Road Trip to East Bohemia and Moravia July 23 First Day

We rented a tiny little car by Skoda.  It was a 4-door, but so little there was barely a trunk and the wheel chair barely squeezed into the back seat with everything else. I had made the reservation for the car on Sunday morning, but we didn't get the confirmation that it was approved until about an hour and a half before we were supposed to pick it up.  Did I say "we?"  I meant Bart, because I'm no help with my wheelchair.  Poor Bart had to go pick it up at the main train station, Hlavi Nadrazi in downtown Prague.  Even getting it out of the parking garage was terrible, as they gave him a pass that made the bar raise so he could drive under, but it went back down again before he went through.  The car behind him tried honking, etc. but finally had to walk up, push a button in the panel and talk to someone to get it to raise up again.  Then Bart stalled it, trying to get it into first on the hill, and the guy had to talk to someone AGAIN before he finally got out.  Driving in the city is very tricky, with signs that tell a driver whether they have the right of way, or does the person approaching from the road on the right have the right to pull out in front of you.  Then there are the trams and buses sharing the road with total right of way at all times, and the pedestrian crossing spots where people assume they can just start walking out into the road at any time and all cars will stop.  Finally, the little one-way road we live on has the construction next door with big machines encroaching into the one little lane.  It's nuts. 
   Bart made it home, and then had to empty the fridge, pack food in a cooler, pack our suitcases, etc. into the car and then get me downstairs with crutches and out to the car, adding in the wheelchair at the very end.  I felt pretty useless. 
    Getting out of Prague was also a mess, with us accidentally exiting into a mall entrance instead of the highway, and having to go miles around and back to try it again.  On the divided highway we could go 130 kph or over 80 mph, and the loc,als were often up over 150 kph.  They rarely have speed limit signs, as the speeds are the same all over the country depending on what kind of road it is, and whether you have just entered or left a town.  Only when there are exceptions, like road work, will they have a posted sign.  When you enter a town and see the sign with the name of the town that means the speed limit is 50 kph or about 30 mph, and it stays that speed unless they decide to slow you down more, or until you see a sign with the name of the town with a red diagonal line through it, which means you have left that town and can go back up to 90 kph.  Locals will then pass you on bllind hills, or even if they can see a truck coming from the opposite way, figuring you will slow down to let them back in before they are killed. 

We drove for about 3 hours, east to Paradubice.  He had hoped to stop along the way, but it just seemed too complicated and overwhelming.  When we go to the city, we found parking downtown and tried to walk to the tourist information center.  Bart was sick of the stupid wheel chair, and asked if I couldn't use the crutches for the block and a half.  No way.  Not even close.  So the wheelchair retaliated and took a good pinch of skin off his fingers when he tried to open it out.  We found the tourist information Google Maps sent us to, and it was only a place to change money where the clerk didn't speak English.  She could only say Euro or Pounds?  Then with the sun glaring down on us and our cell phones we tried to find another place.  The main square was pretty, and we could see a big tower and a church, but we had to make finding a place to sleep a priority.  Preferably one without a staircase or other things to block handicap access.  Finally, a few blocks down (see, good thing I insisted on the wheel chair!), we made it to a real tourist information place.  Of course the sidewalks and roads were cobblestones, and the left front wheel of my chair seemed to be crumbling like a pink eraser.  The TI receptionist spoke a little English, and had gotten the email I'd sent that morning asking for help finding a place to stay.  But everything was booked.  She even made phone calls to several places that claimed to be handicap accessible, but there were no rooms.  She gave up and sent us away.  So Bart went on to Expedia and found us a room at a hotel by the airport.  The lady was amazed.  Yeah, ok, we're so self-sufficient.  But our room turned out to be up a long staircase and I barely made it up with one crutch and the railing, almost tipping over backward as I hopped.  

It was pretty, though, on a dead end road in a park near a golf course with a pond near the outdoor restaurant seating, and huge old trees all around.  We were too worn out mentally to leave once we arrived, so we sat and had a beer, then dinner, and were both asleep in the clothes we had worn all day, by 8 pm.