Aug 14, 2018 - Tuesday, 14th

Hello everyone again, Well it is Tuesday evening and we have arrived in Prague. Tonight we are off for a river cruise. Today as we travelled we stopped at a town called Rothenburg. It was a pretty small town. We were shown how the snowball was made. It is a dough mixture with lots of eggs, flour and deep fried. It is like a pastry thing in a ball. Apparently very special treat but liked the chocolate flavoured one the best. We visited the Christmas decoration shop, apparently very well known. Thought the car out the front was great. Well...

Jun 23, 2018 - Sadska to Prague - end of the ride

Sadska to Prague – (57 Km) – Final Stage So, here it is around 11am on a lovely sunny morning and I am sitting in the van at a generous pull-out in a tiny town called Radonice. I’ve had a very good drive getting here :) Yes!!! But now I am about to give up the van keys to Piotr for the last time (might I express a tiny yippee?) . He is going to drive the rest of the way into the heart of Prague to our final stop. (Did I already say ‘yippee'?). I shall not be sorry. It has been frequently stressful for me to drive this size of a vehicle on...

Jun 22, 2018 - Kutna Hora to Sadska

Stage 12 - 61 Kms intentional but 75 Kms in total Today was to be an easy day. Breakfast start was later, load the van later, do some sightseeing, throw off an easy 61 Kms then have a nice wrap-up gathering at the hotel. Well, 3 out of 4 ain’t bad I guess. Before we left Kutna Hora a bunch of us went to see the ‘Cemetary Church of All Saints with the Ossuary’ (yes, that included ‘Beauty and The Beast’ – we’ve become inseparable). The cyclists rode there before beginning their route out of town and I drove there, finding a really easy...

Jun 21, 2018 - Tabor to Kutna Hora

Stage 11, 95 Kms Good start to the day …... and an easy ‘getouttatown’ from Tabor followed by pretty nice roads - for about 30 kms. Not that I was on the same roads as the riders – my GPS route took me off theirs after only about 3 kms out, but I’ve learned not to get too excited about that now. I was enjoying the country roads with very little traffic and was thinking that the riders couldn't have a better road than the one I was on – but then I came to my first detour! By the way, it’s simply a guess what it is I have to do when I come to...

Jun 20, 2018 - Bechyne to Tábor (near Klokoty)

Stage 10 - 85 Kms You’d think I should be able to just whistle from one town to another in around an hour, seeing as each day’s daily distance is around 85 – 95 Kms on average. Right? But no. I can spend the best part of 5 to 6 hours tootling around out there on narrow roads like a busy mother hen. I TRY to be on the same route as the riders are taking, but it’s not always possible. Sometimes it really is just a bike path so then I need to find another way to get to meeting up with them somewhere down the road. This morning was a case in...

Jun 19, 2018 - Cesky Krumlov to Bechyne

Funky though the old town of Cesky Krumlov may be, I think there wasn’t a person in our group who wasn’t keen to gettouta town this morning. The crowds have just been stunning! Piotr brought our van up from where we had to park it sharp at 8am, the “loading time” the group had been given. The hotel told us we had to be quick about it because you can’t park in town. Unfortunately, Backroads also had their van there in front of the hotel so it was pretty crowded . Then along came two swaggering (and I do mean swaggering) cops who were clearly...

Jun 17, 2018 - Linz to Cesky Krumlov - Back in Czech Republic

Stage 8 - 92 Kms Bruce decided to give himself a bit more of a break today and travelled in the van with me again. But he wasn't the only one. The projected climbing for the riders today was sufficient to convince three of the riders not to do the first half of the ride and to come with me in the van. Pretty smart of them, I thought. As we headed out of town there was immediately an 18 - 19% grade and those of us in the van emitted a collective "urgh!" when we saw it. (Brickyard, eat your heart out! For off-Islanders 'Brickyard' is the kind...

Jun 12, 2018 - Valec to Telc - and a day off!

Stage 4 - 71 Kms Is it any different driving here in the Czech Republic than at home? Possibly - let me just count the ways! I’m looking for road signs that say things like Misliborice, Jaromerice, Moravske Budejovice, etc. (because I always have to double check that the GPS has got me going where I need to go – I can’t blindly accept the spoken instructions, much as I’d like to). Then there are the roadworks that I come upon suddenly with no warning and the huge trucks hurtling along these narrow two-lane roads that cause me to wince when...

Jun 11, 2018 - Brno to Valec - The GPS and I

Stage 3 - 86 Kms I am getting seriously behind in writing my blog - I may have to skip a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't ordinarily want to but if I don't I won't be able to remember anything! At one point today, I had been driving on a main road when I decided to get off that road and see if I could use a parallel, less busy road. I came to a small roundabout when, by pure chance, I spotted Bruce riding away in the opposite direction to that which I knew he should be going. Luckily, he spotted The Beast and came back around and joined me...

Jun 10, 2018 - Mikulov to Brno - Second day on the road

Stage 2 - 83 Kms Today I discovered a very important piece of information that might go far in providing me with more equilibrium while travelling these strange roads in The Beast. I discovered that the route the GPS chooses to take is NOT the route that is on the maps all the riders are using (and that I had so naively thought I could simply follow), so the exercise in frustration has been me wondering why I was nowhere near where I thought I should be in comparison to the maps I have on my cell phone and on Piotr's route list. For...

Jun 9, 2018 - Vienna to Mikulov (near Lednice) - first day of riding

Stage 1 - 87 Kms As it happens we are not in Lednice tonight as shown on the map - we are in the nearby picturesque town of Mikulov, but Lednice is the closest map reference point I was able to get. We were up and outside the hotel in Vienna bright and early to get all our stuff loaded in the van (a.k.a. “The Beast”). I can tell you now it’s a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be! I can't just pull over at the side of the road when I have a "snap attack" because I need a fair amount of space for The Beast, not to mention an exit...

Jan 12, 2018 - Prague

Tallinn airport was fantastic. Not very large and very few people to compete with going through security and boarding procedures. At security check we even received a smile and a 'have a nice flight' wish from a very helpful attendant. How good was that ? Likewise, our SAS flight on a City Jet was excellent. The best of any leg to that point. The transit stop was in Stockholm not Copenhagen as noted in the prior Journal and that almost became a problem. Holding onto Gilli to prevent her from heading off in search of her favourite group took...