Leg 09 - Czech Republic

7 Dec 09

We already have the vignette so press. Until we hit thick fog, well actually we’ve just climbed into the cloud. It is of course dark by now, the road markings are inconsistent – tend to be non at hazards and in the towns (skin flints), but okay on state financed straight stretches. So with a varying speed, down to 40 kph at times and following locals whenever possible we make it to Telc; Cesky K is too far. We are a half day ahead now and will enjoy the town tomorrow morning. I think 9 hrs driving is enough in mist and fog, we’ve covered 550 km and are feeling pleased we’ve made the most of the terrible conditions. Our 1st contact with the Czechs (not at the border as nobody there) was in a garage and was promising.  The old boy there couldn't do enough, exercised his English and washed all the windows and lights v carefully.  Wasn't bothered when I apolgised as I didn't have any change to tip; we're back into local currency here.  I did slip him a Euro - sure he'll be able to use it.  Another sign of progressing westwards, is that here we experience our 1st German style loo - but I'll go into more detail (sic) on 10 Dec.

We’re staying in the medieval town square and I am enjoying a Grambrinus – a local yellow ale before we eat. As nearly all the bars/pubs to date, smoking is the norm, only v few have no smoking rules – we aren’t used to so much smoke.

I blame you guys – apparently I’ve just missed tonight’s show – our barmaid, equipped with most things pierced, orange/red hair and tattoos, shirt lifting to apply a fresh dose of deodorant. You just don’t realise the culture you’re missing here. Love to all, din dins beckons.

Din dins (dinner) was not that easy to arrange – no restaurant in town had more than 2 people in and for most those 2 were the kitchen staff and chef! We knew it was the off season but not the NO-Season. To be fair, everywhere has been v good at fresh production of food; long menus should not be off-putters as everything is freshly prepared and as ordered. So tonight’s meal was good and for a grand total of £14 we had 2 main courses, 2 side salads and a drink each. The drinks here are 90p each. These must have been the sort of prices which set Bratislava off as a weekend booze city.

8 Dec 09

A fine night's sleep has us expecting a clear day - no such luck, the fog is still on the church spires and it feels like rain it is so damp. The town is impressive even in these conditions, but we press-on for Cesky K. In

clear weather it would be a delightful drive with pretty lakes and woodland; perhaps we'll return one summer. Though it's foggy there is not far to go and we are settled by 1 o'clock, with just a short deviation to look for a Mitsubishi garage - no luck. The bearing was squealing lightly on bends last night, both left and right; after 550 km of fast driving perhaps no surprise. It often happens with a failing bearing that an overnight stand allows the grease to settle and redistribute when next run - whoopee, that seems to be what happened. I doubt it will gets us home, but we'll see.

Cesky K is a delightful touristy town and fairly busy (for December!), but they are all day trippers from Prague or enroute to elsewhere. Guess we'll be almost alone again to night - I'll let you know. There are plenty of restaurants to choose from and we detect a sense of humour here - fun to come?  Maybe after a couple of gluhweins we're imagining this.  I think the cafe maitre was serious when he put on his hat and coat each time we asked for a gluhwein, which was in an urn just outside the door!  I

was tempted to carry-on drinking for the entertainment., well that's my excuse.  Then later when we leave our hotel room, non of the light switches work, so I have to get my torch to find our way out - well to the front door which is locked.  Yes, we are locked in our hotel alone with no lights!

Quiet would be kind - same story, just 1 restaurant with more than 2 people in it.  Good spot for carnivores tho' - my piece of duck came with a whole smoked ham steak, and just the 1 pork steak hidden under that.  I've changed my ideas on sauerkraut - done properly it is great.  It's certainly not the boiled cabbage I grew-up on.  Following that carnivores delight, slept rather well.

9 Dec 09

Obviously our hotel owner/staff do not sleep on the premises, but now we have seen the town operate for a couple of days, we deduce that it is a bit of a Disney town that just happens to be medieval original (rather than mock).  It does not function as a town, that must be the surrounding town outside the old walls.  Its reason d'etre is tourists and that is all it does, so when the tourists are absent it is dead space.  It leaves an erie feeling - UK equivalent towns (eg York) are living towns.

Okay, enough theorising.  Good chilled day, wandeered the castle grounds and part of the bulding even tho' can't "go inside" as such 'cos it's the closed season.  Sampled some red draughts and chilled in our v nice corner room/suite which is medieval with windows onto 2 old streets.  Blogged and watched a film.  Also got

receptionist, lovely helpful young lady, to phone ahead and book some work on the truck.  We're in Plzen tomorrow (that's Pilsen to those boozers amongst you) - seemed a good place to be if there is any delay in fixing the truck!  Youthful acceptance - she rapid fired a request for wheel bearing fix, 30,000km service and 2 new headlamps.  No surprise when the garage said "no, too busy, try next week".  She kindly advised me that it was not possible, try just the bearing, no they are too busy until next week.  Just ask them again, bearing only.  Okay, so that is what we are booked in for a new bearing tomorrow.  30K can wait, we'll only be 2 or3 over when home, but would be nice to do the lights - tried scrapping the lenses, more lens than fablon comes off!  I anticipate that these jobs will be about half UK prices around here, just hope the parts are as well.

It will be an early start in the morning, to make the garage by lunchtime, so an early night is in the offing.  Have done some replanning, binned yet another medieval town near Prague (can see that when we return to Prague another time and it will mean a lot more on its own); that generates an extra day in Germany which will ease a day's travel.  It does tho' slip us forward another day - we've been struggling to arrange concerts/opera for Dresden and Leipzig, now it seems to be impossible.  That will be a great shame as they are both towns renowned for their World class performances.

10 Dec 09

The day started full of promise with a blue sky, an early breakfast and parking ticket for the truck which allows us just an hour outside our hotel to load. On arrival, 2 police cars had stopped to check us – so we had hoped the same thoroughness would ensure the security of the truck in a public car park just inside the town walls ... yes, secure over the 2 nights. So while I get the truck Chris rushes off to see if the tourist shop which sold us a nice red vino last night is open to increase their sell on this rather pleasant local light red. No, most shops don’t open until 10 each morning – this is commonplace, but more so in this tourist only Disneyland.

Truck is covered in a healthy frost – must remember to get those longjohns out! We’re away by 0930, good going for us. It hasn’t seemed to be easy anywhere, there’s always a faff which consumes time and tho’ 2hrs is prob the norm, today’s 1½ is good – breakfast to wheels time. No wine – we’ll just check the Coop on the way out – 2 similar ones are okay. Am trying to have a collection from across Europe for our family Xmas. The blue sky didn’t last long, it became progressively greyer and then rainier as we progressed to Plzen. Sat nav last night had the garage and the hotel in it so no problems – we’ll drive by the garage then I’ll drop Chris at the hotel with the netbook and valuable bags, and she can research accom ahead (mainly Dresden and Leipzig – the replan has also made Dresden a busy pre-Xmas weekend stay!) while I get the truck done. Sounds dead easy. Now, I don’t think its me – this sat-nav can be really good; but the programme Dell seems to have bought into, tho’ I’m pleased with the European mapping, is the most user unfriendly I’ve used since the last time I swore at Bill Gates. Can we find the hotel ... no. The programme is called ‘Co-pilot’ and pondering (3 days later as I write this in Dresden) it occurs to me that co-pilots can’t do more than one thing at a time, so all is explained ... The girl on the desk is helpful but not especially good at directions – on the third attempt of mobile phone talk-in we make it. The garage booking of 1-2 pm arrival is in danger of fading as it’s now 1-30. Thankfully the drive-by paid off, I get straight back to it and we go for a test drive. Well, it took me 10 minutes to persuade the guy, who doesn’t speak any English that there is a bearing problem and his guess is the front left, okay, one of my 2 but not my first choice ... very EU and HandSAW (Health and Safety at Work – for those who haven’t had the pleasure), I am not allowed in the workshop while they are working so a good book (thanks Graham) and the reception room for me. “A problem” – they’ve decided that it is the rear left bearing and so discovered the slow puncture. Well actually now a fast puncture as they’ve made the mistake of taking the nail out! Can they fix it – okay. Brill – 2 hours and we are done and dusted - £25 the lot. In the UK I would pay more than that for the new part, the bearing, alone. Assuming that they did the right bearing (!) that is a good afternoon, 2 problems solved.

Now to a much more important matter: here we are at the centre of the known universe (for yellow beer drinkers) and there is some business to be done. Chris doesn’t even like beer, but has researched brewery visits whilst I’ve been bearinging – the better is in English and is at 4.15 this afternoon. Not only will we get a tour – lager is a different brewing process (bottom fermenting) from UK dark beer – we should get a free drinking session and meet some people to talk to. Everywhere we’ve been has been so quiet recently that we have not had a conversation with other than ourselves for days. Back to the hotel for 3.45 and out for a quick walk to arrive at the Pilsner Urquell brewery with 2 min in hand for the English tour – made it. So people to talk to ... mme, we’re on our own! The guide is a local PhD engineering student, his English is okay, but for an engineering student not as inquisitive as I would have expected –

maybe he was put off by these 2 smart a...s who kept asking difficult questions. I would have expected him to know how they got the pressure in the cans tho’.  A gem he did impart but couldn't explain, was that the water tower was a coy of a Dutch lighthouse; does that make it the furthest inland lighthouse in Europe I wondered; I konw the UK's is at Cranwell!  And the free beer – only a glass of unfiltered beer, but not bad. We did then go in the restaurant attached – the largest in the Czech Republic with a massive underground room and the best pilsner beer I can remember. So at last it was worth it.

Back to our v ordinary room.  Ah, the 2nd with a German style loo (toilet).  Those of a sensitive disposition may wish to skip this paragraph.  What is so special about a German loo?  They're the ones with the platform to the front of them, as opposed to the UK style (a la Thomas Crapper - you may recognise the name as he invented the UK flushing toilet) which drops straight down.  So why the platform ... so you can examine your production for worms etc ...  I don't think this is a Teutonic fetish, rather a practicality of eating uncured bacon and its like.  Surprising these days as the general quality of German ham/bacon is outstanding and probably far better than the stuff we are served-up in the UK.

I should have said skip 2 paragraphs.  The subject has reminded Chris to remind me ... Toilets we have seen - they've steadily improved as we've travel west.  One of the most serious problems in the early days of this trip was the bathroom facilities, or lack of, for Chris.  It's okay for blokes and anyway across most of Europe we can stand at the roadside (no not behind a tree) and wave (sic) at the passing throngs.  For the ladies a different ball game.  Thoughout the Middle East, the available toilets (shops, cafes, rarely garages) were only squat types and filthy - if you've seen filthy, these were worse!  Squat is difficult when clean, these ...  You know the Middle East attitude to waste and rubbish - now transfer that to the bathroom.  I'll dwell no more.  At least in Europe a visit to a cafe will normally these days generate an acceptable bathroom, tho' public facilities are sadly lacking.

Oops, just had a break from this blog – visited that other planet ... Ebay. Didn’t mention, while waiting for the truck, enquired at the garage what price a couple of headlamp units would be for the Pajero: a mere £370 each, yes each and without bulbs etc ... labour may be cheap in the Czech Republic, but not parts. Just bought the only ones on Ebay for £95 the pair, phew. I‘m a confirmed Ebayer, 1st buy was the Sony laptop I took to Kuwait – half price at a year old – the best thing I bought for the job in 4½ years.

11 Dec 09

Slept well on those sleeping draughts.  Chris had seen the town, Plzen, in a walkabout yesterday and confirmed the LP judgement – not much to see/do. So today a lazy start, minor repack car ‘cos we have accumulated a few Xmas presents and decided to empty the powered fridge and store the pressies in it to protect them. We’re away about 11.30 and only have about 80 miles to do today to Hrensko, just short of the German border, via Prague and a concentration camp. If it goes quickly and don’t linger anywhere we could cross the border, but finding accom on a Friday night in Dresden which is only 34 miles over the border would be difficult and would lose us a couple of sights.

Not far except for the roadworks around Prague in which we never saw a sign for our road.  Over an hour wasted going into Prague, then out, then cross-country to intercept the road we really wanted ...  The essence of some of this is the Czech way of road signing - potentially a good idea that a turn is pre-warned by about 100m, except that the pre-warning and the 'at junction' sign are both in the same format so we don't know whether it is now, later ... oh, or just past!  U-turn options are rare and junctions can be km apart so finding your way back to that wrong turn may not be possible, or on several occasions has given us an hour traffic jam - what fun.  Well the upshot of all this is that we are running late, but have time to drop in on a Czech concentration camp, Terezin.

The camp comprised 2 parts in napoleonic era fortifications - those huge star shapes in brick with the entrances recessed between the star points and with large motes.  One small part is a Jewish memorial and museum - we declined an hour tour here to get to the other large site, half a mile away.  So a quick rush around and off to discover that the other much larger site, and the true concentration part, remains a military camp area and is not accessible.  Only a small memorial, railway tracks and the crematorium remained accessible.  What was interesting was that the town was within the old fortification walls and so immediately next to the concentration camp - there would be no claiming by this local population that they were unaware of what was going on.  To this day a rather strange place.

Now we are  running late, phone ahead to book Hrensko accom, he asks when we'll be there - that's okay and we have time to eat and look around Litomerice.  This yet another pretty town square with a Xmas market - well an excuse for one and v few poeple around.  Eventually find a restaurant with people in it and discover it is the LP choice.  It's 3 floors down in the vaults/caves under the Town Hall, good food, an interesting spot but hard to find.  This is not the first time we have struggled to find where the locals hide out - many of these countries need advice on how to sell themselves.

I didn't mention that tonight's pension owner did not speak English, German was the only language we had in common - of which I know v little.  As I drive I'm trying to remember enough German to sort out our rooms when we get there.  I'm also reminding myself of German numbers, mme, did he say a time in the 24hr clock that I agreed was our arrival time?  I had thought I'd agreed 6 o'clock, but he'd said 16 (just as similar in German) which was 4 o'clock - I'd dismissed it 'cos it was 4.15 when I was talking to him.  maybe he didn't have a watch on.  I became sure that 4 not 6 was the agreed hour ... and it duly came to pass that the pension was locked-up with no lights and, we guessed, no heating on. 'Don't want to stay there, even if it is the LP recommended one.'  A local advises that there is only one hotel open in town - that will be the one for tonight then.  Basic, smoking and with a dog - there is a lot running against this place - but it is warm (space heating the district).  Arrange an early breakfast and collapse into bed.

12 Dec 09

Breakfast was laid out by the night watchman, tho' he didn't even switch the room lights on for us- he was a man of no words.  Away early for a walk in lightly falling snow and a healthy -2 degrees.  This area is known as Little Switzerland (both sides of the border), for it's pretty hills, ravine valleys and fast streams.  There are also unusual rock formations: limestone pinnacles and cuts similar to Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire. Great walk by the river in autumn colours, but cut short when blocked by a locked metal door - an off-season HandSAW directive we thought.

On our return thro' the village, what had been locked-up shed-shops (like Blackpool in mid-winter) are now displaying all their tripperish wears.  They are ready for the cross-border day-trippers from Germany - it is Saturday after all.  The border is only about 2 km away, the garage is full of cars with various petrol syphoning devices and there is even a duty free shop.  We deduce that prices are about to jump.

The Czechs have been an industrious folk and helpful when approached, but their public face rarely shows a smile.  The lovely places we've been to have been suffering off-season and, for some, tourist money seems to be the only lifter of activity.  What has struck us is the speed of their speech and yet again the madness of some drivers - overtaking on double white lines over the brow of a hill and around a bend (yes, all at once) was almost commomplace.  They would appear not to learn from the plethora of roadside memorials.