Circuit Rider CZ

Circuit Rider comes full circle

2018-12-31T12:27:00.000+01:00

Stage 7, day 6 (Thursday, 6 July 2017)
Cieszyn to Bohumín, 60 km

The final day of my tour around the Czech frontier starts like most of the others have done - eat as much breakfast as possible, pack the bags, load up the bike and pay the hotel bill - but with one notable difference. This time, I’m in the company of my wife Jitka, her cousin Pavla, and Pavla’s ten-year-old son Šimon. If you’ve been following the story, you’ll know that they joined me here in the Polish border town of Cieszyn yesterday after a four-hour train journey from Prague. Together, we are going to ride the last stage of my Circuit Ride to Bohumín, the point where I started it over seven years earlier. From there, we plan to travel home on the late-afternoon express, on which we have reserved spaces for our bikes. I’m looking forward to a relaxed family day out. It should be more procession than sporting endeavour, rather like the last stage of the Tour de France. Hang on, though, doesn’t that always end in a mad sprint to the finish line?

Loaded up and ready to go

After posing for the obligatory group photos outside the hotel, we rode through the historical heart of Cieszyn, crossed the bridge over the Olza (or Olše in Czech) back into the Czech Republic and headed downriver. After passing the site of Stalag VIII B, a former World War II prisoner-of-war camp, we joined a smooth flat highway heading north and soon reached our first planned stop, the “Fish House” (Rybí dům). As the name more than suggests, this is a tourist attraction devoted to all things piscine. We spent some time there feeding ornamental carp and admiring the Slavonic god Veles and other weird and wonderful wood carvings (among them a fishing bear, a shark and - don’t ask, I have no idea - a pregnant woman).

Monument to Stalag VIII B

Wood carvings at the Fish House

Next door was Archeopark Chotěbuz, an open-air folk museum featuring a recreation of an early-Medieval Slavic hillfort. Not until we’d bought our tickets did we learn that the next guided tour was due to start 45 minutes later and would last over an hour. This was no good to us, as we had to get to Bohumín by 4 pm to catch our train home. We weren’t allowed to explore the site on our own, but the Slovak guide very kindly agreed to give us a short private tour. I’m so glad she did, because it was a great place to visit. It was just a shame we didn’t have more time, because we could have easily spent the whole day there and at the Fish House.

The hillfort at Archeopark Chotěbuz

We continued north along a dedicated cycle trail then crossed a handsome bridge over the Olza into Karviná via Darkov, a health spa established in the 1860s. Karviná is a coal-mining town, but far from being the unlovely place I’d expected, it was rather pretty, especially the main square with its château and adjacent church and park.

The bridge into Darkov

Karviná town square

On the way out of town, I missed a turning and we ended up doing an unnecessary detour. Then we collectively mis-read a road crossing and Pavla fell off her bike and grazed her leg, though fortunately not too seriously. After passing some quite swanky properties on the edge of town, we came to Dolní Markovice, which lies at the base of a small spur of Czech territory jutting north into Poland. My plan had been to ride around the edge of this salient and have lunch at “The Hut at the End of the World” (Koliba na konci světa), a small pub at the north-eastern tip of the Czech Republic. Young Šimon very much liked the sound of this, but his enthusiasm quickly evaporated as we hit the only climb of the day. While waiting for him to push his bike to the top, I consulted Google and discovered that the pub didn’t open until 2 pm. It was currently midday and we still had about 25 miles to go. Did I tell you our train was due to leave just after 4 pm? With morale falling low and time running short, I had to come up with a different plan. More googling revealed a restaurant open on the other side of the salient, just over a mile away. So, Jitka and I continued around the border as planned, while Pavla and Šimon made a beeline for the restaurant, where we would rendezvous for lunch.

Final border marker

The Hut at the End of the World

As Jitka and I entered a delightful wood, a startled buzzard took flight and a tail feather span to the ground nearby. I attached it (the feather, not the bird) to my handlebar bag as a lucky charm, hoping it would help get us to Bohumín in time for our train. We stopped to photograph what turned out to be the last border stone on my Circuit Ride then continued to the Hut at the End of the World, which was indeed closed. We then came out of the forest and cycled past more up-market houses on a newly laid road to the smart Hotel Dakol, where the other two - sitting on the terrace out back - had already ordered lunch and Pavla was tending to her cycling wounds.

Lunch at Hotel Dakol

Needless to say, the food was slow in coming and we agreed to shorten the rest of our route. Instead of following the river around the back of Bohumín and entering the town from the far side, we decided to head in direct from the east. The planned shortcut also involved fording the river. As this was an unknown in the equation, I went on ahead to scout the situation, only to find that the Olza - a sizeable waterway at the best of times - had been swollen by heavy rains in the night. I waded in and was soon knee-deep in quite fast-flowing water. The only way for us to cross would have been to carry the bikes on our backs. This was too extreme an adventure for a family outing. I phoned Jitka from the middle of the river and told her we had to take the long way round.

A ford too far

The other three cycled on ahead while I put my shoes back on and returned to the road. I caught them up just as they were nearing the towering Dětmarovice power station. A quiet cycle trail led round the back of the plant and came out by the river again. Here, Šimon got his wish to cycle through a stream - not the Olza, but a small tributary running into it. The path continuing along the river - the one I’d originally planned to take - was full of freshly laid loose gravel, so the direct route into town was the right choice in the end.

Dětmarovice power station comes into view

A ford we could afford

We still had some way to go, and Šimon - remember, only ten years old and on a heavy child’s bike - was running out of steam. By now, we were seriously behind schedule. Trying to hide my disquiet, I fed him an emergency muesli bar (only an hour after he’d eaten a huge lunch; the rate at which he burns through calories is astonishing) and instructed him to tuck in behind my rear wheel so we could make faster progress. For the last few miles, I towed him in my slipstream.

Finally, at a quarter to four on 6 July 2017, after cycling 1,500 miles over 32 days spread over more than seven years, I rounded the last corner of my Circuit Ride and Bohumín railway station came into view again. I confess I had a tear or two in my eyes as I came to a halt in front of it. There wasn’t much time to celebrate - a hug from Jitka and it was all over. We made it onto the platform only minutes before the train pulled in. Before long, we were hurtling home to Prague.

The start...

...and end of my cycle ride around the entire Czech border

Two brothers, two sisters, a wife, a cousin and her son

2018-12-28T11:19:00.000+01:00

Stage 7, day 5 (Wednesday, 5 July 2017)
Jablunkov to Cieszyn, 54 km

I should be feeling happy, but I’m not. My wife, Jitka, her cousin Pavla and Pavla’s 10-year-old son Šimon have travelled all the way from Prague to Cieszyn in Poland to join me for the final stage of my Circuit Ride tomorrow. For them, the four-hour journey has been a bit of a nightmare, as the train was full to bursting and they struggled to get their bicycles on board at all. So it is them who should be feeling irritated, not me. But no, they are all smiles, whereas I am tired, overwhelmed and - if I’m honest - a tad grumpy. I’m trying to navigate us to our accommodation, but the roads are busy and the area by the railway station is under massive reconstruction and barely passable even on foot. The hotel - when we do eventually reach it - turns out to be in a big car park next to a DIY store and a supermarket. It has no bike store and the lift smells of urine. This is hardly the idyllic reunion I had in mind.

Mrs Circuit Rider and I reunited in Cieszyn

In the Czech Republic, the fifth of July is the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, two ninth-century brothers who propagated Christianity in this region and are now venerated as national saints. Not that I felt like venerating them when the church bells outside my hotel room in Jablunkov started ringing in the public holiday before seven in the morning. As a result of the din, I was up and in the breakfast room even before the chef arrived for work. This at least gave me time to mull over my route options for the day. Should I take the low road down the valley via the steel-making town of Třinec? Or should I stick to the plan and head into the hills - specifically the Moravian-Silesian Beskids - further east, closer to the Polish border? I decided to stick to the plan.

Písek fire station

Roadside spring on the first ascent of the day

The climb started after just a couple of miles, by the fire station in Písek. Initially quite arduous, it then flattened out for a while as I entered the dense forest, before kicking up again up to Bahenec Hotel, where I stopped to give my complaining muscles a rest. As it turned out, the really hard work was still ahead of me. In a familiar pattern, the road petered out at higher altitude and became so steep I had to dismount and push my bike through a field for about half a mile to the top.

Shrek and Fiona admiring...

...the view from Bahenec Hotel

From then on it was up and down, but mostly down, and mostly on rideable trail, to Filipka, where the tarmac started again. On the smooth descent to Nýdek, I whizzed past a family with small children labouring up the other way on their bikes. It struck me as a good way to put one’s offspring off cycling for life.

Fine views on the way up...

...and on the other side

Most places in Nýdek were shut for the public holiday, but I found a nice little restaurant on the edge of town. While I was waiting for my lunch to arrive, my wife texted me to say that she and her two travelling companions had managed to squeeze themselves and their bikes onto the train in Prague and were now heading my way. I meanwhile managed to squeeze a pizza and couple of tasty local Koníček beers into myself and set off again.

Leaving Nýdek

The road out of Nýdek was properly steep and my legs felt leaden, due possibly to that second beer, but more likely to the cumulative effect of the relentless hills I’d tackled over the past few days. However, the fact that this was the last major climb of my Circuit Ride drove me on to the crest at Gora (which, appropriately, means “mountain”) on the Polish border. As I emerged from the forest, I was greeted by the most amazing vista, stretching from the Beskids across to the Silesian plain. By now I was used to beautiful views, but this was something else.

Fabulous panorama near the Gora border crossing

Before long, I was back in the Czech Republic and descending to the Olza valley floor. Below me, various industrial plants were belching fumes from their tall chimneys. I eventually came out on the main road just north of Třinec. It was odd to be on a busy highway after spending the last three days riding solo in the tranquil hills and forests. I felt quite disconnected from this new reality.

Factories down in Třinec

Fortunately, a cycle path soon took me off the main road and into Český Těšín on the left bank of the Olza. On the opposite side of the river was my destination for the day, Cieszyn. These two towns were in fact a single entity until 1920, when they were divided by the newly created frontier between Czechoslovakia and Poland. Most of the town fell on the Polish side to the east, while the Czechoslovaks had to make do with the smaller western suburb, including the railway station. Nowadays, with Schengen, the two sisters are no longer estranged, but they remain apart.

Český Těšín town hall

I found a cafe just a stone’s throw from Český Těšín railway station and drank coffee on the terrace there while waiting for the train from Prague to arrive. Sullen storm clouds passed by further to the north and I began to feel hot and bothered in the sultry afternoon air. A wave of fatigue washed over me. I paid for my drink, ambled over to the station and met the others on the platform as they alighted. We were soon crossing the bridge into Cieszyn. Unlike the Czechs, the Poles were evidently not commemorating brothers Cyril and Methodius, as the streets on this side of the border were full of traffic.

Arriving in Cieszyn

Exploring Cieszyn with Šimon, Pavla and Jitka

A shower and a change of clothes put me in a better frame of mind. That evening, the four of us dined in the hotel restaurant. We then strolled down to the main square and wandered around the picturesque historical centre as the light faded and the penultimate day of my ride along the Czech border came to a close.

Easterly rider

2018-03-22T09:22:00.000+01:00

Stage 7, day 4 (Tuesday, 4 July 2017)
Karolinka to Jablunkov, 86 km

Another day, another border crossing, this time at Konečná, which means “terminus” in Czech. Things get even more terminal as I swoop down the other side of the pass into Klokočov, the first Slovak town I’ve encountered on my frontier ride. There, a woman is reading out death notices in a mournful monotone over the municipal PA system. Sombre choral folk music follows. The crackly sound rises and falls as I pass under telegraph poles where the speakers are mounted. The sky darkens fleetingly. I feel a growing sense of foreboding about the unknown hill trails ahead.

The Czech Republic ends at Konečná

I left Karolinka at half nine that morning, only to stop a few minutes later as the rain started to come down. The weather radar on my phone told me it was just a passing shower, and 15 minutes later I was heading east again in the dry along the excellent Bečva valley cycle path. The trail came to an end just as the road kicked up into the Beskyd mountains. As I gained height, the highest peak in the range, Lysá Hora, came into view on my left. I reached the Slovak border crossing at the top surprisingly comfortably and rested for a while at a huge monument to the partisans who crossed from Slovakia into Moravia here in September 1944.

Local gastronomic treats advertised in the local dialect

Lysá Hora, the highest mountain in the Moravian-Silesian Beskyds

Monument to WWII partisans at the Slovak border crossing

After a close call with a lorry on the busy main road on the Slovak side, I crossed back into the Czech Republic at the Bumbálka pass, the furthest point from the sea in the Czech Republic. With some relief, I took a left turn away from the traffic onto a quiet forest road and then followed a hiking path up to Čarták observation tower, which although it looks old, was built as recently as 1997 and is in fact a mobile telephone transmitter clad in wood for cosmetic reasons.

Čarták observation tower

I arrived just as a father and his two kids were disappearing into the tower, locking the door behind them. A woman nearby saw me emerge into the clearing and, correctly guessing my intentions, bounded up the steps after them and called them back. The family let me in and I followed them up the 131 steps. The little boy in front of me was afraid of heights. I tried to reassure him, but the metal-grill spiral staircase was disquieting even for me. The viewing platform windows at the top were all shut and shuttered. Light and wind poured in as we opened them one by one. Now above the treetops, at the highest point on Stage 7 of my Circuit Ride, I could properly admire the Javorník ridge to the south and the Beskyd peaks ahead of me to the north.

The spiral staircase

Views from the top

I ran into the two children again at the nearby car park. “Is that the cyclist who was up the tower with us?” asked the girl as I passed. “I don’t know,” her younger brother replied.

I freewheeled back down to the Bumbálka pass, crossed the highway and went off-road again. The path was initially very rough and I had the sinking feeling that I was in for another arduous descent. However, the surface improved after a while and eventually I came out on a freshly laid cycle superhighway running down through the forest to the town of Bílá, where I stopped for lunch in the busy beer garden at Hotel Bauer.

Cycle superhighway running down to...

...St Frederic’s Church in Bílá

A fairly gentle post-prandial climb took me up to the border with Slovakia at Konečná, then it was a long descent into gloomy Klokočov. At Hrubý Buk, I turned off the highway onto a narrow, steeply rising road that petered out into a rough hiking trail. It occurred to me that I might be the first Englishman ever to have passed this way. As I reached the crown of the hill, an old woman labouring up the other way reciprocated my greeting, adding, “I’m curious how you’re going to cycle down this rubbish".

The trail gets sketchy in Slovakia

Slovak cycle signpost

It was indeed a steep and bumpy drop to the next village, where I faced yet another ascent. This time, however, it levelled out onto quite a decent cycle trail leading to Megoňky, known, dear reader, for its huge balls. These extraordinary rock spheres, over 8 foot in diameter, rolled out into the open during blasting at the quarry here in the 1980s, but how they were originally formed remains a mystery. To be honest, I only found one of them, which I reached after a tricky scramble. I might have discovered more, but it was getting late in the day and I had to press on.

An unfeasibly large rock ball at Megoňky

My short sojourn in Slovakia ended at the nearby border crossing, the most underwhelming of my Circuit Ride so far. A dirt track took me back into the Czech Republic and onto a road winding through dense forest for quite some distance to Hrčava, where the locals were busy preparing to celebrate the 90th anniversary of its status as an independent municipality. A Czech-Polish-Slovak disco was planned for the evening. I was more interested in finding the “tripoint” where the borders of these three countries all meet.

Valy Bridge in Slovakia

For no good reason, I’d been expecting this part of the world to be flat. That I was mistaken soon became clear as the brand new Valy road bridge - at 84 m the highest in Central Europe - came into view in the middle distance on the other side of Hrčava. I had to descend steeply and then climb equally sharply to reach the tripoint. The spot itself is marked by three obelisks, one for each country. A flight of steps leads down to the stream separating the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Otherwise, it was a bit of a building site - someone was clearly trying to develop it as a tourist attraction. Nevertheless, it was a major milestone on my trip around the Czech border.

The Czech-Polish-Slovak tripoint

By now it was gone 5 o’clock and I had another landmark still to reach that day: the easternmost point of the Czech Republic. I briefly entered Poland for the first time since stage 3 of my Circuit Ride then crossed back into the Czech Republic. The views on all sides were goosebump-inducing. This beautiful area was clearly getting under my skin. It was impossible not to fall in love with it, despite the relentless hills.

Views along the Czech-Polish border

A nature trail leads down to the most easterly point in the Czech Republic, first through a peat meadow beside the Bukovec nature reserve and then left along the border stream into a wood. I left my bike at a picnic table and walked the final 100 yards or so. The last of the tourist information boards dotted along the way urged me to let go of my cares and enjoy the peace and tranquillity of this secluded spot. Which was all very well except that I was dealing simultaneously by phone with a family crisis in the UK. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the time for contemplation.

The easternmost point of the Czech Republic

I made my way back to the road and cycled mostly downhill to today’s destination of Jablunkov. The three women behind the bar in Hotel Bullawa initially blanked me, but they turned out to be friendly enough. As I supped a welcome beer, the manager asked if I was one of “our Americans”. A party of seven, she said, were staying there for a family celebration.

Jablunkov

It was the eve of a double public holiday and the bar was full of people when I came back down later in search of food. I found a free table on the terrace at the back, ordered a schnitzel and another beer and reflected on what a great day I’d had, despite the route having been 10 miles longer than I’d calculated. It dawned on me that I only had another two days to go to Bohumín, where I’d started this adventure over seven years earlier. It was the beginning of the end.

Stuck in a (muddy) rut

2017-10-26T16:47:00.001+02:00

Stage 7, day 3 (Monday, 3 July 2017)
Žítková to Karolinka, 75 km

Not for the first - or last - time on my Circuit Ride, I’m confronted with a cycle trail that’s too rough to ride. A short while back I had to squelch through a waterlogged section where some huge forestry vehicle had gouged great muddy ruts out of the ground. And now I’m on a rocky, rooty chute that’s so stupidly steep I’ve had to dismount again and clamber down on foot. I’d be struggling on a full-suspension downhill bike, never mind on this touring machine of mine. I’m not too proud to get off and push uphill where necessary, but, dammit, I do resent having to walk downhill.

The “cycle trail” near the Pulčín Rocks

Sign outside an animal pen at Hotel Kopanice

The view from breakfast

Breakfast at Hotel Kopanice in Žítková came with a side order of a fine vista across the surrounding White Carpathian hills. I’d slept well and was feeling surprisingly good after the previous day’s extreme exertions. I cycled out of the village in the company of two squabbling goldfinches. The road was flat for a while, with lovely views down to the border road, but then lurched up and turned into a rough trail as the forest engulfed me. I went at least half an hour without seeing anyone except a pair of cyclists coming in the opposite direction. Eventually I bounced out onto a proper road leading down to the small town of Pitín.

View back down to Pitín

I struck east along the main highway, sharing the rolling road with lorries and other big vehicles for the first time on this stage of my trip. At one point I even outpaced a tractor up a hill. On the outskirts of Brumlov-Bylnice, I gratefully turned off the busy road onto a new cycle path running alongside the Brumovka stream. This brought me out below Brumov castle, which I reached at about midday. If you, however, were to arrive at midnight, you might see the long-dead lord of the castle riding around - as he is said to do - in a chariot drawn by fire-breathing horses.

Brumov castle, clearly

After a lunch of pizza in Valašské Klobouky (which translates, amusingly, as “Wallachian Hats”; you can buy one for yourself here if the fancy takes you). I continued along the main road and then turned right under a railway line to start the long climb to Pulčín, the highest village in Valašsko (the Moravian Wallachia region). On the way up I came across a rather odd roadside memorial listing all the dead former residents of the village of Horní Lideč, which lies in the valley below. Soon after, the tarmac ended and I was back on the bumpy stuff.

On the climb to Pulčín

After a couple of miles of climbing I came out on the road that winds through Pulčín, best known for its romantic sandstone rock formations. There used to be a castle here, although all that is left of it today is stairways in the rocks. According to a local legend, a knight named Bočkaj hid his treasure there. On the feast of St John the Baptist, the sun shines directly on the spot leading underground. The rocks are only accessible by foot, but I caught a glimpse of them from the cycle trail above the village.

Pulčín rocks!

It was in the deep forest here that I hit the uncyclable track described in the preamble. It’s a quietly beautiful part of the world, this, but the cycling infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired - some of the roads and trails are in a very poor state. Just as I was beginning to despair, I came out on a lovely smooth road in the village of Zděchov. I stopped to knock the mud out of the soles of my boots then descended serenely to the River Bečva at Huslenky.

The Bečva valley

You see, they can do it round here when they want to! A fabulous dedicated cycleway winds up the picturesque Bečva valley between Vsetín and Velké Karlovice. Not surprisingly, I found it busy with folks of all ages out cycling in the afternoon sunshine. Within an hour I was entering the glass-making town of Karolinka, my destination for the day. Meanwhile, in Longwy, France, Slovak superstar Petr Sagan was winning the third stage of the 2017 Tour de France. It would be Slovakia for me tomorrow.

Hill towers and towering hills

2017-10-02T19:29:00.000+02:00

Stage 7, day 2 (Sunday, 2 July 2017)
Hodonín to Žítková, 93 km

I have ground to a halt halfway up the exposed spiral staircase of Travničná telecommunication tower and I’m having to give myself a stern talking to. That toddler just managed it, so why can’t you? The steps - slippery after the rain - are made of a steel mesh, so I can see all the way down to the visitor centre below my feet and all the way up to the observation deck above. I don’t have a great head for heights, and this is well outside my comfort zone. I try to regain my composure as the whole structure sways in the wind. It’s decision time: do I turn around and go back down, or can I persuade myself to keep going upwards?

Views up and down Travničná observation tower

I woke up very early on Sunday morning and was cruising south out of Hodonín by half past nine. Before long I was crossing into Slovakia for the first time on my Circuit Ride. The rain started to drizzle down as I cycled east along the flood-defence embankment running parallel to the River Morava, and it was pouring by the time I reached Skalice Marina at the western end of the Baťa Canal. I parked up for a while and climbed the adjacent observation tower, the first of several such structures I planned to visit that day. Below me, a trio of Slovak boxers were training alfresco.

Skalice Marina on the Baťa Canal

The Baťa Canal was built between 1934 and 1938 and was part-financed by the Baťa Shoe Company, which needed to transport brown coal to power its factories in Otrokovice and Zlín. However, the canal was badly damaged during World War II and gradually fell into disuse. It was reopened in 1995 and is now the most popular tourist destination in this relatively undiscovered part of the world.

A family enjoying a pleasure cruise on the Baťa Canal

The rain slackened as I crossed the waterway back into the Czech Republic. I followed the towpath for a couple of miles then left the canal behind and made for the wine-making village of Sudoměřice. The White Carpathian hills began to loom ominously ahead. This was to be the last flat section of the route until the very last day of my Circuit Ride.

Pretty local architecture near Sudoměřice

From then on it was up and down the whole day. The first challenge was Žerotín, a pretty hill with small vineyards and orchards on its flanks. Then came Travničná, with the aforementioned scary beast of an observation tower at its summit. As I arrived there it started bucketing down again, so I took shelter in the building at its base. The extremely chatty ticket-seller was threatening to close up and go home on account of the rain-averse mouse that was scurrying around her feet. When the downpour eased off for a while, I took a deep breath and climbed the 177 steps to the observation deck. It was worth overcoming my fear; despite the impaired visibility the views were amazing in all directions.

Travničná telecommunication tower

Views from the top

Back down on terra firma I lunched on sandwiches left over from the previous day while periodically checking the weather radar on my phone. Once the final rain cloud of the day had passed, I set off again for the next hilltop, the oddly named Výzkum (“Research” in Czech), where a funny wooden chap was pointing me in the wrong direction. Not for the first time that day, I had the place to myself.

Confusing directions

Another fine panorama from the top of Výzkum

The next landmark on my route was Kuželov, a Dutch-style windmill dating from 1842. Here I met a pair of Slovak cyclists, who asked me where I was headed. They exchanged glances when I told them. “That’s quite a way,” said one. “Hilly, too,” said the other. It began to dawn on me that I had seriously underestimated both the terrain and the length of today’s ride.

Kuželov Windmill

Another tower - Drahy - sprouted into view further down the road. From the top I could see the valley ahead, which took me gently uphill to the village of Vápenky. I stopped at a pub there and ordered a mid-afternoon snack from a waiter, a fellow with an extraordinary sing-song voice. I was just wondering whether he was the only gay in the village when the barman arrived with my drink and addressed me in exactly the same way. Turns out that everyone speaks like this around here. It’s the remains of the local Slovácko (Moravian Slovakia) dialect, which like so many others, has been pushed into retreat in recent decades by the effects of globalisation.

Drahy observation tower

Fuelled up on Nutella pancakes, I climbed out of Vápenky past a large party of elderly ramblers and into a thick forest. As the incline increased, a young family out cycling with no map flagged me down to ask how far it was to the top. When I told them it was at least another kilometre, they decided to turn back - probably a wise decision given the rough, steep hairpins that followed.

By the time I crested this particular hill it was already late afternoon and I was beginning to feel very pushed for time. I pressed on to the next observation tower on my list, Obecnice, stopping only briefly to admire more stunning views, and continued along an increasingly rough and narrow hiking trail, past a children’s camp on the edge of the forest. The kids watched bemused as I bounced past over tree roots, cursing in English as I went. After another couple of miles I reached my fifth and final tower of the day, U Křížku, which was practically identical to the previous one. The track ahead looked sketchy, so, fed up with broken trails, I backtracked to the nearest road and lost a whole lot of height freewheeling down to the town of Březová.

Obecnice and U Křížku towers - can you tell the difference?

Great views from both, though

The next ascent just wouldn’t relent. It was innocuous enough to begin with, but it ramped up after a few miles and then got even steeper when I turned right onto a straight side road. That short section alone involved a 100 m (330 ft) gain in altitude. Halfway up, I stopped to catch my breath and also to check my hotel check-in hours, as by now it was getting on for 6 pm and I still had quite some way to go.

I came out on a wider road, which, although less severe, still climbed and climbed. You can tell you’re high up when you start passing the tops of ski lifts. The scenery was admittedly stunning, but I’d had my fill by now. Eventually I reached the highest point of my day at Rapantův vrch, which, at 788 m (2,585 ft) above sea level, was a full 350 m (1,150 ft) higher than I’d been in Březová. This was followed by an alarmingly steep and tricky descent along a narrow, gravel-strewn road. The driver of the car in front refused to let me pass even though he was clearly holding me up.

The descent to Starý Hrozenkov

After a while, the road became wider and smoother and I glided down to the border town of Starý Hrozenkov. No sooner had I hit the valley floor, though, than I was climbing up the other side again. This was the sting in the tail. With an average gradient of around 1 in 6, it was short but most certainly not sweet. I part rode, part pushed my way up, driven on solely by the prospect of reaching my accommodation for the night.

Three other cyclists were resting at the junction at the top. I was too breathless to say anything except “That hurts!”. One of them said, “Let’s hope it gets easier now”. Fortunately it did, although I still had to cycle uphill for another mile or so to my destination, the hilltop village of Žítková. The hotel there turned out to be quite smart, with great views of the surrounding countryside. The Slovak receptionist looked faintly disgusted when she set eyes on my sweaty, snotty, smelly self. “I have a reservation,” I said, trying to muster what little decorum I had left.

Great Moravia!

2017-07-23T10:16:00.000+02:00

Stage 7, day 1 (Saturday, 1 July 2017)
Břeclav to Hodonín, 54 km

I’m standing on Czech soil at the southernmost vertex of the Dyje Triangle, also known as the Moravian Amazon, one of the last uninhabited expanses of Europe. Just below me, the clear, black River Dyje is merging restlessly into the murkier waters of the Morava. To my left, a group of cyclists has assembled on the Slovak side of the Morava. To my right, on the opposite bank of the Dyje, stand Austrian fishermen’s cottages with big hammock-like nets suspended on poles above the water. I wait a while as a pair of canoes glide nearer, then shout “Ahoj!”, the traditional greeting among Czech river-goers. “Hallo!” comes the German rejoinder. Behind me, my great friend Ryan is already making his way back towards the bikes. He’s grumbling about the nettles and mosquitoes, but you won’t hear any complaints from me. I’m back exploring the farthest-flung reaches of the Czech Republic for the first time in over six years, and it feels great. I take one last look at the river disappearing around the bend on its way down to the Danube, then I turn around to continue my own journey.

The Dyje (right) flowing into the Morava (left)

Fishing nets on the Austrian side of the Dyje

The train from Prague brought me into Břeclav just after 11 in the morning. Fifteen minutes later, Ryan careered into the station car park, complaining about the holiday traffic. Before long, he had his bike out of the car and we were cruising south into the flatlands of the Dyje Triangle. Our first stop was the Pohansko hunting chateau, built in the grandest of styles by Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein, in 1810-11. It is named after a Great Moravian settlement which flourished here in the ninth century; the name itself derives from the word for pagan. An interesting place, although to be perfectly honest Ryan and I were still too busy catching up with each other’s news to pay it much attention.

Ryan silhouetted against the Pohansko hunting chateau

We continued along the long straight former patrol road past storks foraging for food in the meadows, stopping only to read an information board telling the tale of two fishermen killed by Czechoslovak border guards by the nearby river during the Cold War, a tragedy long hushed up by the Communist authorities.

Can you spot the stork in the meadow?

Despite its flatness, this is a magically beautiful place, part alluvial forest and part verdant grassland punctuated by solitary trees. I’ve read that it is largely unchanged since the time of the Great Moravian Empire. It is also surprisingly little known as a tourist destination, and we encountered hardly any other visitors as we scooted towards the confluence of the rivers Dyje and Morava, which also happens to be the “tripoint” where the Czech, Austrian and Slovak frontiers converge.

Start of the spur leading to the tripoint

Border stone dating from 1755

A slatted wooden path winding through the forest led us to the tripoint. Ryan and I took it in turns to stand on the furthest tip of land overlooking the confluence and watch fish leaping from the water. We then backtracked to our main route and found a suitable trailside spot for a picnic.

No prizes for guessing where Ryan hails from

My turn at the tripoint

After lunch, we cycled north up the opposite, eastern flank of the Dyje Triangle, eventually popping out on the main road to the border with Slovakia. There, we turned onto the Morava cycle path for a ride of gentle bends but harsh surfaces along the pancake-flat embankment on the Czech side of the river. At one point, I found myself missing the hills, but then I remembered I had plenty of those in store over the next few days. A stiff tailwind drove us along at a brisk pace but simultaneously made for stiflingly hot work in the afternoon sun, so we were very glad to turn off into a cool and tranquil wood. Before long, Mikulčice - another former Great Moravian settlement and the largest Slavonic archaeological site in the Czech Republic - suddenly appeared in a clearing in front of us.

First time on Slovak soil on my Circuit Ride

View back along the Morava cycle trail

By now, we were not far from the town of Hodonín, our destination for the day, so a celebratory drink was in order. As we supped delicious Litovel beer alfresco at a cafe behind the visitor centre, I eavesdropped on a group of four Czechs at the next table, who, in turn, had been eavesdropping on us. They had clearly noticed Ryan’s splendid emerald green Cycle Ireland jersey and had surmised - wrongly - that we were both Irish. They were particularly perplexed by our English accents. “It’s like listening to someone from Ostrava - I can barely understand a word they’re saying,” said one of them.

Mikulčice visitor centre and viewing tower

Picture of a ninth century rotunda,

one of the many buildings that used to stand at Mikulčice

The woman at the visitor centre was similarly nonplussed by our combination of English and Czech, and especially by Ryan’s Czech-German mélange (he lived in Prague for a long time and is now based in Austria and probably doesn’t know what language he’s speaking half the time). We bought tickets for the surprisingly tall viewing tower that was swaying in the breeze above the museum. Ryan has an even worse head for heights than me and his complexion took on the same colour as his cycling top as I snapped the fine views from the top.

Selfie atop the viewing tower

Panorama from the top

The final stretch of our day’s ride took us into Hodonín, where we stopped on the main square for greasy goulash and more drinks in the late afternoon sunshine. While we were there, the wind suddenly whipped up and blew my bike right over. At first, it seemed that no damage had been done, but then I noticed that one of my bar ends was missing. An exhaustive search of a large radius around the bikes revealed nothing except an inscription on the ground informing us that Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the much revered first President of Czechoslovakia, was born in the town. It was only after I had given up the bar end for lost that I found it lodged inside my helmet, which had been hanging from the handlebars but was now sitting on the table at the restaurant.

Masaryk Square in Hodonín

With that mystery solved, we proceeded to the guesthouse, which turned out to be very comfortable indeed. The host, a delightful woman, had the strongest sing-song Moravian accent I’ve ever heard. Ryan needed to return home to his wife and baby daughter the same day, so I guided him to the station and put him on the train back to Břeclav.

Hodonín Town Hall

That evening I dined at a surprisingly good burger bar to an accompaniment of 1980s heavy rock music, and then ambled back to the guesthouse. At the dodgy pub next door, a live band was pumping out a bad version (is there a good version?) of Bryan Adams’ "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You". Had Ryan (not Bryan) still been with me, we would no doubt have ended up having some craic in there together, but I was on my own now and bed seemed more enticing than beer. To my surprise, the pub fell silent soon after 11 pm, and soon after that I was fast asleep.

Circuit Rider returns!

2017-06-15T09:00:00.000+02:00

Yes, after a hiatus of almost six years, I have at last carved out enough time to attempt to complete my perimeter ride of the Czech Republic.

In just over two weeks' time, barring disasters, I will embark on the long-planned Stage 7 of my Circuit Ride. I've booked time off work, I've bought my rail tickets and I've finalised my itinerary. On 1 July, I will catch the train to Břeclav in South Moravia, where I ended Stage 6 in September 2011. There, I will meet my great friend Ryan (who accompanied me on a highly entertaining section of Stage 3 back in September 2010) and together we will cycle to Hodonín. I'll then continue on my own for a few days through the White Carpathians and the Moravian-Silesian Beskids to the tripoint where the Czech Republic meets Slovakia meets Poland. From there, I'll turn north and head along the Czech-Polish border to Cieszyn, where my wife and her cousin and 10-year-old son will, I hope, be waiting for me. The next day – on 6 July – the four of us will cycle together to Bohumín, where my Circuit Ride adventure began (in the rain) in May 2010.

Setting-off selfie seven years ago

Stage 7 start point

Many things have happened in my life since I completed Stage 6.* As a result, my Circuit Ride has been on the back burner. Yet I've never given up on my plan to finish it. In the meantime I've been cycling regularly and I've been replying to many e-mails from – and meeting up with – fellow cyclists who have contacted me through this site with their questions about cycling in and around the Czech Republic.

I have a new bike for this final stage. It's a Kolos No. 4 assembled to my specification in British racing green (or, less glamorously, John Deere green, as Ted and Cosmic Ray – my new cycling buddies from the USA – kindly pointed out) by local firm Citybikes. Technology has, of course, moved on since I last rode under the guise of Circuit Rider; unlike last time, for example, I will be guided by satnav on my smartphone. The network of cycling trails in the Czech Republic has also expanded a great deal since I first planned Stage 7 and I've been fine-tuning my original route in recent months to make the most of this.

Me and Kolos No. 4 in Tuscany last October

The one thing (okay, two things) that won't be new are my legs, which are approaching 50 years of age all too quickly. I'm not at the peak of fitness either, due to various distractions in recent months, but pain and suffering are all part of the fun of circuit riding. I can't wait to get going!

* Some of them, to be honest, would probably have made for a more interesting blog than this one.

Circuit Ride Recycled – Part 2

2013-05-28T19:36:00.000+02:00

In which our intrepid protagonist enters Poland, where he finds the trails - and the food - not entirely to his liking...

Testing spells and spelling tests

Stage 2, day 3 (Sunday, 25 July 2010)
Trutnov to Szklarska Poręba (84 km)

Funny things, borders. As I cross into Poland, where I’ll be spending the next day and a half, I feel like I’m somewhere new, somewhere alien and exotic. But the birds and the bees above my head don’t see it that way; they just see more of the same. And the beetle scuttling across the path in front of me just sees more colossal pebbles and towering blades of grass to negotiate - although maybe he should be paying more attention to the bicycle tyres bearing down on him at speed. Oops, sorry Ringo!

I was downstairs at the B&B on Sunday morning before the breakfast room was even open. As the girl brought in the food, Nina Simone was seductively singing “I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl” on the stereo. I suspect the lyrics have a hidden meaning, but I took them at face value and loaded some extra honey in my tea. I was heading into the mountains today; I’d be needing all the energy I could get.

I rolled north out of Trutnov, initially along the Úpa River then up to Stachelberg Fort, built in 1937-38 as part of the Czechoslovak border fortifications against Nazi Germany (the building work was halted by the annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938; the Germans advanced so quickly the construction firm was forced to leave behind a lot of its equipment).

Stachelberg Fort

From Stachelberg I hurtled down a steep forest trail then regained altitude on the road up to Žacléř. I took a short break in the village of Bobr (“Beaver”) just short of the border with Poland, near where the great Czech educator John Amos Comenius went into permanent exile in 1628.

Tourist information board in Bobr

The hard work started just over the frontier. The road ramped up sharply through the village of Niedamirów and suddenly turned into a very rough track. An amused local started chatting to me as I ground to a halt. Unfortunately I speak barely a word of Polish, but I’m pretty certain I heard him say “crazy”.

The trail leading up into the Giant Mountains

I struggled over that climb, rattled down the other side and joined the ER-2 cycle route, which I was to follow for much of the next two days. Things went from bad to worse. To begin with I missed a turn-off and had to backtrack down the hill. Then I found that a recent flash flood had turned the steepest section of the trail (which, with a grade of up to 33%, would not have been cyclable anyway) into a gully strewn with rocks, logs and other debris. Sucking on energy tablets, I variously pushed, pulled and carried my loaded bike up a 250 m ascent.

This is supposed to be a bike path?! Morale hits a low point.

At one badly marked fork in the path I temporarily abandoned my bike and scouted ahead. To my relief I soon emerged on a wider trail with a decent surface and better signposting. From there I was able to ride up to the highest point of my journey so far, just below a peak called Łysocina. The following rough-and-ready video captures the moment.

The highest point on stage 2: 1051 metres (3448 feet) above sea level

There followed a 500 m descent to the outskirts of Kowary. Normally this would be a reason for great rejoicing, but my anger at Polish cycle-route planners soon turned to vexation at Czech cartographers, who were clearly having a laugh at my expense. Sections marked on my map as roads were in fact insanely bumpy trails. My bike was bucking like a bronco. At last I popped out - shaken and not a little stirred - on a blissfully smooth road leading up to the mountain resort of Karpacz.

View from just below the top of the descent

Karpacz is said to be the home of Liczyrzepa (aka Rübezahl in German and Krakonoš in Czech), the legendary guardian of the Giant Mountains, who also lends his name to the ER-2 cycle route. I can’t imagine he lives there any more. In fact, I bet he lives somewhere deep in the forest and grumbles about how Karpacz has gone to the dogs since he was a lad. It is a truly tacky holiday resort.

I rode at snail’s pace into Karpacz in search of lunch. The place was full of fast food joints offering pizza and kebab. I chose one of the more salubrious-looking establishments and sat down at a table outside. The charmless waitress showed no interest in trying to communicate with a non-Polish speaker, so I pointed at random at a pizza on the menu. While waiting for it to arrive I checked my cycle computer and was disturbed to find that I’d only covered 51 km since breakfast. It was now almost four in the afternoon.

I wolfed down the pizza (topped with ketchup and rancid cheese), had a quick coffee and left Karpacz as fast as I could - which was not very fast at all, because the road out of town kept rising and rising. At the top of the hill was a huge hotel, still under construction and grossly out of proportion with its surroundings.

Sign for the ER-2, aka the Liczyrzepa Trail

I don’t know what they put in that pizza, but it gave me a fair burst of energy. I clocked over 40 mph descending into Przesieka, then overshot my turning and had to ride back uphill. For the last hour or so I whizzed along a beautiful forest trail with a much better surface than I’d experienced earlier. I began to pass joggers and people walking their dogs, a sure sign that I was nearing civilisation again.

Hotel Agat, my home for the night in Szklarska Poręba

I reached Szklarska Poręba at 6.15 pm - not too bad, all things considered. The hotel I’d booked - Hotel Agat - was bang in the middle of town. There was no store for my bike, but they had no problems with me taking it up to my room. After a quick look around the town (again pretty tacky, but less so than Karpacz) I dined in the hotel’s medieval banqueting room. On the waiter’s advice I ordered pierogi ruskie - fried dumplings stuffed with a spicy cheese and potato mix. They were tasty enough, but stodgy and a bit boring.

Pierogi and Żywiec - I must be in Poland

While writing a blog post on my mobile phone I realised I didn’t know how to spell “Szklarska”. I noted down my two best guesses on a piece of paper and asked the waiter which was the right one. Neither, as it turned out. He took my pen and wrote down the correct version for me.

I took another stroll outside. Distorted music was blaring from a bar overlooking the river. It was all too much after such a hard day. Time for bed, I thought to myself as I walked past a life-sized model dinosaur, or I’ll be extinct myself by tomorrow morning.

Circuit Ride Recycled – Part 1

2013-05-12T09:36:00.000+02:00

Given the complete lack of posts here since last July, you might be thinking that I’ve hung up my cycling shoes for good. But you’d be wrong. Yes, my mission to circumcycle the Czech Republic has been on hold for far too long now, but I’m looking forward to completing the job this summer.

I haven’t been entirely idle on the Circuit Rider front. I’ve been answering plenty of cycling-related queries, and I’ve even met up with a few people in Prague through the blog. If you do have any questions about cycling in this part of the world, I’d be very pleased to hear them. You can e-mail me via my profile.

To get the blog rolling again, I've decided to re-publish six of my favourite posts, one from each of the six previous stages of my ride along the Czech border. It’s a re-hash, I know, but I’m hoping it will get me back in the circuit-riding mood as well as sending out a message that this project is still a going concern.

I’m calling this series Circuit Ride Recycled, and it starts with a post from the rain-sodden Stage 1 on of my trip, which I rode three years ago almost to the day. It’s only the second day of my journey, and things are already going awry...

Ups and downs

Stage 1, day 2 (Saturday, 15 May 2010):
Opava to Zlaté hory (104 km)

I'm wrecked. I'm still only half way up this climb, but there's steam rising off my back, snot streaming out of my nose and I'm gasping for air. It's been gloomy all day, but it's even darker now as I enter the misty forest and dusk starts to fall. I round the last of three hairpins and grind to a halt. Serves me right for blogging on about loving the hills. Idiot. And then a thought occurs to me. That camera of mine has a video function. Maybe if I film myself it will take my mind off the pain. Perhaps some of the visitors to my blog will even enjoy watching me suffering like this. It's time for Circuit Rider CZ to go multimedia.

I was woken up at quarter past six on Saturday morning by the noise of my neighbour taking a shower. Bloody Czechs and their early-rising habits. Breakfast cheered me up: a hefty plate of fried ham and eggs (written hemenex in Czech) and a surprisingly good cup of tea, all with the usual accompaniment of 80s and 90s hits on the local radio station.

I had a pleasant run out of Opava through the backstreets of the town and had just hit the main drag to Krnov when I got that sinking feeling: a front-wheel puncture. So soon! I took a right turn across the railway line into a village called Holasovice, parked up and dug out my spare inner tube. As I set to work a man called at me from a house across the road.

"Need a bowl of water?"

"No, but do you have a pump? I've only got this small hand one."

"Hold on."

He reappeared moments later carrying a pristine floor pump complete with pressure gauge. His father-in-law had it for the tyres on his wheelchair, he said. We got chatting as we fixed the flat together. He was a dentist from Brno visiting his wife's family in the village. He told me about his brother living in the UK, enquired about my trip and warned me that torrential rain was forecast for the weekend. When the tyre was repaired, he wished me šťastnou cestu (bon voyage) and I thanked him for his act of kindness and set off again.

Úvalno viewing tower

My next stop was Úvalno, the first viewing tower of my trip. Built in 1913 and reopened to the public in 2000, it houses the mausoleum of the nearby village's most famous son, Hans Kudlich, a 19th century human rights campaigner. In 1848 Kudlich tabled a parliamentary motion that emancipated the peasantry in the Austrian empire. He was later sentenced to death for revolutionary activities and ended up in the USA, where he lobbied for the abolition of slavery and the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. A remarkable man.

Cvilín viewing tower

The following hill was Cvilín, a place of pilgrimage. Just as I reached the top I realised my tyre was slowly going down again. I'd checked the inside of the tyre for the cause of the first puncture, but obviously hadn't done so thoroughly enough - a beginner's mistake. A closer inspection revealed the culprit: a tiny shard of glass embedded in the rubber. Now both the original tube and the spare were holed. I patched up one of them and put it back on the wheel. While reinflating the tyre - this time the hard way using my tiny hand pump - I managed to break off the tip of the valve. Somehow the tube held firm, but things weren't going well.

The church on top of Cvilín and the 222 steps leading up to it

Cvilín was quite busy with pilgrims. Some of them were staring at me and I realised I'd been swearing rather too vociferously at my bike. People were gathering for a "mass for the conversion of the Czech, Moravian and Silesian people and the return of a just government". Most had walked up the 222 stone steps leading up from the town of Krnov to the site's fine Baroque church, which contains an allegedly miracle-working painting of the Virgin Mary. I walked to the adjacent viewing tower, but unfortunately it was closed.

Pilgrimage poster outside the church

I descended gingerly into Krnov for lunch, convinced that my front tyre was still leaking air. I found a (not very) Italian restaurant on the attractive main square, ordered pasta and went to the gents to wash my filthy hands. At this point I was seriously considering aborting stage one for this weekend. The weather was cold, heavy rain was forecast, and I was faced with a potentially unrepairable tyre. There'd be no bike shops open now until Monday and I was heading into a fairly remote area.

Krnov main square

A decent lunch and a call home to my sympathetic wife lifted my mood. When I emerged from the restaurant the tyre was still rock solid, so I decided to keep going. I rolled northwest along the Opavice River past Linhartovy Chateau (where a wedding was going on) to Město Albrechtice and there swung northwest.

Linhartovy Chateau

The road deteriorated first into rough muddy trail and then - flooded by the recent rains - into a riverbed. At one point I disturbed a pair of ducks paddling along it. I needed an amphibious vehicle, not a road bike. My bottle cage was shaken loose, but amazingly the tyres soaked up the punishment. Eventually I hit tarmac again. I would have knelt down and kissed it, but it was splattered with cow dung. A sign pointing back down the trail read "Cycle path difficult to negotiate in the wet". Tell me about it, I muttered.

"Cycle path difficult to negotiate in the wet"

I was now in the Osoblaha salient, a far-flung projection of Czech territory surrounded on three sides by Poland. The first major landmark was Slezské Rudoltice, a stately home which I found closed, dilapidated and engulfed in trees. I'd read a bit about this place. In the first half of the 18th century, Albert of Hodice, an art lover with a penchant for living spectacularly beyond his means, spent three million florins turning it into the "Silesian Versailles". In its heyday the chateau boasted 58 rooms and halls and a park containing 4,000 statues, man-made caves, ruins and water features, classical and oriental temples and other assorted follies. It was visited by the great and the good, including French philosopher Voltaire in the company of Frederick the Great of Prussia. Old Albert died broke in 1778 and the chateau slowly decayed. Today only one statue remains in the park, ironically that of Albert himself.

The narrow-gauge railway at Bohušov

I was glad to leave Slezské Rudoltice. Under the overcast sky it had looked sombre, spooky even. I pushed on to Bohušov, where I crossed paths with the only publicly-owned narrow-gauge railway in the Czech Republic. From there it was a short sharp descent into the town of Osoblaha.

Signs on Osoblaha square

Osoblaha sounds interesting on paper. It has a delightful German name (Hotzenplotz), a major Jewish cemetery and the aforementioned railway. On 31 March 1945 it became the first Czechoslovak town to be liberated from German occupation. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in the process and - unlike, say, Krnov and Opava - never recovered from that and the subsequent expulsion of its majority ethnic German population. The main square looked so glum I couldn't even summon up the energy to photograph it. I didn't hang around long.

I hit a mental and physical low after climbing out of Osablaha. The temperature started dropping as evening approached and a stiff headwind rose from the west. I felt fatigued and demotivated.

And then, out of the blue, I experienced a moment of the soul. The fauna of Silesia suddenly seemed to rise up and urge me on. A stork treated me to a low fly-past, gliding effortlessly just ahead of me for a while before veering away across the meadow. A stoat with a small rodent clamped in its jaws dashed across the road. A roe deer burst out of a coppice. A huge hare took flight across a field. I spotted robins, goldfinches, yellowhammers and even red-backed shrikes, reminding me of highwaymen with their black eye bands.

I get a strange feeling at moments like this, one of elation mingled with melancholy. I only ever get it on the bike, and only ever when deeply physically tired. The goose bumps rise on my skin and a lump rises in my throat. I've even been known to weep. I guess it's just an endorphin rush, but it feels more profound than that. It's rather beautiful.

The drug-free high passed all too quickly. By the time I reached Petrovice, after almost 100 km in the saddle, I was exhausted. I stopped for a while to regain some strength and psych myself up for the final climb of the day. I was tempted to pop into the pub for coffee and cake, but I knew I'd never come out again. I was tempted a second time when I saw the road sign around the corner warning of a 12% gradient, but I kept going to the top.

Zlaté hory, Saturday evening

All that remained was a fast, cold, dark descent - through forests where outlaws once roamed - to my overnight stop in Zlaté hory ("Golden Mountains"). With its high street dug up, this frontier town was hardly a welcoming site; it looked like a war zone. Still, the guesthouse, U Modrého Zvonku (The Blue Bell), had real charm compared to yesterday's accommodation, and was cheaper as well. I was the only guest staying there that night. After a long soak in the bath in my top-floor room I dressed and went down for dinner. As I ate I watched the Czechs lose embarrassingly to Switzerland in the Ice Hockey World Championships (a tournament which, however, they went on to win). I posted a message to the blog and went back upstairs - nightcap in hand - to repair my spare inner tube.

Stage 7 ticked off (for now)

2012-07-04T19:20:00.000+02:00

A (very small) number of you must be wondering what is happening with my Circuit Ride given the absence of news on this blog over the last few months.

First of all, let me apologise for the dearth of new posts here recently. Since the start of this year I have been extraordinarily busy in the non-cycling, non-blogging department of my life. I simply have not had the time to blog or bike as much as I would like.

But that does not mean I have given up on my attempt to circumcycle the Czech Republic. On the contrary, I had pencilled in the final (5-day) stage for this weekend, as tomorrow and Friday are both national holidays here in the Czech Republic (Saints Cyril and Methodius Day and Jan Hus Day respectively). In fact, if all had gone according to plan, I would now be on a train bound for Břeclav.

But my big plans have been thwarted by a tiny tick. A couple of weeks ago I went for a routine freckle check. The dermatologist spotted a circular rash on my back, immediately diagnosed me with Lyme disease and put me on a three-week course of antibiotics. When I mentioned I’d been planning to do a spot of cycling (actually 250 miles over some pretty mountainous terrain), she told me to forget it and take lots of rest.

To be honest I feel a bit of a fraud, as I’m not suffering from any discernible symptoms at all. But for the time being the closest I can get to cycling is watching the Tour de France on television.

As it turns out, the steamy, stormy weather currently sweeping across the country might have forced me to reconsider anyway, as might the twinging pain that I’ve been experiencing in my right hip recently.

All in all I’m feeling pretty ticked off.

Lednice-Valtice: chateaux, follies and fakes

2012-06-06T11:16:00.000+02:00

Stage 6, day 5 (Wednesday, 28 September 2011)
Mikulov to Břeclav (46 km)

As I climb out of the village of Úvaly the crack of shotgun fire around me seems alarmingly close. It’s a sound I’ve been hearing throughout this stage of my trip, yet I've only laid eyes on one single hunter. I wonder just how much slivovice (a plum brandy very popular hereabouts) a hunter would have to consume before becoming incapable of distinguishing a bike rider from a roe deer. I also wonder whether it is true – as my old physics teacher used to claim – that you would be hit by the buckshot before hearing the gunshot (on account of the former travelling faster than the speed of sound). I decide it’s a theory I’d rather not test.

Mikulov, early morning

I slept well at the Herbalist’s House in Mikulov. At about eight o'clock I got up and went for a stroll around the town. It was a cool, misty morning, and there were far fewer people about than there had been on my arrival the previous evening. After a lap of the castle, I took a seat outside Cafe Agust on the main square and enjoyed a crispy croque-monsieur and an espresso.

Breakfast at Cafe Agust

Fortunately, the cycle path out of Mikulov - unlike the trail into town the previous day - was not under reconstruction. I followed the railway line as far as a village called Sedlec then headed south on an undulating back road to Úvaly. Was it my imagination, or could I really detect the sweet musty aroma of maturing wine in the air as I entered this wine-making village?

I climbed the hill out of Úvaly and coasted down the other side into Valtice, a town celebrated for its well-stocked wine cellars. Today was a public holiday – St Wenceslas Day – and the place was beginning to fill up with tourists. I stopped for a while to photograph the chateau and adjacent church.

Valtice chateau

I headed north out of Valtice beneath an almost cloudless sky and entered the Valtice-Lednice Area, a large woodland park criss-crossed with flat, sandy trails. Hordes of walkers and cyclists began to slow my progress through this fascinating UNESCO World Heritage Site, but I was in no hurry. After winding through the park past some of its best-known pavilions and assorted other follies I came out at the Lednice Ponds, where hundreds of birds were bobbing on the water on either side of the railway embankment.

Rendezvous - one of several extraordinary edifices in the Lednice-Valtice Area

On arriving in Lednice town I made a beeline for the town’s famous chateau. There was a no cycling sign at the entrance, so I got off my bike and explored the gardens on foot. Built in 1805-11 in the Tudor Gothic style, Lednice Castle is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the Czech Republic. On its right-hand side is a handsome glasshouse, which dates from 1843-1845 and was designed by the English architect P. H. Desvignes.

Lednice castle...

...and its adjacent glasshouse

For the last 10 km or so of Stage 6 of my Circuit Ride I cycled in dappled shade along a lovely nature trail through the Niva Dyje natural park. Despite the flatness of the terrain there were some fine views of the River Stará Dyje meandering through the trees. Along the way I passed more odd buildings. First up was John's Castle, an artificial - and rather kitschy - romantic ruin in the Gothic style, where a queue of cyclists were waiting to cross a footbridge over the river. The trail brought me out on the outskirts of Břeclav, believe it or not by another artificial castle ruin (although I must admit this one had me fooled).

The River Stará Dyje outside Lednice

The artificial ruins of John's Castle...

...and of Břeclav Castle

Břeclav is a rather unattractive town, its historic centre having been almost totally destroyed by bombing in 1944. It was the first town in today’s Czech Republic to get a railway (in 1839) and it is an important rail hub to this day. Fittingly then, it was here - after an ice cream and coffee outside a cafe near the station - that I caught the train back home to Prague.

Arachnophobia on a bike

2012-03-19T09:38:00.000+01:00

Stage 6, day 4 (Tuesday, 27 September 2011)
Znojmo to Mikulov (91 km)

The slithery sandy track I’m on disappears into a thick, dark wood. It looks ominous, but I press on. I can’t see much with my sunglasses on, but straight away I feel the thick, sticky pull of cobwebs across my skin. And where there’s webs, there’s... SPIDERS! Big, plump ones suspended one after the other across the overgrown trail. The horror! As an arachnophobe, I couldn’t continue along here even if it was the last available route out of hell. All I can do is turn around and retrace my tracks. Unfortunately, that means taking with me the remaining webs and spiders I didn’t pick up on my way in. Back in the field, I descend into panic. I try to flick the beasts off me, my body convulsing and my arms and legs flailing (imagine, if you will, Ian Curtis attempting the cancan on two wheels). Just as I’m beginning to recover a mite of composure, I spot a whopping specimen with a bloated grey abdomen hitching a ride on my handlebars. Worse still, he’s crawling towards my right hand. What has, up to now, been a mere panic attack turns into a fully fledged physical and psychological meltdown. I blow the bugger off his perch just as he’s reaching my thumb, but he immediately starts scrabbling back up his thread. The bike lurches to one side as I momentarily lose control, and in the process the angry arthropod gets a dose of my spokes and is knocked to the ground. That, I’m glad to say, is the last I see of him.

The early morning view from my B&B in Znojmo

I was woken up at 5 a.m. on Tuesday by a mosquito buzzing around my ears. By six o’clock I had despatched the insect lowlife to the afterlife with a well-aimed blow from a Znojmo tourist guide. Just as I was dropping off again I was disturbed by the sound of shotgun fire emanating from a dawn hunting party getting busy on the opposite side of the Dyje valley. At this point I gave up hope of getting any more sleep. I got up to admire the view out of my bedroom window and then spent some quality time twiddling the knobs in my high-tech en-suite shower cubicle.

At breakfast I was amazed to learn that Derek, the owner of the B&B where I was staying, hails from the same part of England as me. We spent quite some time chatting over a cup of tea, two blokes from Stoke getting nostalgic about the dirty old Potteries and comparing notes on expat life in the Czech Republic. (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Derek and his wife Blanka for their warm hospitality. If you ever visit Znojmo I wholeheartedly recommend Pension Grant Lux. It’s easily the best place I’ve stayed at on my tour along the Czech border.)

My day’s cycling began with a whistle-stop tour of Znojmo, one of the oldest and loveliest towns in Moravia. Its historical highlights include the Gothic Church of St Nicholas and the Romanesque Rotunda of the Virgin Mary and St Catherine, as well as the Late Gothic Town Hall tower, from the top of which, it is said, the Alps are visible on a clear day.

Znojmo’s Town Hall tower...

...and Romanesque rotunda

I headed out of town along the south bank of the Dyje then turned right onto the main road leading towards the border with Austria. At the wine-making village of Šatov I stopped to visit the “Zahrada” infantry block. This large concrete bunker, built in the late 1930s, used to form part of the Czechoslovak frontier defence line and is now a museum.

Zahrada infantry block in Šatov

A former Iron Curtain guard tower

At Šatov I rejoined the so-called Signálka - the long and mostly straight former Iron Curtain patrol road. This took me east across featureless farmland to the busy border crossing at Hatě. I really should be used to these tacky shopping zones by now, but this one was in the most spectacularly bad taste, as I hope the following wobbly video will show.

At midday I crossed into Austria into an altogether more tranquil and bucolic world where families were toiling together to harvest the grapes in the vineyards. The terrain hereabouts was quite hilly, and at the top of the first climb I chanced upon a rather decrepit old viewing tower. A startled hare bolted out from under a picnic table at its base as I parked my bike and made for the steps.

Grape harvesting on the Austrian side of the border

The viewing tower I came across...

...and the vineyards viewed from the top

After admiring the view from the top of the tower, I returned to ground level and continued through Austrian wine-making country, past a malodorous chemical works at Pernhofen and on to the border town of Laa an der Thaya, which I had last visited on my way to Vienna by bicycle in 2004.

Town Hall in Laa an der Thaya

I left Austria for the final time on my Circuit Ride and stopped for lunch at a “motorest” (a restaurant for drivers) at Hevlín just over the border. There I was served a nasty bowl of pasta which an Italian would not even feed to his cat. Back on the bike, feeling full but slightly queasy, I turned off the road and on to cycle path number 4, which runs parallel to the frontier. From here I was expecting a nice easy spin across flat open country to my destination for the day - the historical town of Mikulov. I could not have been more wrong.

A surreal rest area on cycle route 4

After a few miles my way was blocked by a large crater, beyond which the trail was being re-laid and was practically uncyclable. For a while I managed to make slow progress by riding through the fields alongside the path and by getting off and pushing where necessary. To make matters worse, the hunting season was evidently in full swing and my nerves were being frayed by the thudding sound of shotgun fire all around me. Mikulov may have been visible on the horizon, but it still seemed a long way off.

First sign of trouble on the run-in to Mikulov

In the village of Březí a crane was pulling up the old concrete surface of the trail, leaving the bare earth underneath exposed. At this point I gave up on the cycle path and decided to take the main road into town. Now, I’m not usually a timid cyclist, but the motor traffic there was so fast and furious it soon had me consulting the map again. Unfortunately, the alternative route I found led me straight into the horrific Forest 101 described at the top of this post. Suddenly, sharing the road with speeding juggernauts didn’t seem quite so bad, so I hit the highway again.

Mikulov at last!

I was still picking the spider silk off my bike and clothes as I reached the outskirts of Mikulov. Due to poor signposting I took a tortuous route into the centre of town, which at least meant I got to view the castle from various interesting angles. Eventually I emerged on the main square and found my guesthouse, which lays claim to being the narrowest in Moravia. It turned out to be a cross between a B&B and a bike hire shop, but it had the feel of a student house. Aptly named U Bylinkáře (“The Herbalist’s House”) it was stuffed to the rafters with esoteric herbs and teas, which filled the air inside with a heady aroma. The young proprietor congratulated me on arriving exactly when I’d said I would (six o’clock). His partner, a girl with a mellifluous laugh, showed me up to a rudely furnished room on the second floor. The shower room below it reminded me of Barcelona with its crazy Gaudi-esque mosaic decor.

The ever-so-narrow Herbalist’s House

That evening I sat outside for a while on the square drinking coffee and eavesdropping on a party of elderly local ladies at the next table, who were laughing raucously at smutty jokes and singing folk songs in strong Moravian accents. Afterwards I strolled up the hill to a restaurant recommended to me by the couple in charge of the Herbalist’s. Then, with my belly full of duck, cabbage and dumplings, I rolled back down the hill to a busy bar called O’Hara’s for a nightcap or two. Later, as I meandered back to the guesthouse to turn in for the night, I wondered idly just how far one would have to cycle to leave the generic Irish pub behind.

Meandering down the Dyje

2012-02-04T14:28:00.000+01:00

Stage 6, day 3 (Monday, 26 September 2011)
Slavonice to Znojmo (86 km)

I know I tend to bang on about breakfasts in these write-ups, but they are vital when you have a full day’s cycling ahead of you. If I don't eat properly first thing in the morning, I grind to a halt well before lunchtime. Quality varies enormously from one guesthouse to the next. Yesterday's offering was almost up to German standards, with, among other things, fresh fruit, unlimited sausage and a wide range of teas to choose from. Today's, however, is feeble - bread rolls with sachets of jam and cheese spread, a single teabag floating forlornly in a large pot of underheated water, and, for a 50-crown surcharge, two greasy sausages. And if I hear Europe's “The Final Countdown” one more time on breakfast-room radio on this trip, I swear I'll put my foot through the speakers. Or more likely, being English, I'll just keep suffering in silence.

Slavonice town square

The sun was shining again on Monday morning, and outside the hotel - on Slavonice’s handsome historical square - it was even warmer than it had been the previous day. After peeling off my outer layer of clothing and taking some photos I pedalled east out of town on the official Greenways Prague-Vienna cycle route. It was a section I vaguely recognised, as my friend Ryan and I had previously cycled it en route to the Austrian capital back in 2004. Before long, however, I decided to turn right off the main road onto a cool, tranquil trail running through woodland close to the border.

Slavonice lies roughly halfway along the Prague-Vienna cycle route

After passing through the village of Písečné I followed the Moravian Thaya River for a short distance then climbed a short, steep hill to the border with Austria. A couple of miles further on I came across a roadside shrine on the Austrian side, where I stripped down into shorts and a T-shirt, slapped on the suncream and basked on a bench for a while.

Time for a quick sunbathe on the Austrian side of the border

I had intended to continue along the farm trail on Czech side of the frontier and pick up the Greenways route again, but the smooth asphalt surface of the parallel road on the Austrian side was too enticing to resist. I made brisk progress through the flat, open farmland. The wind was so light it barely bothered the long grass at the roadside. A farmer driving towards me in a tractor pulled right over to let me through and waved cheerily as I passed (something that Czech farmers rarely do). Austria was growing on me fast.

Near Vratěnín I re-entered the Czech Republic and rejoined the Greenways route, which took me steeply downhill to the River Dyje, over a bridge and equally steeply back up the other side of the valley. I remembered fondly how, back in 2004, Ryan and I had given each other the high five on reaching the top here.

Bridge over the the River Dyje

At Šafov I took leave of the Greenways again and followed a narrow lane back across the border into Austria at Riegersburg, where I stopped for a while to admire a handsome chateau. By now it was lunchtime, and a sign at the gate announced that the chateau’s coffee shop was open, adding “Mluvíme česky!” (“We speak Czech”). However, I needed a proper meal, so I decided to press on in search of a restaurant.

Riegersburg Chateau

I passed through the village of Felling, where pumpkins decorated with smiley faces grinned at me from well-manicured front gardens, and entered the Thayatal National Park. On the descent into Hardegg (the smallest town in Austria, so I have read) I touched 71 kph, which, as far as I can remember, is my top speed on my Circuit Ride so far. Near the bottom of the deep Dyje valley I rounded a corner and the town’s 12th century castle - perched on a high rocky outcrop - came suddenly and spectacularly into view above me.

Hardegg Castle

Footbridge over the Dyje below Hardegg Castle

I was getting seriously peckish by now, but I realised had no euros on me. This meant I had to ride reluctantly straight past the two restaurants in Hardegg and cross a footbridge over the Dyje back into the Czech Republic. I climbed back out of the gorge on an empty tank, passing walkers and other cyclists on my way. At the village of Čižov I briefly investigated the last remaining remnant of the Iron Curtain in the Czech Republic then stopped for a very late and much needed lunch in the shady garden of a small pub.

A preserved section of the Iron Curtain at Čižov

It was gone 3 pm by the time I hit the road again. I joined one of the most picturesque sections of the Greenways route and cycled off-road through the forests of the Podyjí National Park. All around, acorns rained down from the trees, creating a crunchy coating on the trail. I had some fun bouncing across tree roots down to a ford and rather less fun climbing up the other side.

At a spot called Šobes the Dyje snakes sharply to the left, forming a deep incised meander. Late in the afternoon I emerged on the ridge of the high, narrow peninsular enclosed by this loop in the river. I let out a spontaneous whoop of joy as the canyon suddenly came into view below me on either side of the trail.

The meanders of the Dyje close to...

...the Šobes vineyards

The south-facing slopes of Šobes are reputed to be among the top ten wine terroirs in Europe, with a microclimate similar to that in the Rhine and Rhone valleys. On our 2004 trip, Ryan and I had stopped at a busy stall selling wine straight from the vineyard and enjoyed a couple of glasses of crisp white in the shade of the vines. Today the stall was closed and I had the entire place to myself. I sat down at the same spot as last time and wondered whether there could possibly be a more glorious grape-growing location in the Czech Republic.

Another footbridge over the Dyje...

..."Maximum 6 persons. No swinging!"

A bumpy cobbled path took me down to the river. I crossed a swaying footbridge and on the other side turned off the Greenways trail again and joined cycle route 5000 for the final section of the day’s ride – an entertaining scramble across sandy scrubland and past more vineyards. The town of Znojmo - my destination for the day - suddenly rose into view on the steep opposite bank of the Dyje ahead of me, its historical buildings glowing gorgeously in the early evening sunlight.

Znojmo comes into view

I crossed the Dyje for the fifth time that day and rode up the winding road to the guesthouse - Pension Grant Lux - where I’d already booked in for the night. I rang the doorbell twice to no avail and was about to phone for assistance when a teenager opened the door. Somewhat flustered, he explained that his parents were out but that they were expecting me. While I was waiting in the entrance hall for him to find the key I noticed a glass case full of Wedgewood porcelain, which is traditionally made in Stoke-on-Trent, the English town where I grew up. As we climbed the stairs I realised that the whole place was decorated with British bric-a-brac. I asked the boy, in Czech, whether there was anyone English in the family. “My Dad is English,” he replied. “So am I,” I told him. He seemed most surprised.

Pension Grant Lux

Pension Grant Lux is located directly opposite Znojmo prison, but don't let that deceive you. It is without doubt the best place I have stayed at on my entire Circuit Ride. For the same price that I'd paid for my spartan garret in Slavonice the day before, I got a bright, spacious room decorated in English country style, complete with minibar and a proper bed with satin sheets. Best of all was the space-age shower, which even had a radio and telephone built into it. I spent quite some time in there playing with the various spray settings and steam-cleaning myself thoroughly.

Feeling refreshed, I walked out on the streets of Znojmo in search of food. A waitress at a coffee bar by the town hall recommended a posh restaurant on the upper main square, but that turned out to be completely devoid of customers so I opted for a cheaper but busier place on the lower square. Afterwards I nipped into a nearby pivnice (beer pub) for a half-litre of Hedgehog and a glass of Pardubice Porter. Later, back at the B&B, I turned on the TV and watched Stoke hold Manchester Utd to a 1-1 draw. All in all, it had been a rather excellent day.

Happy 2012!

2011-12-31T19:31:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post to wish all my readers - regular, occasional and one-off - a Happy New Year!

For various reasons (which I won’t bore you with here) I haven’t been blogging much over the past couple of months. Unfortunately the winter arrived before I found time to do the final leg of my trip (Stage 7), so that will have to wait until the spring. On top of that, I still have to write up the last couple of days of Stage 6, which I rode in late September, so I can’t even write a review of 2011 yet.

Not to worry. I promise to return - refreshed and re-energised - in the new year.

Cheers,

Simon

Václav Havel RIP

2011-12-23T11:12:00.000+01:00

The Czech Republic is in mourning for its former president Václav Havel, whose funeral takes place at midday today.

Václav Havel addressing hundreds of thousands of people on Wenceslas Square in 1989

Václav Havel led - and still symbolises - the Velvet Revolution of 1989, which overthrew communism and restored democracy to this part of the world. He was a fighter for and defender of freedom. For me he is a hero and inspiration.

On Wednesday I went into the centre of Prague to pay my respects. On Wenceslas Square, my eye was drawn to a handwritten note lying among the field of flickering candles: "Honza, 22 let, 22 let svobody" ("Honza, 22 years old, 22 years of freedom"). Czechs are feeling this loss personally. So am I.

When I embark on the final stage of my Circuit Ride in the spring, Havel and his legacy will be foremost in my mind. Before 1989, most of my route along the Czech border would have been out of bounds to the vast majority of the population, never mind to an English cyclist. Now I am free to cross in and out of the country as I like.

Thank you Václav Havel. RIP.

Tripoint number three

2011-10-15T20:33:00.001+02:00

Stage 6, day 2 (Sunday, 25 September 2011)
Nové Hrady to Slavonice (99 km)

The tripoint stone is tucked away behind some bushes behind a tourist information board. I tread carefully towards it, as the ground is littered with white tissues, a sure sign that it is used as an open-air toilet by people out walking in the forest. It is here that the historical border between Bohemia and Moravia meets the Austrian frontier. Each of the three sides of the base of the stone has a letter carved in it: Č for Čechy (Bohemia), M for Morava (Moravia) and Ö for Österreich (Austria). This is the third tripoint I’ve visited on my lap of the Czech Republic, the first two having been Poland-Germany-CZ and Saxony-Bavaria-CZ. Unfortunately, the German-Austrian-CZ one, high up in the Šumava mountains, is off-limits to cyclists, so I had to bypass it. As of today, I have two more to go: Slovakia-Austria-CZ and Slovakia-Poland-CZ, both of which lie on the final stage of my circuit ride.

The tripoint of Bohemia (Č), Moravia (M) and Austria (Ö)

It was cold in the shade down by the River Stropnice as I set off from the guesthouse in the morning, but surprisingly hot in the sunshine up on Nové Hrady town square just a few minutes later. I peeled off my outer layer of clothing and took a quick look round the town’s gleaming Gothic Old Castle before setting off on my day's ride.

The Old Castle in Nové Hrady

I followed the road east out of Nové Hrady for about a mile and turned left at the border post onto a damp and sticky forest trail running parallel to the frontier with Austria. On the approach to the tiny village of Vyšné I helpfully gave directions to a group of walkers and then immediately, and slightly embarrassingly, took a wrong turn myself. After a bit of messing around I did a detour along a road and rejoined the cycle trail further on. This section consisted of a long succession of oblong concrete slabs lying lopsided on the ground - a good enough surface, I imagine, for the armoured vehicles that used to patrol the frontier here, but a bumpy ride for a cyclist.

Former Iron Curtain patrol road made out of concrete panels

By late morning I reached České Velenice, a town which did not come into being until after World War I, when Gmünd in Lower Austria was divided into two and its northern part was ceded to the newly formed Czechoslovakia. Gmünd lost its main railway station but retained the town centre and cemetery. The Czechs, however, continued to bury their dead in Gmünd until a new cemetery was opened in České Velenice in 1922.

Cemetery in České Velenice

The Czechoslovak cemetery was built right on the border and became part of the Iron Curtain when the Communists came to power in 1948. After several people escaped through it to the West, the authorities increased the height of the rear wall and installed fences, barbed wire and watchtowers. Anyone wishing to visit the cemetery had to pass through a checkpoint. These measures stayed in place until the fall of communism in 1989.

Mass grave of 512 Hungarian Jews in České Velenice

Just after World War II the remains of 512 Hungarian Jews were found in a mass grave next to the cemetery in České Velenice. They had been part of a group of around 1,000 deported to Gmünd by the Nazis in autumn 1944 to work as slave labourers, and had fallen victim to cold, hunger and exhaustion. A small, sombre monument marks the spot.

The narrow-gauge railway in Gmünd

I crossed a footbridge into Austria and rode into Gmünd on a cycle path running alongside the town’s narrow-gauge railway. A man in his sixties approached me as I was taking photos on the central square and asked where I was heading. He said he’d cycled 300,000 km in his lifetime and as recently as three years ago had been cycling 100 km a day on tour in the Loire region of France. Now, he told me ruefully, he could no longer cycle as he had severe problems with his teeth. I made a mental note to visit the dentist when I got back to Prague.

Gmünd town square

I travelled north out of Gmünd and re-entered the Czech Republic at Neu-Nagelberg. For about an hour I rode along a practically deserted forest road. At the holiday resort of Chlum u Třeboně, I stopped for lunch at a busy restaurant overlooking the town’s 16th century fish lake. My trout with almonds took a long time to arrive, but was worth the wait.

The lake at Chlum u Třeboně

It was so warm outside after lunch that I stripped down to my summer cycling gear. I rode north along the shoreline of the lake and back into the forest. This section of trail ended at a T-junction with the Prague-Vienna Greenways cycle path. I’d cycled the entire length of this popular long-distance route with my friend Ryan back in 2004, but I had little recollection of this part of it.

Re-joining the Prague-Vienna Greenways route, seven years on

By a small lake at Peršlák I found a sign pointing towards the northernmost point of Austria. As I set off down the sandy path a couple flagged me down and the woman asked whether I had “pití” (something to drink). At least, that’s what I thought she said. When I offered her my water bottle, she corrected me: not pití, but pytlík (a bag). She showed me a handful of freshly picked wild mushrooms and explained that they had nothing to carry them in. I found her a spare carrier bag and she gratefully tipped her crop of fungi into it.

The northernmost point of Austria

After resting for a while on the bank of a babbling brook opposite Austria’s most northerly point, I rejoined the border trail down to Nová Bystřice. I would have stopped there for a coffee, but all the seats outside the town’s one open cafe were taken, so I kept going. This was possibly a mistake, as my legs stopped cooperating on the next uphill section and I had to take a break anyway.

Nová Bystřice

I crested the hill and descended past a (disappointingly empty) bison enclosure to Staré Město, another place which looked strangely unfamiliar from my 2004 Prague-Vienna Greenways trip. Due to roadworks, I had to take a diversion through the backstreets of the town before hitting the final climb of the day. My increasingly heavy legs forced me to stop for a rest a further two times, but a weird-tasting malty energy bar I’d picked up the previous week in a health food shop gave me enough extra calories to reach the tripoint at the top.

The Bohemia-Moravia-Austria tripoint stone

From the tripoint it was downhill practically all the way to Slavonice, where I’d booked accommodation for the night. Slavonice’s development was arrested in the mid-18th century, when the Vienna-Prague postal route was re-routed away from the town. This meant that its beautiful late Gothic and Renaissance square was spared the ravages of the industrial age. The place became even more of a backwater after World War II, when the German population was expelled and the Iron Curtain came down just to the south. Since 1989, however, its fortunes have revived. It has become a popular tourist destination and a home for artists and craftsmen.

Slavonice in the evening light

I stashed my bike in the hotel’s ancient cellar, cleaned myself up and went down to dinner. The goulash I had was okay, but the beer I washed it down with was distinctly musty. I took this as further proof - if any were needed - that I’d left Bohemia (beer country) and entered South Moravia (the Czech Republic’s main wine-making region). After dinner I stepped out onto the town square. It was chilly outside, and there was no one else about. The only other pub open was even emptier than the hotel restaurant. Evidently Sunday night is not party night in Slavonice. Feeling cold and just a little bit lonely, I decided to turn in for the night.

Uneventful, but sensational

2011-10-10T09:09:00.000+02:00

Stage 6, day 1 (Saturday, 24 September 2011)
Horní Dvořiště to Nové Hrady (61 km)

Some days not much happens when you’re bicycle touring. Take today, for example. I’m in the Nové Hrady Mountains, a lesser known region deep in the south of Bohemia. It consists mostly of unpopulated forest and there are few tourist attractions to lure people in. But while there might not be much going on here, there’s more than enough to satisfy the senses: the sickly sweet scent of pine resin oozing from log piles at the side of the trail, the ever-shifting dapple of the auburn autumn sunlight on the ground below me, the cool crisp air roaring across my ears as I coast downhill. Yes, today may be uneventful, but it is - literally - sensational.

Stage 6 official start: Horní Dvořiště railway station

Shortly after 1 pm I disembarked from the Linz train at Horní Dvořiště railway station - the last stop in the Czech Republic - and went through my usual start-of-stage routine (loading up the bike again, taking the official start photo, phoning home, sending a message to the blog). Under a cloudless September sky I took off into the forest and was soon changing down through the gears as the gradient kicked up. This was supposed to be a fairly short day in the saddle, but it was shaping up to be a tough one.

The former horse-driven railway entered Czechoslovakia near here

I cycled north close to the border with Austria and before long emerged from the trees into the Indian-summer sunshine. For a while I followed the route of the horse-drawn railway that used to run between Linz and České Budějovice. Built between 1825 and 1832, it was the first and longest such line in Continental Europe. Used primarily to transport salt and other commodities, it was 131 km long, with a journey time of 14 hours, and was in service for 40 years before being superseded by steam power. I scoured the fields for signs of it, but sadly there was little if anything left to see.

Czech-Austrian border crossing near Dolní Dvořiště

Behind a casino at the major border crossing south of Dolní Dvořiště I took a short cut down a little-used road running across the fields into a wood. After a mile or so, however, it came to an abrupt dead end at the top of a steep bank above a river. Unable to continue that way, I backtracked and turned down an overgrown path in search of the footbridge marked on my map. This path, too, soon petered out and I found myself in a small clearing not knowing how to proceed. As luck would have it (as it so often does on this trip), help was at hand in the form of two local women out foraging for wild mushrooms. They told me that there was indeed a bridge somewhere nearby, but that it had been wrecked by tractor traffic and was no longer safe to cross. My only option was to turn back.

Horses outside Dolní Dvořiště

So much for my short cut. I took the long way round through Dolní Dvořiště, passing across open farmland and through clumps of forest. The hunting season was in full swing. All around me I could hear the thud and crack of hunters’ shotguns, an unnerving sound that was to accompany me for the next few days. The hunters themselves, though, were always out of sight.

Church at Cetviny

I took a short break at a place called Cetviny, which - as I learned from a tourist information board there - had been quite a large village before the War. In 1945, however, the German population was thrown out of the country and Cetviny was resettled by, among others, Romanian Czechs and Slovaks, but they too were evicted just six years later when the Iron Curtain came down. In 1956, the town was completely demolished, with the exception of its church and one other building, which was converted into an army station. Only in 1990, after the Velvet Revolution, was the area opened to the public again.

Nové Hrady landscape

Time was getting on, so I abandoned my original plan to cycle around the back of the hills. Instead, I cut the corner and saved myself about ten miles of hard travelling along the remote trail closest to the border. This decision guaranteed that I would arrive at my destination - the town of Nové Hrady - before nightfall.

High point in the forest above Pohorská Ves

I crested the highest point of Stage 6 - a hill called Vyhlídka (which means “view” or “vantage point”) - and began my descent out of the Nové Hrady Mountains. At Žofín, where a surprisingly large number of walkers and cyclists were sunning themselves on the terrace of a woodland lodge, the trail turned into a road leading back into civilisation.

Huťský Rybník, site of a long-gone 18th century glassworks

In the picturesque village of Hojná Voda, in the shadow of an elegant peak called Kraví Hora, a fine view over the south Bohemian plain suddenly opened up below me. In the next village I took a detour through a ranch to visit a curious cairn marked on my map as a kamenná pyramida (“stone pyramid”). Opinions differ as to who put it there and why, but there's no arguing that it's a charming spot.

Cross-country trail leading to...

...the huge cairn above Horní Stropnice

About a kilometre out of Horní Stropnice I turned off the main road and followed a footpath to a late-15th castle called Cuknštejn. From there I crossed the dam of a reservoir and joined a nature trail running through Terčino Údolí, a park that lies in the valley carved out by the Stropnice stream. The park, created in 1756 by a local nobleman and named after his wife Teresa, contains various romantic buildings dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but it is probably best known for its 32-foot-high artificial waterfall.

Cuknštejn Castle...

...and the waterfall in nearby Terčino Údolí Park

I rode at a leisurely pace from one end of the park to the other, admiring its ancient trees and giving a wide berth to the many couples strolling there in the fading evening sunshine. I came out just a short distance from the guesthouse I’d booked into on the outskirts of Nové Hrady - the accurately named Penzion Pod Hradem (“Guesthouse Below the Castle”).

Penzion Pod Hradem in Nové Hrady

I spent an uneventful evening in the restaurant at the guesthouse. To say the food (chicken in a wild mushroom sauce) was sensational would be an overstatement, but it was certainly a cut above the average. By the time I’d finished eating, night had fallen and it was cold enough outside to dissuade me from going out to explore the town centre. I decided to leave that for the next morning.

Stage 6 on Bikemap.net

2011-10-05T17:30:00.000+02:00

The map below shows the the route I actually followed on Stage 6 of my Circuit Ride in September this year

Bike route 1287137 - powered by Bikemap

Stage 6 slideshow

2011-10-03T20:42:00.000+02:00

I've been busy over the last few days putting together a slideshow of Stage 6, which I completed last week. I hope you like the results - Southern Moravia looks particularly pretty in the autumn sunshine. Click on the panel above to see the full-sized version with commentary.

Stage 6 completed!

2011-09-28T14:38:00.001+02:00

I'm on the train, heading back to Prague via Brno after completing the latest stage of my Circuit Ride. Today I took a detour away from the border to ride the sandy trails of the Lednice-Valtice Park (Lednice Chateau pictured). Thanks to the wonderful weather, the relatively easy terrain and the easy-going Moravians, this has been the most relaxed stage of my trip so far. Only one more stage to go now, back to the start in Bohumin. But will I manage it this year?

Lovely Mikulov

2011-09-27T20:04:00.001+02:00

Extraordinarily, the owner of the B&B I stayed at in Znojmo, Derek, turns out to be from my home town of Stoke, so we had a nice chat over a cup of tea at breakfast this morning. I then cycled 90 km through the vast vineyards of Moravia and Austria in unseasonally hot weather. After doing battle with an uncyclable cycle trail, a scary main road and a forest full of dangling spiders (even more scary) I arrived in the charming historical town of Mikulov, my destination for today, late in the afternoon. Tomorrow I complete Stage 6 with a fairly short, flat ride to Breclav.

Heaven, I'm in...

2011-09-26T19:47:00.001+02:00

...well, I am, in fact, in Znojmo (pictured), but it's heavenly enough. After a superb day on the bike, weaving in and out of Austria through some spectacular scenery, I've shacked up for the night at an English B&B. Not only does it have the most space-age shower I've ever stepped into, but it also has tea-making facilities in the room (something you never see in Czech guesthouses). Circuit-riding doesn't get much better than this!

Hardegg Castle...

2011-09-26T14:36:00.001+02:00

...perched high above the River Thaya on the Austrian-Czech frontier.

Goodbye Bohemia, hello Moravia!

2011-09-25T22:11:00.000+02:00

Pictured is the point where Bohemia meets Moravia meets Austria. It lies not far from historical town of Slavonice, where I'm spending the night. Highlights today included Gmund, a town that was literally divided by the Iron Curtain, as well as a short diversion to the northernmost point of Austria. Tomorrow I'll be passing through two national parks en route to the wine-making town of Znojmo. Cheers!

Sensational September

2011-09-24T22:23:00.001+02:00

How I love September! After a fine autumn afternoon's cycling through the forested hills of deepest South Bohemia I've arrived safely in Nove Hrady as planned. Tomorrow I ride west into Moravia.