Final prep.

With "local knowledge", Mirek planned the route and lodging. A few days ago we reviewed the route over a beer.

  1. A Smile - a good attitude, flexible and ready for the expected unexpected
  2. Good Beer - sure helps with the attitude
  3. Detailed Maps - to identify the route and places to be seen
  4. and a key for us Google Translate 

This year we are going north to explore an area of the Czech Republic that borders on Germany.

This area, the Ústecký Region (a small part of Northern Bohemia) is one of the most industrialized areas in Central Europe. It's economy was driven by the presence of raw materials (especially coal) and I expect we will see the impacts of the metallurgical and petrochemical industries that developed. 

It was part of the Sudetenland, the borderlands historically inhabited by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages but it was made part of the Czech Republic in the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire post WWI. I remember the Sudetenland from my high school history as one of the first areas invaded by Hitler in WWII under the pretext of "rescuing and restoring" greater Germany. 

The final piece of trip prep was picking up my ebike. I took a tram to the store, maybe a mile away, and rode home.



I rented the bike from the same store as last year. It's amazing how inexpensive it is. In the US it is hard to find an ebike rental for less than ~$100 a day. For the week - 7 days - this bike will be $210!

Tomorrow we start. It is a 1 1/2 hour drive to the start. All our days are around 50k so I think tomorrow will be as well.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the road again in the Czech Republic with Mirek - year two.

Image
It was almost exactly a year ago that I rode a multi-day bike tour in the southern Czech Republic with my Prague son's father in law, Mirek, and his wife Hanka.  As we were going self supported, I rented an e-bike to compensate for the weight of the panniers. Mirek speaks no English and I speak no Czech, but Google translate made it easy to plan the trip and make daily decisions on stops, route changes, and meals. Google translate is an amazing tool. If you have any language anxiety keeping you from foreign travel, forget it. Google translate not only allows easy text translations, in conversation mode it has speech recognition as well as "speaking" the translated phrase. Get a SIM card or overseas data package for your phone and using Google search and a map program, you will soon be just as comfortable planning and traveling as if you were at home in the US. For our tour, using an e-bike was equally amazing. You can forget about packing light and basically travel with a...
Read more

Day 2 - Kolova Haje to Karan.

Image
Our first stop today was the spa town of Karlovy Vary. A site of numerous hot springs the city grew into a popular European spa resort in the 19th century. Today it is the most visited spa town in the Czech Republic and the largest spa complex in Europe. The sun is out and the forecast is for dry sunny days into next week. Definitely not the moist conditions Mirek and Hanka got yesterday. . We cycled around the spa town and by the Hotel used in filming Casino Royale. Had a coffee. This townh definitely had a feeling of prosperity. The ride ended up being a total 72 kilometers - 10k longer than planned due to Tour Challenge #4 - an unexpected bridge repair. We rode all types of terrain. Asphalt. Gravel. Along rivers and up on hillsides. Highways and what we would call forest service roads in the Pacific NW. Here are a few pictures from the day. An unexpected surprise is how inexpensive it is to travel here. Kathy and I often talk about how much rooms have gone up in the last 2 or 3 ...
Read more