On the one year anniversary of our cycling trip to the Czech Republic,
I would like to share our great biking trip with others. My husband
and I are in our early sixties and in pretty good shape but nothing out
of the ordinary. We took a self-guided, Top Bicycle trip through
southern Moravia and Bohemia (6 days, 7 nights) staying in Valtice,
Mikulov, Vranov, Jinrichuv Hradic, Telc, Trebon and Cesky Krumlov. This
trip was the first time we have ever gone on any tour, much less a bike
trip.
Top Bicycle provided maps, bikes, accomodations, and luggage transport
as well as a cell phone we could use for rescue if we got in trouble.
Tomas Leskovjan, Greenways Travel Club, was in charge of our
arrangements. He met our train from Vienna in Breclav, took us to our
pension in Valtice, set us up on our excellent bikes and gave us maps
and some traveling tips. He was just the right sort of person to make
us less anxious--remember we have never done anything like this before.
So how did we do? The rides were from 25 to 55 kilometers a day on
"mostly" flat land. My husband had no problems. I huffed and puffed
but made it up the hills. We were pretty tired at the end of some
days--but happy. We cheated and left out one little detour down a
ravine to see a ruined castle--otherwise we did the whole trip.
The August weather was our friend--except the first day when we were
awakened by a hard rain. We waited for it to let up. It did then
started again. We sat in our hotel room looked at each other thinking
we must have been crazy to sign up for this trip. Finally we decided
that we needed to go--rain or no rain. So off we went thru rain and
mud. It was fun and by the end of our ride, the sun was out. It never
went over 80 the week of our trip. Our only other weather problem was a
very strong headwind one day--you had to pedal going down hill.
The maps and directions were extraordinary. We got a little confused a
few times but finding our way was part of the fun. We also had a GPS
that we were too clueless to use.
The Czech people were very wonderful. We went several days without
meeting any English speakers. I had learned some Czech phrases that I
mangled. But it didn't matter--we ordered food, stayed in hotels and
took a train without problems. Once I did order what I thought would
be a ham sandwich and instead got lentil soup with bread. But the soup
was delicious and the beer we washed it down with was even better.
The places we stayed were like fairy tale villages. At times I felt
like we had traveled back in time. There was very little traffic and
you could go for hours without hearing any machinery. All of our
accommodations were good and several were very fine indeed--especially
in Telc, Trebon and Cesky Krumlov. In every hotel we had one of the
nicest rooms. Our meals varied from good and hardy to very
good--Supinka in Trebon and Hotel Konvice (where we stayed) in Cesky
Krumlov. And there was the beer which was so much better that anything
here. Also I developed a fondness for a very fine local white wine
called Gruner Veltliner.
This trip was relatively cheap and worth every penny.