From Prague to Brno

On Monday night I started my journey to Brno, Czech Republic’s second largest city, and never made it out of Prague. I spent around an hour looking for a cycle path that would supposedly take me all the way there but I couldn’t find it. Turns out it’s only signposted once every mile or something anyway. Luckily I found a great camp spot in the middle of a retail park, on a plot of land nobody had developed yet. My tent has seen cleaner days though after last week’s storms.

I finally got out of Prague on Tuesday (Horah!). I found it really hilly all day and as it turns out I was cycling over ‘Vysocina’ which translates into Highlands! No wonder I was knackered. I pitched up after only 65km. I could see a thunderstorm approaching but luckily it diverted last minute and went right past me. It made some interesting skylines.

I’m glad I brought that piece of string to dry my laundry!

I carried on Eastward the next day over more and more hills gradually losing the will to live. My average speed was 8-9km/h and it’s first gear a lot of the way. The views of the countryside is probably all that kept me going. It really was beautiful to just stop and look around every so often. The roads are quiet, smooth and windy.

I found a nice place to camp in the woods not far from the road I was taking. After noticing a few ants wandering around I decided to look around to see if I could find a nest and it didn’t take long before I stumbled across this…

The tree is surrounded by little pine needles and twigs that the ants have put there. On closer inspection you can see them crawling all over this thing. There were literally millions. They are pretty big too.

Anyway, it was time for dinner and half way through cooking my broccoli my stove ran out of gas. In order to eat anything I had to make a fire. Which was cool because I like burning stuff. Although it takes a while to make a good fire and it takes longer for your food to cook (gas stoves are surprisingly efficient) it’s nice to sit around and keep warm into the night. I even had a bag of sweets that were kind of like marshmallows, so I roasted them over the fire whilst making some tea.

The final day consisted of the most epic downhills I have ever cycled. After some generally flat land there was over 30km with hardly having to pedal. The road wound down through a valley, the thick woods giving me shelter from the rain, and followed the river past a castle before meeting a town, Nedvedice and then joining another valley and continuing on downhill nearly all the way to Brno. It was a nice cycle.

I’m staying with Petr at the moment, a native Czech. It’s weird going from cave-man style living to coming back to civilisation again. It’s like you have to re-adjust every time. Oh, you have running water? So that’s what a microwave looks like. I cant help but wonder what people must think when they open their door to a guy on a bike, covered in dirt and smelling of firewood.