Day four (September 16, Tábor-Prague, 105 km)

This was a wonderful and very intense day.

We arrived in Prague at around 6pm,

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had dinner and walked around a little.

Things I saw and learned during the day:

Lakes everywhere

,When I thought of lakes in Europe, Finland or Sveden came in my mind. From now on, the Czech Republic will join this group. I saw, I don’t know, perhaps 100 lakes today, many of them really beautiful. This is my morning view from the hotel in Tábor:

and here are some of the later impressions

Hills everywhere

There are really lots of hills on the way. We did (over all) more than 3.000 altitude meters so far on this trip.

We saw some racebikers during the day and envied them for the lightness they climbed the hills, but (at least ;-) ) I was however very happy with our touring (or gravel or whatever standard) bikes. First, the roads are often in rather poor condition with many, many potholes that can be tricky, in particular when riding down with high speed. Second, Komoot, again, sent us through all kinds of terrain, including a downhill mountainbike route and some field trails like this one (being like this and going uphill with up to 8 % gradient for several kms)

We hardly saw anyone during the first half of the day.

The closer we got to Prague, the more crowded everyting was. I learned that first signs of the land sealing mania have arrived here too. Some of the outcomes look really bizarre.

Money issues everywhere

I still had 500 CZK change form our dinner in Sladovice that I had received there as Austrian cards were not accepted there, only € (for a ridiculous exchange rate). Today I was very happy to have them: We had lunch in the middle of nowhere and after having ordered lots of food and drinks we saw this sign that Karl Nehammer would love:

The bill we had was 490 CZK. Uff.

I was really sorry for the waitress for not giving her proper tip, but I was also really happy that I didn’t need to stay there as a dishwasher or to bike another 10km (or more?) to the next ATM.

In the next bigger city I finally found my very first ATM on th etrip, from, hello, Erste Bank. First I was happy about finally finding cash, but then I was rather stunned by the receipt (Hello, Erste Bank):

Almost 7 € fees (the equivalent of a main dish) for exchanging 250 € … for an exchange rate that might also be not really competitive.

I am really fan of the Euro and of card payments. Couldn’t we write into our constitution that one may always pay by card, in particular in countries not having the Euro yet?

I am also old enough to remember how painful and expensive it was when roaming was not free in Europe yet. I would not be able to do such a tour without (affordable) internet. During all the many hours I listen to podcasts or Spotify when cruising, I am grateful for this political achievement. One of the songs in today’s Spotify-recommendations was “Espresso” by Ernst Molden and Der Nino aus Wien. I don’t know whether this was coincidental, or because of me making fun of Espresso Herbert in Holabrunn.

Prague is beautiful (but not for bikers)

Everytime I am here, I am speechless how beautiful this city is. It’s colourful, traditional, international, modern, crowded, diverse and so on. But it’s (still) very, very difficult to commute by bike here. Almost no bikelanes, cobblestones in the city center, trams, rails, stressed car drivers etc. make it risky and very stressful to be on two wheels. And, no wonder, hardly anyone is commuting by bicycle therefore.

We were not even sure whether we could legally park our bikes on the street in front of our appartment as there was not a single bike to be seen anywhere (and no stands either of course). We took them with us, therefore, they may stay in the appartment.

Tomorrow will be a rest day with visiting lots of the sites here, in particular the Kafka-museum.

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