Fabulous country and beautiful scenery. The first town I stopped at, when I was looking for a bank, had an edge to it – felt a bit rough – google maps had taken me up a wee back street and it looked as if an argument was about to kick off between 2 couples – that combined with being somewhere I didn’t know and not knowing the lingo I felt a bit uneasy – but as I keep saying to Karen there is good and bad everywhere, and mostly good.
I’ve passed through beautiful scenery. Seen lots of horses.
I’ve been on much more shared roads over the last few days but overall not a lot of traffic. Without a doubt though it is getting hillier and harder and I think this is going to continue as I travel east.
Since I last posted I’ve stayed at another 2 campsites – that’s 3 since I left Prague. They’ve all been good but especially the first 2 – these both had wee restaurants and bars – nothing particularly unusual in that but both had a really good vibe to them – most of the folks weren’t actually staying at them – just seemed to be a good meeting point for friends and families. The one 2 nights ago was fab for another reason as well – I was struggling to find a campsite that was in cycling distance of legs that were getting weary – I called over to a female cyclist going the opposite way and asked if she knew if there was a campsite nearby – she had a wee think and then Linka (probably not spelt correctly) got me to follow her – Linka now going in the opposite direction of where she was originally going takes me to a campsite where she tells me, she also goes swimming – I would never have found it – suspect it doesn’t need advertised – it’s not very big and very basic – Porto Loos for toilets – think it’s one of these places that folks keep going back and word of mouth is enough – I wasn’t even sure if it was an official campsite to begin with but I was told it gets very busy with tents in the summer time – after I arrived 3 fellows on motorbikes arrived and pitched their tents – if I happen to passing this way I would definitely stay again.
Two days ago the weather was beautiful – mid morning I sat at this lake and had a 2nd breakfast. Lots of bird life and lots of big fishes – now I know very little about fish or fishing but these fish must be pretty well down the list when brains were handed out – wee motorboat appeared on the lake – one fellow doing the motoring / steering bit – the other – not sure fishing is the right word – he was just using a net to scoop the fish out of the water – only took a few from different areas of the lake.
Forecast for yesterday was wet – wet, wet and more wet but I got lucky. I woke up to some big splats of rain about about 5.30 – should have just got up and packed up the tent then because when I did pack it up about 7am it was very wet but didn’t last too long. Overall weather much better than forecast, though, where I was – I got one heavy shower mid afternoon, that only lasted a few minutes – there had obviously been a heavy shower not long before I reached the campsite as the roads were very wet. First time meeting another cyclist at a campsite this trip and he hadn’t been so lucky with the weather today .
Not long before getting to yesterday’s campsite I stocked up on food at lidl – a selection of bread rolls, cheese, salami, crisps, grapefruit juice and an essential bag of gummy worms. Outside I got chatting to 2 guys on big dirt / motocross motorbikes – well one talked – the other didn’t say much – not sure if that was because he didn’t speak English or didn’t get a chance to get a word in – the one who did all the talking spoke very good English – transpired that they had done some pretty serious stuff including areas of North Africa on their motorbikes – they say their goodbyes and wish me well but as I’m trying to figure out where to pack up too much food the chatty one gives me a present of a “healthy date and peanut” bar and tells me that I need to eat better – cheeky bugger – apart from the gummy worms didn’t think my shopping was that bad – but thank him anyway – give him his due nuts and dates probably better for me but a gummy worm tastes so much better.
John had suggested a couple of places to stay or visit but the only one I made it to was Brno and this where I am just now in a hostel. Took a wrong turn this morning pretty much as soon as I left the campsite – ended up on wrong side of river but distance wise didn’t make much difference and did mean that I saw this castle – loving coming round a bend in the road and suddenly there’s an unexpected castle or church or cathedral.
Had intended to have a quick visit to Brno and then head further south but as soon as I got here decided that it made more sense to stay a night and continue on tomorrow. Brno is Czechia’s 2nd biggest city – a university city and much quiter than Prague – got a completely different feel to it and I liked it.
We had a whirlwind tour of some of the sites – could have done more but tired so headed to the hostel.
I loved these drain covers!
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