Biking For the Brave

Bart has been searching for a second hand bike to buy here in Czechia.  Meanwhile, he decided to rent a bike and go for a long day ride on Sunday, June 3.

Here we are getting my bike through Old Town Square.  Since April 26, this is a no-ride zone, as there are too many pedestrians.  Of course many tours and people aren't aware, or are ignoring the rules.  For quite awhile they had Segue tours down here, and they were banned first.  Now it has extended to bicycles.  It is really not safe to ride on the roads in this district anyway, as there are no bike lanes, and I can see why they don't want bikes on the sidewalks.  

Here is the Cyclus Bike Tour and Rental.  Very tricky to find.  I took a picture to share with Google Maps, and already 50 people have "found it helpful."

I took a picture of the map of Beneshov in case we didn't get internet off on the roads.  It happened just that way, and we ended up doing several extra miles trying to find our way around.  The map from the bike company was useless.

Back to my story: I thought I might go along, if it wasn't too far for me.  Unfortunately, he forgot to change his route to include me in, and it ended up to be much too far for me.  When Marie and I go biking, on mostly flat bike trails near Albany, we go 8-12 miles.  When we took the train and my bike down to Old Town in Prague to rent Bart's bike from Cyclus, I asked how far the ride was, and he told me 35 km.  oops.  He meant miles.  ha ha.  We rode the two bikes in scary traffic from the rental place near Old Town Square, to the Hlavna Nadrazi main metro/train station, and got tickets one way to Beneshov, in the south.  I was surprised at how long the train trip was taking.  But they bypassed the hills we later biked through, so I was tricked into thinking it would be mostly flat.
   We started at the castle near Beneshov, but we didn't tour the inside because the first tour in English wasn't until 2 pm, and we didn't want to delay our journey home by 2 more hours.  So we walked around on our own, saw the grounds, gardens, peacocks, lake.

Shrine with stations of the cross near the Konopiste castle.

Rose gardens, with peacocks screeching nearby.

Heron on a branch along the lake.

Biking on the main road along a river.

About 10 miles along our trip, I was feeling pretty good, and proud that I was doing so well.  Then the hills started.  We went up for miles.  Literally, miles!  My lowest gear wasn't working, so when they got steep, I was getting off and walking.  No, trudging.  Finally in a little town called Kamenice, north of Tynec, I broke.  Well, my right Achilles tendon gave way, somehow.  I was trying to get back on my bike after a long trudge, and as my ankle snapped, I swerved into the road with a car coming, and fell right over.  Luckily the car was far enough away to slow until I dragged my corpse off to the side.  I decided to walk again, but was so upset by now, and frightened, that my asthma kicked in and I was wheezing.  I had to stop and just breathe.  Bart had gone on, thinking I was following, and didn't come back for me for several minutes.  It turned out I thought he had headed one way, and he had gone another, due to Google Maps sending him on a long loop to avoid going the wrong way on a one way street.  I was ready to go through private lawns, if that was going to make the way home shorter.  

We decided to try for a train back.  No trains in this town.  The shortest route to a train was back the way we had just come by several miles, like 5 or more.  In retrospect that would have been the best option, as it would have been downhill.  But in our ignorance we decided to go northeast toward Strancice (which is not where we live, in Strasnice!).  It was over 6 miles, up over a big, giant, enormous, steep hill that ended in a dead end at the top.  I was NOT going to turn around.  We asked the homeowner at the top if we could cut through the fields behind his house to get back on a road.  Yes, we could, and he also offered us water.  If only he had offered us a ride!  But, on we went.  Lovely views from up there, but the phone batteries were getting too low, and we were counting on them for directions, poor though they were.  

One last uphill slog through Strancice to the train.  Then Bart had to carry both our bikes up a 3 story tower to a bridge over the railroad tracks to get to our platform.  Map My Ride showed us with over 21 miles, but the last several it was on save mode, and showed a direct straight line between towns, which I promise you was not straight.  As we were riding home, the train stopped on the outskirts of Prague at a station that sounded familiar - Hostivar!  On our metro, the A line, we live at the Skalka stop, and Hostivar is just one stop further, at the end of the line.  I impulsively jumped out of the train to take a shortcut home, and left Bart to return his rental and meet me at home.  But the train stop of Hostivar is not the metro stop.  And when I asked for directions from someone who, of course, didn't speak English, he said the metro doesn't actually go to Hostivar, only the tram.  Which doesn't allow bikes.  So I had to ride again on my bike, alone, with a dying phone battery, on city streets, then along a path by the railroad line, with shanty houses and scary, lonely places, through a marsh, and fields, actually carrying my bike over big railroad tracks, to get home.  And if you know me, you may know I don't like railroad tracks, not one little bit.  And this was still on my bad ankle.  My offspring promise me I will laugh about this some day in the distant future.  That day has not come yet.  It is June 23 (Happy Birthday, Grandma Honey, I love you to the moon and back), and my ankle is still painful, swollen, and yellow bruised.  We did go on another 10+ mile bike ride two days later, to the Hostivar Reservoir, but that is another tale.  

Second Cesky Krumlov Post

Floating down the Vltava, 20 June, 2018.  The Europeans want the day first, then the month, and then the year.  One more thing to confuse us.  

As we were floating through the forest, past the steep slopes and rock outcroppings, I was imagining cave people and Neanderthals living along this river.  Later we went to the Municipal Museum, where they showed archaeological digs and artifacts from this area, so it was true!  There were bones from the big mammals too, like cave bear, prehistoric wolves and horses.  

We were never alone on this river, as there were so many other boats with teenagers, adults and families.  In a few areas boats were pulled to the side and men peeing in the woods, practically waving as we went by.  Really?  Men and dogs, peeing any old place seems a common thing in CZ, even in the cities themselves.  They just turn into a corner with a shrub or bush, or even a fence line.  Watch for puddles on the sidewalks!  Those and little brown piles are from the dogs.  The dogs are very well-behaved, mind you, but the owners not so much.  But I digress.  More on the dogs in another blog.  

Piles of stones, don't know why.

The second pull over beer and snack area in the forest.  Bart is under the tent dutifully getting his picture taken with a beer yet again.  

Those upside down boats by the tree apparently are another popular area for men to stand and pee.  The green barrel to the right, and the white one near the river go in each boat and are for storing things you want to keep dry.  The beer gets tied with a string to float behind you, since the water is pretty cold.  

Capsizing after the second chute past the rapids.  

Arriving in Cesky Krumlov

June 20 - 22, 2018

We took trains south from Prague to Cesky Budejovice, and then from CB to CK.  The second train dropped us off way uphill of town, and we walked down, through a gateway that attached the castle to the castle theatre, across little bridges, and into the center of the medieval section, surrounded on three sides by the Vltava.  

The whole center of the town is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It was really run down after the Communist government was in charge until 1989.  Then they poured a lot of money into renovating the whole medieval center, plus the castle.  Now it is a huge tourist draw.  We saw several busloads of people.  One oriental couple chatted with us, asking what town was this, what country were they in, etc.  They were on a river cruise, having been on the Danube and driven by bus up from Budapest and Vienna.  I asked where they were from, and it was San Diego.  I'm glad I didn't assume they were from China.  Their English was excellent, but with an accent.  Our hostel was right in the center of town, above a restaurant, in a building about 500 years old.  The next photos are just from our walk into town.

View while walking down the hill toward town from the Train station

Gateway between the castle and the castle theatre.  There were several castle buildings, over 300 rooms, and it is the second largest castle complex in the world, after Prague, so they claim.  There were frescos painted way up on the walls on the other side, facing the town.  We walked under this gate on our way in, and also the next day we walked and took pictures from up above.  

The kayaks and rafts had to float down the chute on the right hand side.  Everyone lined up waiting their turn, except the jerks who just barged in front of the line and went down.  There was a woman supposedly directing traffic.  

This is one of several small bridges into town.  They had to build them long ago as many castle servants were going into town across the river, drinking and womanizing, and then drowning on the trip home.  On the Friday when the Medieval Festival of the Five Roses began, people had to pay to cross these bridges to get into town.  We were already there, so no charge for us.  

Late in the day we took this trip too.  It cost us $25 American each, for a kayak for 2 going 15 km from the center of Cesky Krumlov down to another rapids with a chute and a beer garden, where the rental company sent a van to come pick us up.  It was about a 3 hour trip.  

There were little shops selling souvenirs, food, even costume rentals for photos.  

As if the river wasn't enough water, there were a few canals too.  One had a water wheel.  For awhile the river was very polluted, but in the 1980s or so they finally built a byway for the polluted water to go through a treatment plant nearby.  There were lots of factories here back in the day, making paper, furniture, frames and slats, and more.  Now it's mostly tourism industry.  People here live outside of the center in big cement apartment buildings from Communist days, and come in to town to work.  We heard recently about someone paying locals to go live in the center of the medieval section, and go about their daily lives, just to make it more authentic, so it wouldn't be just all tourists down there.  

This is Bart in the front of our kayak, heading downstream.  The current was pretty strong, so we didn't paddle much, mostly just kept steering.  

I only took a few photos, because I had to steer more often in back.  So Bart took the camera for me.  When we stopped for a beer several kilometers downstream we switched places, and he steered.  Then I lay back, put my feet up and sang sea songs.  Lovely.  I wanted to do it again the next day.  But there was too much to see on land to dedicate that many more hours on the river.  This is a north-flowing river, that later goes right through the heart of Prague.