Perservering on the Trail...

Today's post written by Bird because I have had enough of Czech computers!:

Hello loved ones, Today we are laying over in a city called Benešov 40 miles from Prague. I am very happy you all speak such good English. To review our journey so far, so I don't forget... we walked 10 miles to Pruhonice Monday 7/14 our first day out of Prague. Pruhonice is a very wealthy beautiful small town with a famous Brewery we stayed above. It was the best beer I have ever had and two glasses is all we could take before stumbling around town taking pictures and then going to bed ... but not before having one more regular strength beer at Cow Cow Boogie. Thankfully the waiter and host at the Brewery spoke some English ... the room was expensive but it was the only accomodation we found with a vacancy and a big delicious breakfast was included.

On Tueday 7/15 we set off to Velké Popovice, a small town. The red, yellow, and green trails we are following are so beautiful. They take us through forests, gardens, and almost right through people's back yards. It has mostly been drizzling and cool with very little sun. We don't mind because it keeps the bugs to a minimum and is more comfortable when hiking. (I did find myself covered in Czech ticks yesterday) We were welcomed by many free range chickens as we entered the town of Velké Popovice and walked past a big Kovél (brand of beer) factory and restaurant to stay at a very 80's style Hotel for the night. We ate and wrote post cards at the restaurant next door and the next morning posted them and ate at the bakery that I e-mailed you from last.

On Wednesday 7/16 we then walked another 10 miles to get to Vysoká Lhota. We intended to stay in a town several miles before this but all accomodations were full and people were cold to us. We don't know what was going on in this small town but people were in their bathing suits wearing plastic flowers and ribbons indicating some traditional dress. It was clearly a private party so we walked on. We were weary when we got to Vysoká Lhota and found a house that rented rooms and a young woman who spoke fluent English (a rare find.) The two rooms were already rented by railroad workers but the hostesss (who spoke no English but talked our ears off anyway... with many gestures) squeezed us into a spare room on her and her husband's floor of the house. This woman who's name we never understood was the epitome of a grandmother. We have many stories to tell from this night and morning. The highlight was the evening Barbeque when Michael played the fiddle and guitaro and I tried out phrases from our Czech language book to get some laughs. Our comrada dug potatoes from her garden just for the event and the two railroad workers joined us with beer, vodka, laughs. It was a great party. In the morning we met our comrada's husband Vladamir and had a wonderful breakfast. After some pictures we headed off to Benešov.

On Thursday 7/17 we walked another ten miles to Benesov. Again when we arrived we had difficulty finding accomodations. We found a man that spoke English and helped us talk to his friend who owned several houses with acccomodations. His homes were also full of road workers. We are a mile outside of downtown ("off the beaten path") staying in the attic and sharing a kitchen and bathroom with the road workers. I came out of our room to go to the bathroom last evening to find a freshly washed man in his underwear frying potatoes and meat in the kitchen. They have been very polite although no one knows what the other is saying. Last night Michael and I walked across the field to the grocery store to buy a few items for the kitchen. We slept in today and then took our baths with a road man's soaking underwear and socks. At least now our accomodations are within our budget. Now we are down town and may go bowling later since we found a bowling alley!

Tomorrow we are starting out toward Tabor. It will take us several days walking. Michael is working on getting more pictures uploaded to the Blog but it is hard to figure out how to with the Czech Word program. We are taking many many pictures to show every one. Love to you all!!! Annie will you forward this to Angie's e-mail ... I forgot to bring her address. I hope you are all well ... we miss you ... kiss the children and animals for us!!!

Love, Michael & Bird

Third day out...

We left Prague 3 days ago taking the metro & bus to suburbs & immediately left the feel of the city behind, seeing mostly soviet-era tenements. No one speaks English anymore & we don't speak Czech. My little phrasebook is sorely lacking in the dictionary department. We got off the bus maybe one stop too early and were looking for the trail when we asked for help from some construction workers. After a minute trying unsuccessfully to communicate the foreman said something like "come with me" and motioned us to hop in his car. He drove us to the trail and dropped us off, with nary a word spoken between us other than dekuji (thank you).

We had a nice, suprisingly rural, walk to the trendy suburb of Pruhonice (Southwest of Prague). It was very nice there, bordering on a huge botanical garden, but the prices were really high. We had no choice but to get an expensive room but in the back of an awesome brew pub that, according to my guidebook, had some of the best beer in the country. We indeed tried their special brew, which is "high gravity" at 16 degrees (maybe 8%) and some of the best beer I've had.

The next day was the first hiking out in the real countryside and we started off on the red trail south (you can find it on the mapy.cz site). We took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up on the yellow trail and decided to keep following that one to Velke Popovice, where we are now, and where we found a more modest hotel. We're in a cukrarna (dessert shop/bakery) now drinking coffee and eating desserts for breakfast (all we could find). The normal coffee here is espresso, they don't serve filtered coffee, which suits me fine. Grocery stores are really cheap and we usually get some awesome bread & fruit in the mornings to make it through the day.

We're off to the south on the yellow trail today, probably headed for the Doly area for the night and eventually headed for the bigger town of Benesov and beyond.

Na shledanou (goodbye)

Prague Report

We've had a great few days in Prague but didn't get any pictures the first couple of days because my digital camera bit the dust. I found a Canon service shop here and the guy said the there is indeed a factory defect that warrants a replacement camera (at least in Europe...not sure about the US) but it would take a month to get it. After some consideration I bit the bullet and bought another digital camera here so we could record the trip. About the cheapest decent model I could find was about $130 but is actually much better than the other one I have had for years. So...there are random pictures from yesterday posted HERE. I'll add more as I can.

We were scheduled to leave Prague today but booked one more night, mostly because we had a bit of a fiasco trying to use the washer & dryer at the hotel. We managed to get all of our clothes pretty much washed but never could figure out how to get the machine to spin & dry them so we ended up with all of our clothes being soaking wet. There's a dryer but I guess they're a bit different than the ones at home (more like a dehumidifier) and don't do that great of a job. The machines have a buttons with symbols here and there but are pretty confusing to figure out. We hung most of our clothes on the balcony but, of course, it rained during the night so they're worse than before. We're going to ask for help today so that at least we can leave town with dry clothes. It's a soggy day today, anyway, so not a bad one to stick around.

Everything else is going great. Prague is a great city and we're seeing a lot of it. We'll need to get moving soon, though, to keep costs down. It's not too expensive here, for a big city, but it should be cheaper in the countryside. A meal here (in the tourist areas, which are most places) is $10-12, beer is the cheapest thing at $2 or so a pint, bottled water and sodas are probably twice as much as beer. We'll look for a grocery today to stock up on a few cheaper articles.

The architecture here is the highlight of the city, with most being over 400 years old. We're staying just beneath the main castle, in one of the older neighborhoods but one that was destroyed by fire in the 1500's and rebuilt as it is now. It's quite ornate and with very steep streets. We are in the Mala Strana district, which is the quieter part of town compared to the other side of the river, including the "Old Town", which is the main tourist area. There are quite a few tourists, though, walking up our street between the two biggest tourist attractions in town: the Charles Bridge and the Castle. Our room has a balcony that overlooks the city, as well as a wooded hillside, monastery, and gardens. It's a beautiful spot and we'll hate to leave. I'm sure we'll see equally impressive sights along the way, though.

There's so much more to tell but I'm writing "off the cuff" and don't have time right now....maybe later. We're headed to the suburb of Pruhonice tomorrow, where we'll find a place to stay and then start the heavy-duty walking the day after. I'm a little nervous about being able to find lodging every night along the way. I probably should have brought a tent, just in case, but was trying to travel light. Oh, well...we'll just have to have a certain amount of "faith" that things will work out. I think they will.

Later...

Introduction

Rambling is a European term for walking usually implying some sort of exploratory journey, whether it be a day outing in the countryside or a cross-country trek. Our plans for the next month seem to fit nicely in that category and thus the name for the blog. I rather like the "bouncy", carefree feel that the word suggests and hope that our journey lives up to the connotation.

When exploring various options for a European walk I ran across the Prague to Vienna Greenway system. While most of the Greenway literature focuses on the bike route I discovered that the Czech Republic has probably the finest system of walking trails in Europe, many of which are centuries old routes from town to town from long before the time of the automobile. The routes are excellently marked, color coded, and there are fine hiking maps available in just about every bookstore in the country. Excellent!

Though we will not be following the Greenway bike route per se, we will roughly follow the same route, for lack of any better idea, deviating as we see fit based on knowledge we gain along the way. Our route will take us through the rolling countryside of Southern Bohemia, South Moravia, and on into Austria, through medieval towns and forests, past ancient castles, churches & remnants of the cold war. We have allocated enough time to walk the entire way from Prague to Vienna (where we fly home from after a month) but have no qualms about changing our plans en route if we come up with other ideas. So...we have a rough plan but fully intend to "go with the flow".

There is an excellent online mapping tool for the Czech Republic, from which you can follow our progress. If you activate the "turistika" maps and turn on the "turisticke trasy" (tourist trails) you can see the hiking trails, though you have to be zoomed in pretty far for the color-coded trails to appear. I have a few links to the right for informational sites to get you acquainted with the area and trails system.

Next post from Prague...