Odometer 3893km
Awake in the eaves of the Cerna Liska and find I am becoming the type of person who attempts to clean a hotel room before departing it, lest the hotel staff think us slovenly. Of course, having attempted to clean around our mud caked pannier bags and stinking shoes for the past two days, their opinion of us must already be so low that my efforts will be quite in vain. Despite our weekend mini-break I'm feeling worse than ever, not helped perhaps by my attempts to de-carb over the weekend, eating a variety of various animal offal cloaked as 'traditional Czech specialities' and none of my usual shedload of bread. How the Czech must laugh as we Anglickys gamely struggle through our lung fricasse, whilst they enjoy their steak and chips. As we check out of the hotel, we ask to leave our bags in reception whilst we fetch our bikes from their parking spot. Obviously not wanting to have her lovely waiting area despoiled by our filthy tramp baggage, she tells us to put them behind her desk. She opens the door and we begin the mass loading of 12 pannier bags, tent, bottle, ice box, thermos and various other sundries into her office. She sits back down in her swivel chair, surrounded by Ortlieb, completely unable to move in any direction. There's pure fear in her eyes as she asks, 'Will you be back soon?".
Fortunately for her we are, and the loading of the donkeys begins during morning coffee rush hour in Praha's old town square.
I feel myself well prepared for exit as I the day before had proudly presented the others with a cycle atlas of Ceska Republika I managed to source, like a cat bringing home a live mouse for everyone to enjoy. Nobody was as excited as I, but still, I was pleased as punch. Unfortunately the atlas does not really provide a detailed map of Praha, so all we know is that we must find a bicycle route heading east out of the city. We do indeed find ourselves on a bicycle lane heading east, thus assume it must be the correct one. Its sort of like cycling in London, in that there is bicycle symbol painted on the road which is ignored by all vehicles who wish to park upon it or pull out straight in front of you from a side road. Just like home, the route then promptly ends at a junction. Who knows where the cyclist is expected to go from here, perhaps catch a train? Or abandon bicycle and get back in ones car perhaps. Anyway, we mount a pavement and attempt to move toward the area we think we should be heading in. Of course being the endless suburbs, there is no clear delineation between townships or indeed signage of any kind. The pavement has helpfully been dug into deep trenches at various sections, so its hopping on and off for a good 5km. We re consult map and decide we should find a suburban lake which is marked on our map as being the location of desired bicycle path. Of course, this being the Praha equivalent of Tooting, we can't really see any lakes. We debate for a further 15 minutes on the roadside, much to the amusement of some local policemen who are idly sitting in their patrol vehicle nearby. Idle is perhaps unfair of me, they were near McDonalds so were probably waiting for the Breakfast Menu to change to Lunch, and get their Big Macs. We head towards some greenery and water and proceed to follow it backwards toward the city, in order to find our path. Eventually, and after a thermos break, we do find it. His chirpy yellow signage leads us into a forest of some sorts, and we assume we have left Praha. There's some sort of team building adventure park with High Wires, and we find our path blocked by a school trip who refuse to budge off the path despite repeated bell ringing. Shortly after, our bike path promptly disappears. Signage perhaps stolen by the rude teenagers! We see many other bike path signs but not ours. We head on in an easterly direction, and soon enough, find ourselves back in another bloody suburb. We consult handily placed local map and find we are too far east from our required exit suburb. We however, have no idea how to get to our required location. So we backtrack once more, past some more surly teenagers, and follow the other bicycle route, still looking for this elusive lake. It appears massive on the map, and perhaps exists, but behind fences and wild grass commons as high as my shoulder. We follow the bike path for a number of kilometres and end up a few yards down from where we started. Its our worst nightmare, not being able to escape the city! We knew it would happen sooner or later but we are 3 hours into our day and have travelled less than 15km. We are getting a little frustrated and so opt for our last lifeline, IPHONE google maps. It probably cost as much as a city map but we are instantly informed of where we are and can plan our own route to our village of Pruhonice where we find cheeky little yellow signs popping up again. Joy of joys we scoot along happily enjoying the mild microclimate of Praha and its lowlands.
From the lowlands we begin to climb, and its quite a shock to the system. Steep hills through crumbling villages start to take their toll on weary bodies and we are relieved for a lunch break by the lake.
When the sun disappears behind the clouds we realise how very very cold it is, and out come the windproofs. Togged up, we continue and are treated to a well deserved descent. Long and winding down we drift, barely moving our legs, but flying like swallows in a lovely swooping formation. We fall through forests of every type of tree, sunlight breaking through in spots on the road, and suddenly we are back by our old friend the river, winding where he winds, letting him cut us a path through the mountains. It's at this point that I realise, Ceska Republika is the most beatiful country on the tour so far, its far more mountainous than I imagined, and lush and green. There's beautiful old villages every few km and the cities seem completely untouched by the ravages and excesses of the twentieth century which have altered so the other countries. The air in the Czech Republic genuinely smells like wood smoke and fallen apples. It would be sentimental tosh if it were'nt true.
After a water stop at a petrol station I realise I'm actually not feeling that well. A little sick and achey, I'm suspecting a bit of a virus. Dr Learner confirms the glands are a little up and we decide to stop for the day and rest. Only 50km covered unfortunately but the ordeal of navigating through the teenagers out of Prague have left us drained. Fortunately we are in a lovely little Czech town complete both with River, Castle and Lidl. Winner. We secure a room in a Boathouse, where for 20 pounds for all three of us we can have a room with balcony and river view and bring our bikes inside. I rest whilst Learner and Colby go and enjoy themselves in Lidl. We enjoy a camp stove pasta dinner and sleep soundly, for a great number of hours.
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