Blonde Bird On A Bike

Name the film – “You’d think kids would want to come with their parents and take foxtrot lessons. Trips to Europe that’s what kids want. 22 countries in 3 days”. This popped into my mind as I crossed from the Netherlands into Germany, and now I keep thinking it. Not 22 countries or 3 days but I’ve arrived in my 6th county in 6 weeks – Scotland, England, The Netherlands, Germany, Czechia, a few miles into Austria this morning before heading into Slovakia!!

Nothing to indicate that I’d crossed from Czechia into Austria – other than an “achtung” sign at the first bend I came to – but a sign to let me know I’ve crossed from Austria into Slovakia. On my back I’ll spend more time in Austria.

To date on this trip, Czechia has been my favourite country so far and will definitely be back. Prague is an amazing city to see but would strongly reccomend going further afield – lots of beautiful places to visit.

The last 2 days have been beautiful and sunny – warm when you were sheltered from the wind, which wasn’t often. Again, a mix of very quiet roads and cycle routes.

Yesterday took me south to one of the big wine areas in Czechia. I crossed the Vestonice Reservoir – lots of other cyclists doing the same – VE Day yesterday and I didn’t realise that this is a holiday for many areas of Europe.

Had intended camping at the hostel at Valtice but everything locked up at reception and couldn’t get an answer when I phoned the number that was there. In hindsight I could have pitched up and paid in the morning but found a cheap single bed with an on-suite bathroom at a wee hotel, a few miles away and have to admit it is provably the best sleep I’ve had since heading off on my travels – the chicken burger – lovely marinated chicken – and glass of wine I had was lovely too – both for about £12.

Nice wee wander around Valtice this morning.

Had intended travelling further East into Slovakia today but opted for an easy day. 2nd breakfast at this wee lake – lots of bird life and pretty sure I could hear lots of frogs and / or toads but struggled to see them. Also seen a lot of deer and hares last few days and heard cuckoos too. The further east I go the barkier the dogs seem to get – all the ones doing the barking though are behind fences except for one this morning that chased me and that does make me nervous. Also saw a stork high up in it’s nest – there is a camera on it but I’ve struggled to find the link for it.

For most of today I’ve been following Eurovello route 13 / The Iron Curtain Route – lots of investing information on the way and also sounds like a good route to do sometime in the future.

Made it my first overnight stop in Slovakia – big campsite at Autikemp Rudava – lovely setting besides lots of lakes – bet its really busy at weekends and holiday season but guess what – yip – I’m the only one there and tonight I’m in charge of the padlock on the gate for the whole campsite – I’ve just locked myself in for the night – starting to get a complex that nobody wants to stay at the same campsite as me.

Interesting dinner tonight. Traditional Slovakian flat bread “pizza” – the bread is more like a Scottish buttery I think – regret not having the more traditional one with just garlic – but went for cheese and ketchup – don’t know why but thought Google translate might have got it wrong and it was going to be a proper tomato sauce but no – just ketchup. The very cheap large glass of red wine was very good.

Back from the loo and tucked up in my sleeping bag. From the toilet block can see lots of red lights going on and off – think they must be indicate big masts or towers but never seen so many lights like this before – looks like the aliens have landed – I will try and find out what they are for in the morning – if I haven’t been taken away in a UFO!!

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!

All my planning has been rough-ish – I’ll roughly go there and I’ll roughly go here – I’ll roughly arrive on this day and then again I may not. Planning a trip is good fun – finding out about exciting and interesting places to visit but too much planning and I find I’m just overwhelmed with information.

I’d roughly planned a route from home to Harwich. I’d planned a route through The Netherlands – the 1st (and probably 2nd) day I just ignored because the weather wasn’t with me. It’s also difficult to predict on a bike how long it will take you to get somewhere. The not knowing and not being tied to dates is part of the fun – 2 dates though I must stick to is meeting my wee sister in Romania (and I can’t wait for that) and making sure I leave France before the allotted 90 days is up (and that’s just a pain the bum).

I’m not sure I did much planning in Germany – friends and friends of friends did most of that for me.

Getting to Prague was a case of carrying on following the same river that I’d  been following for a good few days in Germany so that was pretty straightforward – I just needed to make sure that I had the right money.

Next I’d planned to go to Kracow in Poland but feel that time is running out so I’ve aborted that plan – I’ll just need to go another time!!

So last  night I started looking at a route to get from Prague to Romania. The first stage it made sense to continue east following The Elbe / Labe until it starts to go north at a place called Pardubice. Looking up information and especially on the Eurovelo group I’ve been following on Facebook it was all doom and gloom   – routes were “awful” – “so rough that you had to push bike for large portions / so rough that you would need  a mountain bike with no luggage / so rough that you’d be better to get a train / and if you left the cycle route the roads were so busy that you’d be better to get on a train!!!”. This combined with  not knowing the language at all – after 3 days I’ve still failed to pronounce thank you correctly – I was starting to wonder if I’d bitten off more than I could chew – rather than worrying about it I gave up doing any more research and went to bed but not before messaging John, who had cycled there, to see what he thought – John messaged me to say he didn’t have any problems and also some tips on where to stay and places to visit if they are on my route – thank you John.

So this morning I checked out of the hotel and set off and it was …………………………………………………….. a terrible day – only kidding – had a great day. Cycle lanes led me out of Prague. I did push the bike up about 8 steps – was that part of the route or navigation error on my part, which is possible. There was a busy and strange section – lane for people to walk on, then lane for cars to be parked, next was cycle lane and then 2 lanes of cars – it wasn’t actually too bad until cars were merging in from a slip road from the right – in theory I had right of way but I wasn’t taking any chances. But after that it was all good. A mix of quite back roads through towns and cycle paths that followed the river – the river section varied hugely – some sections rough and potholed, some bits just a runnel in the grass but nothing that was not doable and then there was sections of beautifully smooth tarmac. Great route and the sun was out – fab day and hopefully it continues like that.

This sign was at a very low bridge under a railway line. Quick translation is duck. Google translate is –

"attention reduced edge under the ridge" or if you forget to put a space in between pod and jezdu you get a completely different meaning -

"pay attention to reduced food in the entrance hall"!!!

So all in all a good day and the sun is to come out again tomorrow.

–

So I’ve got plenty of time to spend in Romania when I get there – what I’ve not got is a lot of time to get to the Romania border in the first place.

The new rules means that you can only have 90 days in every 180 days in Schengen countries – luckily Romania and Bulgaria don’t fall into this category.

So for the sums –

I’d already used a week when I went skiing in Italy earlier this year and this leaves me with 83 days.

I’ve divided this in 2 – so 41.5 days to get from Hook of Holland to the border of Romania – spend as much time as I want in Romania and Bulgaria – and then the remaining 41.5 days to get from the Romanian border to Dover or Calais for ferry back to UK.

To be on the safe side I’m not going to cut as fine as that but at the moment think I’ve only got 12 days to get to the Romania border so I need to get my pedals turning!!