him for a while untill help arrived for him as he had no spare wheel.

We planned a rest day for the weekend and went to Reservoir Pohl near Plauen. We stayed here for 2 nights but the weather was showering, however we had a bit of a rest but did not stay in the massive campsite which was pumping out europop. We just camped at a picnic site in the woods with a view tower.

We went on to Erzegebirge Vogtland and into the clouds and rain showers. This was our first day-time rain since a few showers in Scotland! We had planned to get over one more pass that day, but at about 4 pm the heavens opened. Just at that point Robin noticed some very cute wooden Teepees at the side of a wood and we dived in to take shelter. As the cloud descended further over us we decided to get in supplies and stay where we were for the night. I left Robin making tea in the hut/teepee and went back down the 1.5 miles to the supermarket we had passed. We really loved that night in the hut, it felt like a Scottish Bothy and nobody bothered us. It was nice not to have a wet tent to take down the next morning.

Onwards to the Czech border and up over the hill then down the otherside, this was quite chilly as the waether had turned and we could not really enjoy what would be a beautiful descent. We arrived in Barenstein and spent our last Euros. Looking over the border, which here is a tiny stream with a rusty iron "curtain" fence, towards the Czech republic was sobering.The town Vejprty was not Very Pretty at all! In fact the town was a typical stereotype of Eastern Europe. Buildings crumbling, tower blocks crumbling, tarmac-not much- roads atrocious. And it started to Snow! We found shelter under a crumbling shopping centre, with all its shops shut and boarded up and ate our lunch. There were two old guys dressed in regulation blue boiler suits, who were also there sheltering and doing nothing, staing at the miserable snow-sleet. It was all very Dr Tchvargo ( I have spelt that wrong haven´t I?) Any way all our stereotyping turned out to be rubbish, when I approached one of the old guys to ask the time in my faultering czech he giggled and replied in German. He was German and was waiting for the live chicken sales van that had just appeared. Suddenly the square filled up with everyone going to buy their live chickens!

We set off out of town up over the mountains, the weather was freezing but the place beautiful, however I had just got too cold and tired and the thought of a pension in the town Kadan was what was keeping me going. However Kadan was very touristy and all hopes of cheap eastern europe were false. Capitalism was here and Robin reluctantly let me go to a pension for the night, we did find a room with shower and breakfast for 21 GBP, but this is the most we have spent so far for accomodation, in fact it was more than we had spent on accomodation on the entire trip this far!. Looking back we should have got food in the unpretty town and camped in the mountains, but that would have been freezing and we managed to mostly dry out our shoes in the room that night. We found a bike shop the next day for more brake blocks, beacuse the descent in the rain down from the German border had completely gone through our brakes. We set off into much nicer wheather accross the Czech countryside. It was great to see a view again after Germany, which had all been forested with hardly any open vistas. The Czech Republic opened up around us and we could see the mountains which border the country as our horrizon over the hay meadows and wheat fields that were liberally spread with poppies and vetch (pretty). The Roads were ok and the villages looked normal- no more eastern stereotype crumbling! In fact we fully appreciated that we are not in the east yet at all, but are actaully in the centre of Europe.
However there are some confusing differences to the rest of Europe we have visited before. We were cycling through another small village when suddenly orchestral music started blaring out from the village PA system, it was very surreal. We imagined it was a hang-on from the commuinst era of state propaganda, as it seemed to be traditional stirring songs and some feel good message. The locals did not seem to notice it much though and we felt quite sorry for some poor guy who was desperately trying to use his mobile in all the noisy music.

We found a nice wood to camp in after stocking up in Lidl supermarket (all the supermarkets we had seen so far seemd to be German) and the next day enjoyed the easy 20 mile ride to Praha. We had been given a tip of a good campsite in Troja, north of the centre and thought it was also marked on our map. However this was where the first of our problems started as the bridge on our map was not there. Not too put out yet we cycled back and found another bridge. I wanted to ask someone straight away where the campsite was, but Robin was put out a bit at my lack of trust in his route finding, and said no it´s this way. It was definitely not that way and eventually we gave up and headed back accross town to a campsite marked on our photocopy of the lonlely planet. This campsite was horrible and with sinking hearts we read the warning signs"do not leave valuables in your tent it is not safe!" Robin spotted a map which showned 5 campsites very close to where we had just come from! Ahh Ahh! It was hot and we were starving and bothered! We went back down the hill and checked out a room finding service on the way, they could only give us somewhere for 20GBP and we would have to move locaction each night. So off we went back to where we had started looking and after 2 hot hours and an extra 20 miles of pedalling we found a whole street of campsites.

We are in a lovely one, Auto Camp Trojska, which is run by a lovely couple in their back garden and is in a very posh part of town and is very secure, we have a key to the gate and the couple are checking to see everyone who comes into the camp. They have also locked up our bikes in their garage for free for us.

What can I say about Praha: It is Fabulous. So beautiful, lots of music, lots of pretty buildings and nice parks, a lovely river. It is very touristy but probably no more than Edinburgh and although we do notice the groups of lager lout English stag nights it is good fun and there is a nice vibe here. We have been to U Flecku - the oldest Brewery in Praha. Robin was outraged at the price of beer 1.25 GBP for 0.4L of Beer, but it was great stuff (black and fruity). We were served in the beer garden and there was traditional music from a Tuba and Accordian. Still we can not afford that U Fleku beer for long, so have headed to the other bars where 0.5L is 0.50GBP much better, and there are some beers in the supermarkets for 10 pence, but most are about 20 pence! We found some fliers for Reggae nights in town and went out on Friday night until 5 am, it was light when we got back to the camp site. The late night has meant we did not do much yesterday and are debating today of whether to go to a dub night, Music goes on very late and I do not think you can go out and still get much sleep if you need to get up.

We plan to leave tomorrow and head towards Zakopane in Poland for some mountain walking and then go south through Slovakia towards Budapest.

It will be good to be on the bikes again, but I could defintiley spend a long time in Praha, and I recommend to you all to come here. Probably you should avoid the room finding service and head straight to our campsite as they do rent out little bungalows too.

Hope everyone is well and that the British summer is going ok.

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Photos

Kadan
The town of Kadan, where Erika decided to double our accommodation budget in a single night!

Free Luxury Accomodation
Bivvied out in a wooden tee-pee on our last night in Germany, in the clouds.

Not so Vejprty
Welcome to česka Republika - the town of Vejprty which has definetly seen better days. (Vejprty is pron. a bit like very pretty!)

Praha from Karlovy Most
Evening light on the 'golden city' from Karlovy most (Charles' Bridge), Praha

Saintly statue on Karlovy Most
We thought there was something missing from this guys statue.....

Iron Curtain?
The border between Germany and the Czech Republic at Vejprty - and probably the second illegal photo on this blog!