Tue, 09 Sep 2003

author Tim	location St. Sebastian, Steiermark, Österreich
posted 09:02 CEST 11/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ceska Republika ( all photos )

South out of Ceska ( No photos )
After packing up and working out how to pay the old dear running the site of our night's accommodation, we set off around the south-west side of Brno.
We stopped to grab some cheap Ceska fuel and breakfast for ourselves, before heading the 50km or so south to the border with Österreich (Austria).
Unlike the border crossing into Ceska, this one was split in two. We first drove up to the Ceska side of the border, convincing them to let us out. Once again we had no problems as our paperwork was all in order. Also, it is generally easier for countries to let you out rather than in.
Stamps entered in our passports (Liz got her first in her British passport - the downside to the freedom it gives), I got out and tried to work out how to get a stamp for entering Österreich. After giving me another Ceska stamp, one of the Ceska guys told me that the Österreich border crossing was another kilometre further down the road!
So, we drove along in no-mans land, not quite sure what country we were technically in. No matter, as around the corner we saw the next border post. Getting through that was our first experience in Österreich (Austria).

author Tim	location Ostrovacice, Moravia, Ceská Republika
posted 09:31 CEST 09/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ceska Republika ( all photos )

Telc ( 13 photos )
Not wanting to brave a breakfast at the camp site, we tried to use the bathrooms we had used the night before, only to find someone had put bricks infront of the doors! I guess it was easier than trying to explain it to us in English.
So, we pushed into the town of Telc. Another World Heritage place, however this one was much more deserving in our humble opinions. Parking on the outskirts, we walked across a bridge and into the huge open square that the town is built around.
There are a few churches here and there with nice steeples, and the famous Château, but we were content just to sit and have breakfast at one of the restaurants overlooking the square. This was a good thing, as Monday appears to be the one day of the week that every single one of the tourist attractions is closed.
After walking around pretty much every one of the bakeries, cafés and restaurants in town looking for something to eat, we came to the conclusion that the Czech people just aren't that interested in breakfast.
We eventually settled on an restaurant with an outside terrace, and some interesting almost breakfasty things. Liz got an omlete with asparagus and I had toast with cheese and honey - both interesting, but near enough to breakfast that our bodies didn't complain too much.
After a further wander around the beautiful town and checking our emails in the tourist office, we went back to the van and set off in the direction of Brno. Czech is really two separate parts - Bohemia on the west and Moravia on the east. Praha (Prague) is the capital of Bohemia and Brno is the capital of Moravia.
Things started out badly when the motorway exit from which our directions to caravan parks started was closed. So, we got off at the next one and tried to wind our way back. An hour or so later, we found one of the sites listed, in the outlying village of Ostrovacice. It was a driveway into a house with closed gates. However, there was a sign pointing in and a button to press, which I of course did.
We were about to turn away when a dog came running to the gate, followed much more slowly by a woman in her eighties. After gesturing at the huge red van about two metres away, she got the idea, opened the gates and let us in. We drove through what was basically her backyard into a huge field which was yet more of her backyard. I suspect she found herself with this great big house and all this space and decided to let campers use it. Good idea, I say. She has rabbits, dogs, and was even spotted herding chickens, right before she shook one of the plum trees to get all of its fruit off.
She doesn't speak English or German, but we were able to find out where the toilets and electricity were, and how to get into Brno via bus. We elected not to do this, as we had other cities to see, and there appears to be nothing much special there.
So, we read up on our next challenge (Austria), before walking to the next village and spending the night there eating our last cheap dinner. Being our last night in Czech, I was determined to try an item which has been on the menus every single place we have been. It is listed under the "Warm Drinks" section, and named Grog. I kid you not. So, it was ordered, and Liz captured on film the moment of my first taste, closely followed by complete and utter disgust at the stuff. At least I can say that I have tried the "real" Grog. Won't be doing that again in a hurry.

author Tim	location Ostrovacice, Moravia, Ceská Republika
posted 09:09 CEST 09/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ceska Republika ( all photos )

Kutna Hora ( 9 photos )
Making the best of the available wireless internet connection, after breakfast at the caravan park we spent the morning getting up to date with various things, even into the early afternoon.
Eventually it was time to give up this luxury and get on the road. The weather was great as we drove ourselves out of Prague. This city was hard enough to get in to, but getting out was not much better. We stumbled along, following the signs for the road we wanted to be on, but as is so common, they just sort of disappeared, leaving us driving along tram tracks, dodging pedestrians and Skodas as we randomly choose roads which might lead us in roughly the right direction.
This finally paid off, as we joined the E59/D1/E50/E65 (couldn't just call it one thing) heading south-east towards Brno. However, this wasn't quite what we wanted, so we deviated a little north towards Kutna Hora.
This was yet another World Heritage town, but after a bit of a drive through, we were less than impressed. The tourist office was well closed and pretty derelict. Compared to other such towns we have seen, this barely rated a mention.
We pushed a little out of town in search of the other attraction this place has to offer - Sedlec Ossuary. Seeming as it is such an attraction, I have no idea why it was almost impossible to find. We drove back and forth a few times, eventually stopping at a large church which had a map on the front of how to get to the ossuary. It seems lots of people do exactly the same thing.
Eventually we found our way there, parked the van and walked in and paid. The history of this place is interesting - some sacred dirt scattered in the church grounds lead to people far and wide wanting to be buried there. This lead to massive overcrowding and hence piles of human remains everywhere. Not wanting this to go to waste, people used the bones as decoration - we saw chandileers, altars, countless decorative strings and four massive pyramids all built out of bones and skulls. Macabre, sure, but not nearly as bad as we were bracing ourselves for. In fact, it was a little underwhelming, perhaps because we have been to lots of places outlining Nazi history recently.
From there, we pushed south for a couple of hours along crazy roads dodging insane drivers, in the direction of Telc. We elected not to go into the town itself, instead heading out again to a quiet campsite in the middle of nowhere. It was very strange, seeming to have no working toilet block and very few patrons. The old Czech reception man told us to drive in and pick a spot, all in German (plenty of the older generation speak that here, rather than English) - he was quite nice and perhaps a little suprised to see anyone turn up at all.
After driving past locals haphazardly parked on the driveway (no tourists expected, I guess), we parked then walked back up to have a dinner at their restaurant. We pointed and gestured for the benefit of the young Czech-only speaking girl, and eventually Liz got a meal which was just average, while my specialty of the house (three meats in four spices) was great.
We slept soundly in the near-total silence - very uncommon for us.

author Liz	location Padova, Friuli-Venezia Giulia
posted 11:19 CEST 17/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ceska Republika ( all photos )

Prague ( 44 photos )
We had breakfast at the caravan park and then walked down the hill to the little bus stop. From here we caught a bus and then a tram, and found ourselves in central Prague.
Around the corner from where we got off the tram were the municipal house and the Powder Gate, both very beautiful buildings.
We could already see that the city was packed with other tourists - Prague is now one of the most popular destinations in Europe - I can't imagine how busy it would have been at the height of summer.
From the Powder Gate, we walked down a wide street filled with Saturday morning shoppers. We found the tourist information, but it proved to be of little use, so we wandered on. We turned right, had a look in one or two touristy shops and then found ourselves in Staromestké námesti, the old town square. It was a beautiful sunny day and the spot was gorgeous. We just stood and looked all around us, trying to take it all in. One one side was the old town hall with its high tower and a fifteenth century astronomical clock below the tower. Across the square is Týn church (1365), an amazing gothic building with twin steeples soaring across the square. All around the rest of the square are beautiful old buildings and the whole place makes you want to be able to see in all directions at once.
We sat at one of the outdoor cafés and treated ourselves to a couple of small but expensive beers - you pay for the view at more than five times the cost of beer just outside the square. So we stayed for ages drinking in the sights, listening to a great little jazz band nearby, and watching the thousands of tourists enjoying the square just like us.
At 1pm we joined a huge crowd infront of the Astronomical Clock and watched its little wooden people marching in and out of the clock as it rang out. Then we went inside the building, paid a small fee and began winding our way up through the tower and out to the top where we had 360 degree views of Prague. The square looked even better from this height and if it weren't for the number of tourists up there I would have happily stood up there for a few hours.
But we had lots more to see, so we made our way down and out and walked into the Jewish Quarter. Like everywhere else in this beautiful city, there were so many amazing old buildings. We found ourselves stopping every few steps to look down a small passage way or up at an old building. We kept going like this until we found ourselves at the Vltava river that runs through the city. Across the river from us and up on the hill was a giant metronome ticking back and forth. We have no idea what it was all about - maybe some wacky piece of art?
We walked along the river-side and then across a bridge and up the road until we came to the old castle steps. It was another hot day and a steep climb, but the view from the top was pretty cool. We could see the tower we had climbed up earlier.
A bit further up hill we were rewarded with the breathtaking sight of St Vitus Cathedral. It is a breathtaking building (building started in 1344) and after walking around one side, we went into the cathedral which if possible was even better. It is a huge cathedral and today contains the crown jewels which we had seen a replica of at Karlstejn castle the day before.
Back outside, we walked through the courtyard with St Vitus Cathedral on one side and Prague castle on the other. In the next courtyard was the Basilica of St George, the oldest building in this little section (1142).
Back down the old castle steps, we spent an hour or so just wandering around the streets of Prague, going through the occasional small square or busy tourist spot.
At Malá Strana we sat in a park for a bit before getting on the funicular railway where there are old castle walls and lots of parkland. We walked halfway back down the hill to get great views out over Prague and then caught the train back down to the bottom.
We made our way back towards the river and walked along the edge, looking across to Karluv Most (Charles Bridge) and the opposite bank. As we walked, we realised we were getting quite hungry and our feet were tired, so it was nice to stumble across a pub/restaurant. We sat in their walled courtyard and enjoyed Pilsener beers and shared a huge serving of pork ribs complete with mustard and pickle all served up on a huge wooden platter. After all that and another beer (it was Prague, after all!) we decided we still had more to see so off we went.
A bit further along the river we came to Karluv Most built in 1357 and complete with thirty statues from the 18th century. It is now a pedestrian bridge, and is lined on each side by people selling tourist knick-knacks and lots of artwork. The view looking up and down the river was so nice - the sun was going down and there were some really good buskers on the bridge. It all made for a great atmosphere.
Back on the other side of the river we were in serious tourist land - shop after shop packed full of anything a tourist could ever want or need (and a lot more besides) and full of lots of tourists, us included. It was actually quite a lot of fun just wandering along a looking in the shops. Before we knew it we were back in the old town square.
We were still keen to see a bit more so we went up another little street and just kept wandering. Eventually when it was quite dark, and we were quite worn out, we found a tram stop, caught our tram and then our bus, and took ourselves back to the caravan park.
It seems like we did heaps, but I think I could have happily looked around Prague for a week, or even just enjoyed the atmosphere in the bars and cafés, but at least we got to see most things.

author Liz	location Trio Camp, Praha, Ceská Republika
posted 13:15 CEST 07/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ceska Republika ( all photos )

Karlstejn and around Prague several times ( 11 photos )
On Friday morning, we were happy to be able to use the camping ground's gas stoves to heat up some water and then we enjoyed lots of tea and coffee while we could. Our spot by the lake was beautiful in the morning sunshine, with mist drifting over the top of the water.
From Pilsen we drove north-east on the motorway and got stuck in traffic for a while where there had been a bad accident between a few trucks, but we left the motorway soon after. We drove along a very windy little road, complete with big mirrors on the bends to tell you how many crazy drivers were coming at you from the other direction.
We stopped at Karlstejn. A boring little town, until you spotted its highlight - a 14th century castle standing at the very top of a high, forest covered hill.
We had to park right at the bottom of the hill, where we couldn't even see the castle, and from there walk to the top where the castle was. The walk up was actually quite fun - it was a narrow little cobblestone street, and either side most of the way up were lots of little shops selling lots of little tourist goodies. We hurried past them all as we decided to look at the shops on the way down.
The last part of the path up to the castle was very steep. It was a hot day and cobblestones are pretty, but they start to hurt your feet after a while! But we made it to the top just in time for a tour around the castle in English.
The tour was interesting with all the history of the castle, but not much of the inside of the castle is how it was in the 14th century. The whole place used to be full of frescos but none remain and there is only one piece of original furniture. However, the view from the castle looking all the way down the mountain was beautiful, and the outside of the castle was pretty spectacular.
By this stage, we were both very hungry so we stopped at one of the little restaurants on the way back down. For an insanely cheap price (less than $10), we both had big bowls of fresh home-made chicken soup, Pilsener goulash with bread dumplings, delicious apple pie, tea, coffee and half a litre of beer each. And all the food was just so good.
Feeling completely satisfied, we spent an hour or so looking all the little shops. Czech has a 0.0% blood alcohol limit, so after our beers it was good excuse to spend lots of time shopping. Most of the shops had Bohemian crystal and lots of it. Tim found himself a very nice crystal whisky decanter, and we got a few other small things before slowly heading back to the van.
Our afternoon was then spent driving the last short distance to Praha (Prague). We got stuck in a huge traffic jam, and then spent a long time trying to find our chosen caravan park before giving up in frustration, and going to one we had spotted a bit further out of the city (Triocamp). It has turned out to be a very nice little place, and as an added bonus they have a wireless internet connection here so we have been making very good use of that.
We had a nice dinner at the caravan park and shared a very good bottle of local wine, and spent the evening chatting away.

author Liz	location Trio Camp, Praha, Ceská Republika
posted 12:49 CEST 07/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ceska Republika ( all photos )

Litomerice, Terazín, Plzen ( 10 photos )
On Thursday we drove into town and spent an hour looking around the town square and a few of the narrow cobblestone streets of Litomerice. There were lots of old buildings, old cars and so on. We had coffee and some biscuits which we thought were shortbread, but which turned out to have sherbet in side. Nice, but a bit weird for breakfast. We found a little town market, where I got a backpack and a few other things.
The thing about the Czech republic is that just about everything is dirt cheap. Food, drink, souviners, even petrol, so all this cheap stuff is very nice after paying lots of money for our airline tickets the other day.
From Litomerice, we drove about two or three kilometres to Terazín. The whole village was turned into a ghetto for jews and other "undesirables" before and during World War II. It was run by the Nazis and conditions in the place were appalling. People had just over 1m of living space, hardly any food, hygene was terrible, I could go on and on about how awful the place was, and it was often the last stop-off point before the people were sent to Auschwitz and murdered. Not many people survived - even most of the children at Terazín ended up in the gas chambers. It was all very sad and depressing, but it was a really well set out display, and it was very interesting to learn about the history of Terazín.
We hit the road and spent an hour or two driving through lots of farmland, winding our way through village after village.
Driving in Czech takes a bit of getting used to - the roads are narrow, bendy and often bumpy, but the drivers here (especially the crazy Skoda drivers) don't really obey speed limits, overtaking zones or for that matter most other road rules. Most cars are full of dents and rust, and we even saw a Skoda that caught fire while it was just driving along the other day. At least with all these mad drivers we are having fun dodging them as they play games of chicken trying to overtake each other.
In the afternoon we came to the outskirts of Plzen (Pilsen), the original brewing place of Pilsener beer. We easily found our caravan park (Autocamp Ostende Plzen) on the outskirts of town, found a nice little spot by the lake and then headed into town. We had a ten minute walk and then a tram ride before we came to the central square, complete with huge towering church. We walked around the town for an hour or so. It is not the most exciting of places, but we still had fun exploring, before finding a busy little pub and enjoying two very big and very frothy pilsener beers.
Dinner was next, at a pizza place with delicious food and more beer. Feeling nice and full, we wandered before a bit more of the town before catching the tram and making our way back to the caravan park for the night.

author Liz	location Trio Camp, Praha, Ceská Republika
posted 12:46 CEST 07/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Ceska Republika ( all photos )

Into Czech ( 1 photo )
(Continued from Deutschland 2)
The countryside has been very different - lots more hills and mountains around the place, so it hasn't been quite as flat as most of the parts of Germany that we have been through.
The most startling thing as we drove through the first part of Czech was seeing prostitutes all standing by the side of the road! And there are a lot, all wearing not much and mostly near a hotel or shack. We supposed that with the many truck drivers going through, they must get a fair bit of business!
Our first big town we drove through was Teplice, and we immediately saw lots of ramshackle old buildings, all falling apart. There were lots of nice buildings too, but it was like they just hadn't bothered pulling down the old, unused buildings. We didn't stop there, but drove on to Litomerice where we pulled in to a tiny little caravan park next to a river.
Our first converstation with a Czech person went well - he was quite drunk but spoke some English. We paid for our camping spot and spent the evening at the caravan eating nice food and drinking nice frothy big Czech beers.

(customised)