1999 Biking East Europe

Wednesday, September 22 – Budejovice, Czech Rep – Vystaviste, 500Kc
Distance cycled: 58.3 – Maximum speed: 60 – Average speed: 14

We are having the best day. We have cycled south-west to visit lovely Cesky Krumlov and are currently enjoying cold cokes under green umbrellas beside a lake with swans Budejovice-bound. It is a blue sky hot hot day. We left Budejovice at about 08h30 after a long sleep in our room under the eaves and hot showers and shopping in a corner store that sold everything from toiletries to fresh fruit to hard liquor, but in which the clients touch nothing, being allowed only to point out their preferred goods to the storekeeper who wraps each item and hands them back to be put into own-brought plastic bags (now there’s a throw-back to the past!). Then cycled through town and the going-to-work crowds and onto the road through Vcelna to Kammeny Ujezd. Where we stopped and breakfasted on our bought baguettes, bananas and cokes on a bench beside a barometer. Thence, with scarcely a wrong turn, onto the busy 39 for the tough ride to Krumlov. A perfect surface, quite often a narrow shoulder, lovely scenery under the blue sky, but every downhill run more than paid for by long hard climbs and a brisk headwind and too much tourist traffic rushing up from behind.

But every difficult metre was worthwhile as we discovered almost immediately upon entering Krumlov – the medieval old town of which is correctly dubbed as “one of the most picturesque towns in Europe”.

Krumlov is built on an S-bend in the Vltava river – the old town centre on one bank, the 13th century castle (rebuilt into a huge Renaissance chateau by Italian architects in the 16th century) on the other, both overlooking the Sumava mountains which separate Bohemia from Austria and Germany to the south-west. The castle’s round tower is impossibly romantic and is oft-glimpsed at the end of the many narrow and twisted roadlets inevitably winding toward the bridge across the river. We tied our bikes to a pole in the busy town square and spent the middle part of the day wandering the streets and marvelling at the tiny old buildings, climbing the citadel to admire the view, lunching in an artist’s courtyard (Egon Schiele was born in the house in which we ate pretty good omelettes), and shopping at Repliky (where I bought a replica of a 16th century Bohemian candle holder which contained fat and string in its bowl when found in digs, greenish because of iron oxide deposits and with bubbles in the glass typical of the time – 490Kc).

We were dreading the trip back by bike but, as often seems to happen, the anticipation was considerably worse than the reality. In fact, after the long steep climb out of Krumlov, our journey “home” was accomplished with relative ease and much enjoyment – especially the long decline into Budejovice. Where we found a popular courtyard pub for snacks and drinks and chatted contentedly to a couple from New Zealand – the man of which knew an enormous amount about South Africa gleaned because he is a rugby fanatic.

Great day!