Czech Greenways July 2008

VIENNA, PRAGUE & CZESKA

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3.7.08

Vienna & Prague

This is John reporting from Prague. Gitti says she only does walking trips so I must tell you something about these two amazing cities. Vienna was like a history book, while Prague is more of a fairy tale. We found ourselves impressed by Vienna and excited by Prague.

We did some interesting things in Vienna - a high point being a half hour horse and carriage ride round the main centre of the old city. The opulence and grandeur of the domestic paraphernalia of Princess Elisabeth at the Sissi Mueum was impressive and in a different way so was the modern transport system - efficient underground and pervasive trams with buses filling in the gaps - and all on one ticket!.
After leaving Sophia at her language school we took in the Hundertwasser Haus - so clearly a modern marvel in architecture providing such a contrast with the generally Baroque city, but sitting very comfortably beside its neighbours. We also viewed the Klimt works in the Belvedere, along with other art works of which the Messerschmidt expressive heads stood out as something totally unique and quite special.
Gitti had sussed out the restaurant scene with her usual efficiency enabling us to eat some pretty good food in atmospheric surroundings - washed down of course with mugs of Pils. I had a great dish of a sort of black pudding mush, with beer stewed cabbage at our first restaurant while Gitti had something with lentils and when we returned with Sophia she had spaetzle (short noodles) which had been first boiled and then dipped in egg and fried and we had liver cooked like wiener schnitzel and a chef's salad with shredded ham. For our last meal we hunted out a restaurant that specialised in mushrooms and had two dishes, each with a different species of mushroom (both different from anything we get in NZ)
Prague has proved to be a special delight - we now rank it close to Venice in our list of special places. The scale is human and the historic architecture seems to have been created to please rather than impress. And the beer. The Czech Pils is surely the benchmark for beer, and the price is reasonable (although amazingly variable for the same brew). Last night we went to a remarkable restaurant which was set up in the ruins of an old church, wedged between later structures. We ate roasted duck with two types of dumplings and drank the inevitable pils. The sounds of jolly conversation and laughter around us was reminiscent of Italy - indeed it was with Italy that we found ourselves drawing parallels rather than neighbouring Austria and Germany.
We are struggling to find anything about the Greenways we are going to walk - perhaps this is a good sign meaning there won't be many walkers competing for accommodation. Gitti spent 4 hours scouring bookshops and tourist information offices as well as bike rental places and finally after dozens of blank faces and shrugging shoulders she was told that this had been a special initiative and brochures and guidebooks had been printed, but were now sold out, so there is no more info to be had. I thought communism was over, but bureaucracy is obviously still with us to the extreme. So we have to make do with what we printed off the internet!

Arohanui from John and Gitti.

4.7.08

Prague

John again from Prague. Yesterday we had a couple of rather special music experiences. The first was up at the castle where a trio from the Castle orchestra performed on the footpath outside. With accordion, flute and double bass they entertained us with a great variety of music. Later, in the evening we were drawn by the sounds of music to a small bar in the central city. This was a Moravian wine bar (total size about the same as our living room) where a group of mainly middle aged locals were entertaining themselves, accompanied by guitar, violin and accordion. Jolly drinking songs with everyone joining in. The wine was on tap and flowing freely and we so wished that we had the language (and knew the songs).

This evening we went to a concert in one of the old city churches - organ and soprano - Handel, Dvorak and others - while the heavens opened up with a violent thunder storm and the rain leaked in through the majestic dome under which we were sitting.
Tomorrow we start walking. Underground and bus will get us out of town to our starting point and 25 km later we hope to be in Tynec (pronounced Teenets - we are gradually getting on top of the pronunciation of Czech which is quite a challenge.) After much searching we now have what appear to be the right maps, but no guides for the Greenways are available and we have no information on accommodation so life from now on is a little uncertain - I rely heavily on my pilgrim partner. (you must be joking Johnny)

Arohanui from John & Gitti

8.7.08

Hi all, sorry about long silence, we are fine, problems with internet. Will send installment over the next few days. Love, Gitti and John

11.7.08

Tynec to Cesky Krumlov

Wow, sorry it has been such a long time. We have been in the depths of Bohemia and there has been no internet facility for days.

We arrived in the Unesco Heritage site town of Czesky Krumlov around lunchtime after a 2 hour bus ride from Tabor. We are here for 2 nights, as this place is so beautiful and there is so much to explore. We have found a sweet little pension called "Teddy" in Roosevelt St, where we have a room with vaulted ceiling, en suite, antique Bohemian furniture, view of the river, views to the church and old town and access to a sunny balcony. A perfect place for our bodies to recover a little before we walk on.

John is going through some of the early stages of this walking thing, with ever changing aches and pains as his body gets used to the exercise. A few more days and he should be fine. The only lingering issue is the Achilles tendon.

I have now reached a point where I could walk forever it seems. I have had enough after 20 km, but can walk up to 30 without ill effects, the problems I had on the Camino seem a distant past.

So far we have walked just over 120 km in 6 days and have had many fascinating and varied experiences. We are really getting into this country now and have grown to love it.

Last Thursday we left the enchanting historic centre of Prague on a wet and rainy morning. We decided to take a local train to just beyond the outskirts of the city. As we left the old town we passed through seemingly endless soul-destroying suburbs of panelak housing estates. (These are 10 storied apartment buildings, built by the Russians during the communist regime. They are constructed of sheets of concrete and soulless as sin and by now very run down ) Graffiti lined every imaginable available space en route. Gradually the panelaks disappeared and older buildings became interspersed with gardens and woods and Karst rock formations along the river. Then little weekenders, similar to the old New Zealand cribs or batches. Generally built of wood, stained black, verandah on one side, immaculate gardens surrounding them. They crowded both sides of the river and looked very charming, lifting our spirits, or more precisely mine, as John is more resilient than I am when it comes to dealing with visually offensive stimuli.

We got off the train at Jilove and consulted our map for the first time. We had bought a set of Yellow and Green “Turisticka Mapas” 1:100 000 scale, 4 in total to cover the Greenways from Prague to Vienna from a place called Kiwi Maps in Prague. They are superb. They show all the walking and cycling trails and are very easy to follow. We have never seen such a clearly marked and well designed network of walking trails anywhere. The trails are marked in 4 colours, yellow, green, blue and red and cover the entire country. Every few metres there is a marker in the appropriate colour, clearly visible painted on trees, houses, lampposts, road signs. You only get lost through your own carelessness, which we have done a few times. The trails are almost entirely on soft natural paths, a great relief after beating all that concrete in Austria. Occasionally you walk along a quiet tree lined country lane, very pleasant in the heat.

The dogs, of which there are quite a few, especially on farms are either tied up, fenced or caged, in the case of a few huge Alsatians and other type of hunting dogs, which are the size of a pony. We have not had one bad experience yet!

The temperature has varied from 16 to 30 degrees, we have had a bit of rain occasionally, mainly late pm or early morning, so it has not really affected us.

Anyway, we set off, having found the green trail and started off in the wrong direction! After a while we realised and luckily were able to pick up a trail in another colour which got us to the desired destination of Tynec. The trail led through forests of mature oak and sycamore, interspersed with conifers along a river, past tiny settlements of black little weekend cottages. The rain had stopped, but still cloudy, walking in the dim light through trees and a brown river had a kind of mysterious feel about it.

We stopped for a beer in a pub in the middle of nowhere, ate our sandwich and finally arrived in Tynec in the late afternoon. A strange little on the edge of the Sazavou river, famous for it's production of Jawa motorbikes. It is now a so called Mecca for water sports.

As a place it looked like it had seen better days. The Romanesque rotunda and gothic castle tower in a state of disrepair along with the other handful of old buildings in the centre. The only hotel, Hotel Sport on the river edge was full and there was nowhere else to stay, according to the woman at the information centre. We asked at the hotel and luckily the owner made a call and informed us that there was a place "not too far to walk" where they would give us a room. We set off, somewhat relieved, following her instructions and walked and walked and 3.5 km later we got to Brejlow. To this day we cannot work out what we struck. There was a sign on the road directing us to a place by the river. It was a plain 2 storied building, on the edge of a torrent of a river, but not oriented to it. It did not say it was a hotel, yet had rooms dating back to the 60's. It was kind of deserted, there was a dining room, but no food. Reluctantly they agreed to make us dinner, there was no breakfast. The shower was lukewarm, overall it was clean enough, just very odd.

We were exhausted after our long walk and hit the pillow at 8 pm.

The next morning we left at 6.30 and got back to Tynec in time for breakfast with the workers in a little bar. We had tomato, bacon and bean soup with crusty brown bread rolls and coffee and I bought some ham from the butcher next door for our sandwiches.

We set off in good spirits on a glorious morning and walked across forest paths, through meadows and hills, wheat fields and ancient hamlets with stone houses, red tiled roofs, the odd whitewashed farmhouse with stables, more countryside. The walking conditions were perfect.

We arrived in Bystrice late in the afternoon after walking 24 km and were ready to put our feet up. There had been a fair bit of up and down that day and we were tired. It was only the second day of walking for John and he had not managed to shake off his Achilles problem prior to starting this walk. We thought we were in the town centre, but weren't, too tired to check the map properly. The place looked soul destroying and I headed off to find the motel which was signposted. When I got there, it was closed for renovation and I was just about ready to burst into tears. There was a sign advertising a horse riding stable with rooms, but no phone number and no indication of how far out of town it was. We started to walk in it's general direction, then saw a sign advertising a hotel 2 km away. I phoned the number, they had rooms at the exorbitant price of 2600 K for superior and 1900 K for standard rooms. Our budget for the day for both of us is 1500 K, (125 NZ dollars or 60 Euro). We figured this would be an amazing place, so decided to go for it in the absence of other options. Well we walked and walked and walked and 6 km, not 2 km later got there, which made it a 30 km day! Too much! I was furious by then with the misrepresentation on the sign. When we arrived, the hotel, a former estate with stables and an elegant manor house had a decidedly shabby look about it. Our room was an old converted stable, musty, signs of water damage from upstairs, bulging cracked ceiling, mould on walls, broken tiles in bathroom, no hook for shower ( broken ). The food was really expensive and bad. I hated it. They agreed to throw in breakfast to compensate for the misinformation on the sign. I slept really badly and was about to abandon the whole thing at this point. I felt totally ripped off. As soon as I got out into the countryside my enthusiasm returned and the woes of the night were quickly forgotten.

We realised that not pre-booking accommodation was a major stress factor in this and asked the receptionist, who spoke English to pre book a room for us in the next 2 towns. A pattern we have stuck to ever since, which has made a huge difference. It is really comforting to know you have a bed at the end of the day.

The next day we set off to Votice, again through lovely countryside, the Konopiste Chateau and Park, the former seat of Archduke Ferdinand, the one whose assassination precipitated World War 1. I seem to remember walking through a place in Austria, where he owned a chateau as well.

We got to Votice after a long 25 km day. A delightful uplifting little town with a pretty square and great accommodation. We stayed in a pension called "The Blue Cat", which was great. The whole place had been lovingly decorated along the cat theme, from lampshades to duvet covers. It was spotless, fresh and quiet and the breakfast princely. 700 Krone including breakfast for 2, around 65 NZ dollars or 30 Euro.

Overall, including the overpriced night, we have managed on 1500 Krone per day for the 2 of us, which is great. On the Camino my budget was around that and I slept in refuges, whereas here we have double bedrooms with en suites. The breakfasts are usually so ample that we end up making sandwiches from what we don't eat. They include a cold platter of cheeses and meat, butter, jam, honey, often an egg and or yoghurt, juice, sometimes cucumber and tomato, always rolls, bread, coffee or tea.

We have lunch or dinner out depending on the restaurant scene. It works very well.

We heard a lot of bad things about the food in the Czech Republic, but are pleasantly surprised. We have usually been able to get salads of cucumber, tomato and capsicum, or carrot salad, occasionally iceberg lettuce. We have had tasty goulash with dumplings, fried cheeses, roasted knee of pork and charcoal grilled neck of pork, all delicious.

From Votice we headed off to Sedlec Prcice, a short day of 12 km, mainly along little country roads. Not a high point walking day. We arrived at Hermancicky a triste, grey horrible little place, with no redeeming features, when the rain struck. We spotted a bus displaying our point of destination and grabbed the opportunity.

We stayed in a little hotel, our pre booked room, not quite as good as the day before, but it had the bonus of a bath, which we really enjoyed.

On Tuesday we set off through forests, past granite rocks and fishing ponds. The Bohemian countryside is dotted with these man made lakes (oxbow I think they are called), not sure when they originated, but they are a real feature of this area.

We stayed in a little village about 2 km from a delightful little town of Jistebnice, which does not have accommodation, but has a nice little restaurant and a few shops. We bought supplies there after a yummy lunch as the pension at Hurka did not offer any food. The hostess at Hurka was lovely and the accommodation great. Newly opened and purpose built, mainly for long distance skiers, it was bright and comfortable. Our room opened to the terrace which overlooked the countryside to the south as far as Austria. The view even included the chimneys of a nuclear power station in the far distance! We were given a huge lettuce fresh from the garden and ingredients to make a dressing. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was a very relaxing afternoon.

Early the next morning we rejoined the trail to Chotoviny from where we caught the bus to Tabor. Again the countryside was great, we passed the place where the composer Oscar Nedball composed the operetta Polish Blood and later the romantic ruins of Stary Zamek, a 14 th century moated castle.

Up until now we have not met another long distance walker. The tracks are empty apart from the occasional local out on a weekend stroll. It is fantastic. Unlike the Camino the walking tracks are not shared by bikers, or only rarely, which is so much more relaxing. Apart from Prague and now Cesky Krumlov we have not come across any tourists, just a few local holiday makers.

Tabor, where we stayed last night was a delight. We had booked a small apartment close to the historic town centre. A walled city, once the seat of the Hussite movement, Jesus was meant to have had his second coming near here. The buildings round the elegant square featured a variety of spectacular facades, dating from various historic eras. We had a Budweiser out doors in the square and then went to dinner in a very traditional restaurant with a vaulted ceiling. Charcoal grilled neck of port with roast potatoes and a mixed salad washed down with a local red which was adequate. (Actually Budweiser is our least preferred local beer - we like much better the two brands of Pils which are always available at one or other of the bars for anything from 18Ks to 22ks for 0.3l (Once in Prague we saw 0.3l for 75Ks but that was totally over the top.)

Now I have run out of steam, so much to catch up on, not sure that anyone will have time to read this.

Love, John and Gitti

12..7.08

Czesky Krumlov

Dobri Den again, just a quick note before we head off from this beautiful place tomorrow. All the superlatives could not describe this little World Heritage town, it has to be on the must see list before you die. We have not stopped reveling and admiring since we got here. It is super-quaint and ancient and compact, beats Prague and just about anything else, recommend you do a Google search on it and have a look at some pics. Weather perfect too. We visited the castle and took a tour of the little baroque theatre this morning, one of John's life's highlights he says. The theatre is the oldest preserved baroque theatre in Europe and only open for mini tours 5 times a day. It was an inspiration. It has 13 stage sets, with multiple options of cross use and the entire set can be changed in 8 seconds. It was built in 1681-ish by the Eggenberg family, seats 350, the artwork created by Austrian painters. They have over 300 original costumes, sheet music and sound effect machinery, it was the most cleverly designed operation imaginable.

After that we took a stroll through the castle park and came across a rotating auditorium, built in the 50's, which rotates around during performances to move onto the next stage set. They were rehearsing for a Verdi Opera there, so we got half an hour or so of wonderful opera music and singing. Time for a beer after that, lunch and a little snooze.

This town is full of treasures and atmospheric rustic restaurants, low vaulted ceilings, rabbit warrens of tiny rooms and large open chimneys with charcoal fires where they cook fresh meats and fish. There are also elegant places with terraces overlooking the river and surrounding hills.

Both here and in many other places we have been through we have loved the sense of going back in time. Places look just like they might have done for centuries, little new construction, so when you see villages and hamlets from afar, all you see are the lines of old buildings and rooftops. The landscape also has retained it's features which have evolved over centuries. It is so idyllic.

Last night in a little restaurant with wooden tables on a terrace by the river we had charcoal grilled fresh trout and carp, raw cabbage salad with horseradish , cucumber salad and tiny potato pancakes to go with it. 3 glasses of wine and a glass of Slivovitz. The bill was 40 New Zealand dollars, great to be somewhere so affordable.

We have found the people amazingly friendly and helpful and very understanding of our language gap, or rather non existence of Czech, a language which sound rather beautiful, soft and flowing, the more we hear it the more we like it, just very hard to pick up.

One night we bumped into the hosts of the blue cat pension and they were so pleased to see us they shouted us a slivovitz each. On the tram in Prague, young men got up and offered us seats. People are really polite and say dobre den to you in the street, even in the bigger towns.

We can't quite work out the eating patterns, seems like there is hot food most of the day. When we had the workers breakfast in Tinec, the men were eating cooked knuckles of pork and drinking beer at 7 am. One day we stopped at a bar at 10.30 am and it was full of workers eating goulash and drinking beer and often you see people eating full meals around 3 and 4 pm. We have not seen anyone being unpleasant from too much booze, which is pleasant.

Anyway, time to start organizing beds for the next 3 nights while I have internet access, the info centres do not have information for anything outside of their immediate area, so we have to work ahead and tomorrow is a 24 km day, so no mucking about with somewhere to stay.

You probably won't hear from us for 5 days or so, as we are going into the depth of the south bohemian hills. Kaplice is the next destination,

love, Gitti and John

13.7.08

Czesky Krumlov to Trebon

Hi from Trebon and tres bon it is too. Another highlight of a place. We abandoned the Southern Bohemia side loop because of accommodation problems. On the 40 km stretch between Kaplica and Nove Hrady there was only one small pension and it was full. So we took the bus to Trebon, which was very smooth and easy and cheap. Great buses, clean and new. Now we are back on the main Greenways trail to Vienna.

We had our last dinner in Czesky Krumlov last night, roast knuckle of pork ¨cooked on the charcoal fire with roast spuds and cabbage salad with horseradish. We sat on outside tables in a tiny lane, live folk music accompanied the meal, female singe, accordion and tambourine. It was great in spit of the frustrations with the planning side of things and the phone. I discovered that the 20 Euro t mobile phone card I bought, did not load up as the sim card was Austrian. The guy in Vienna I bought the sim card from assured me I would be able to buy cards in any tobacco shop in Czech republic, Austria or Germany, well not so. Can’t do it on credit card either as you can only register that in person with passport etc in Austria. Again I was not informed of this when I bought the jolly thing. As a result we can now only receive calls. We are trying to get Sophia to buy a card and text us the 14 digit number, so we can load the phone again. So much time wasted, I hated it.

Trebon is another exquisite little town, ancient, pretty, lovely square and facades, right by a huge fishing and swimming lake. The surrounding countryside is a designated Unesco World Heritage area and represent a perfect merging of man and nature. The fishing lakes and surrounding countryside date back to the 14th century and we walked 12 km around the lake this afternoon through, grasslands and wetlands and forests with blankets of blueberry bushes as far as the eye could see. It was magic. Examples of old farmhouses, here the Austrian Vierkant or Fourcorner style blends with the rural baroque style producing a unique design.

The trail which is used by lots of walkers and bikers was almost 100 per cent rubbish free, it was great to see people take such care of the environment.

Tonight is a festival in town, we were lucky to get a room. The cheapest and by no means the worst yet. Pristine clean lodgings in a townhouse 2 mins from the town square, not bad for 600 Krone. There is lively folkmusic coming from the open windows of one restaurant and there is a stage set up for a free classical concert tonight. Have booked a table in a little fish restaurant for 7 pm, so should head off and get cleaned up.

Regards, Gitti and John

14.7.08

Trebon to Jirundichuv Hradec

We had a fantastic fish dinner in Trebon, the place is filled with fish restaurants serving huge varieties of local fish fresh from the man made lakes. There is pike, trout, carp, catfish, eel and zander and others, the menu consisted of at least 40 different dishes to choose from and I finally settled on roasted carp with bacon, chili and garlic and John settled on roasted trout with almonds and white wine, which brings me to

Rule number one, never believe anything a person tells you at the local information centre about the next place along. We were told in Trebon that Stras, the next destination on our walk had an info centre and lots of accommodation to choose from. We cheerfully set off on the most beautiful walk in blissful ignorance. We passed lakes, and hectares and hectares of Unesco World Heritage countryside. Fishing lakes, separated by dams, the air quiet and still, just the sound of birds and fish jumping in the lakes and the occasional mosquito whine in your ear. We had to use repellant for the first time. The area is a bird sanctuary and the bird life was overwhelmingly rich and extensive. A pair of storks flew past us, just metres away and there was a huge colony of fish catching birds of some kind, not sure which. The plant life was equally rich. The temperature a pleasant 20 degrees, perfect. At 11.30 am, just at the right moment we passed a fabulous little bar which operated out of a Vierkant come baroque style farmhouse, with outdoor tables, by a lake. They were grilling fresh fish and sausages on an outdoor fire and served beer to locals out to enjoy themselves for the day. Family groups of cyclists and walkers were very much in evidence. ait was great.

After 18 km of easy flat and interesting walking, we reached the little insignificant town of Stras. No info centre and not one bed in the whole place, just a few little bars, end of story. We strengthened ourselves with some garlic soup, which brings me to

Rule number two. Never believe anything a cyclist tells you about the next place along. We were told by a cyclist on the neighbouring table that there was a pension in the next place along, Lasenice, some 7 km away. It began raining heavily and were lucky to just be able to hop on the one and only bus to Lasenice for the afternoon, only to find that the so called pension was the most disgusting place you have ever seen and there was no one there anyway.

No more buses to the next place, some 20 km away, thunder, lightning a torrential rain hit at that point and our hitchhiking attempts failed miserable. It was only 4pm and felt like 8 pm, as it was dark and cold.

We fled to a bar and the young waitress, who spoke good English took pity on us and phoned her mother. We were offered a bed in a private house and gratefully accepted. We shared a small sofa bed under the eaves, the people were lovely and we had homemade Slivovitz 70 percent proof and chocolates and hot showers, prior to sinking into bed.

We were very grateful for the hospitality.

We left at 7 am and because it was still raining and miserable hopped on the bus to Jirundichuv Hradec, another pretty historic town. We booked into a hotel on the square and are hoping for the rain to stop so we can go off exploring in comfort. Tomorrow morning we plan to walk on to Slavonice, where I have booked an apartment under the eaves of a tiny village house by the ancient city walls. We plan to stay there for 2 nights and use it as a base for local walks.

Must go now, by the way we now have a Czech mobile phone number 0042 7325 75473.

By for now, Gitti and John

16 July

Nova Bystrice to Slavonice

Hi, well we have walked a total of ten days now and completed 206 km. John is displaying the typical long distance walking pattern. After hobbling along as he called it the first 2 days with muscle weakness and lots of aches and pains, he is now almost striding at times. The muscles feel stronger, the Achilles has improved a lot and the pain in the hips has disappeared. Just the soles of the feet get sore at the end of the day, which is normal and happens to me also.

We followed the advice of the route plan and bussed to Nova Bystrice yesterday and walked from there to Slavonice. It was a really easy 25 km walk and very interesting. The first bit led along lakes and rivers through a long little village past old textile factories dating back at least 2 centuries. The factories produced 90 per cent of the woolen blankets for the German army in World War Two and after the war became state owned enterprises under the communist regime. They are now closed.

This area is referred to as the Czech Canada. Lots of lakes and conifer forests leading right to the edge of the water. It really does look like Canada, John tells me.

Later we came through the no go border zone, which is now an outdoor museum. We passed dozens of military defense posts with the gun openings pointing into the country rather than towards the Austrian border, aimed at keeping people in. Barbed wire fences, several layers deep made the zone seemingly impenetrable.

We arrived in Slavonice surprisingly early after only 6 hours of walking, record time for us.

What a marvelous place. It is a showpiece of medieval urban design. A tiny town, looks like a stage set. Amazing examples of Renaissance architecture with facades decorated with Lombard and Venetian emblems, sgraffiti. It looks like a miniature version of something that should be on a much larger scale. Around the central square are a series of little lanes with mini single storied terrace houses, cobblestones everywhere, like in most of these kind of places. We took dozens of photos of the different facades.

Having found a really cool place to stay, a tiny attic room with terrace built into the old town wall, amongst crowns of apple trees, for only 500 Krone, the cheapest yet, we decided to stay for 2 nights and took a local walking trail in the general direction of tomorrows destination, which we will bus tomorrow.

Our room is very simply furnished with antique rustic pieces and has a wonderful queen size bed with queen e mattress, hand sawn out of slabs of pine, held together by hand carved pins. It is the first queen sized bed we have come across. Most other rooms had either 2 beds pushed together, double frames with 2 mattresses separated by a central beam or separate beds altogether. So this was a real treat.

The walk today was a treat. It is called the Grassels Trail, described as a romantic trail which leads through beech and spruce wood forest. According to legends a famous and feared robber Johann Georg Grassel used to rob and hide in this area in the beginning of the 19th century. The legend was an inspiration for Schillers drama The Robbers. We passed the robbers cave and later Schillers rock. One of several magnificent granite rocks, he used to sit on and seek inspiration for his writing. We passed beautiful lakes and a French stone where the local french countess of Rudolec had the following words carved:

“This very old an honourable stone a small splinter of a world which does not exist any more.

This grassy bench in the shadow of the trees right by the little stream whspering in the silence these memorials of my husbands tenderness.

Dedicated to his eternal rest by his dearest Elisabeth September 18th 1810.”

Our blissful walk suddenly became a nightmare. We hit on a patch of forest which must have been savaged by a recent storm. Broken trees and branches everywhere, paths blocked, markers lost, trail impossible to follow. 2 hours later we eventually hit the road. It had to be the first day we did not bother to take map or compass or lunch, as it looked like just a simple little 12 km local and well marked trail. Well that was a lesson and soon after a nourishing lunch of pork and sauerkraut and knoedl and a beer we felt a whole lot better and even managed to get a ride with Dutch holiday makers back to Slavonice.

We had planned another 3 km walk to the little village of Mariz, which was closed during the communist regime as it was in the no go zone. It is now home to a craft community and ceramic workshops. Sounded interesting, but one can’t do everything and their wares are in the Slavonice galleries anyway. Colourful, naive designs.

Love, Gitti and John

17 July

Slavonice to Telc

Well, just after we left the bar having composed the last email we heard the sound of music to the tune of roll over the barrel coming from the little restaurant across the road. We looked in and found a group of 6 men equipped with guitar,, 2 violins, a banjo, drum, an amazing looking flute, bellows and various other instruments, playing and singing their heart out. We stayed the whole rest of the evening and were absolutely overwhelmed with the ease and sophistication of their performance. They played mainly Czech folksongs, interspersed with singalongs and blues. The power of their voices and ability to pay along with each other was incredible. The violinists played and sang at the same time, one I kid you not was absolutely at Stephan Grapellis level. We were mesmerized. I can not believe we just stumbled on this. The group have not even made a CD. Their ages ranged from 40 ish to around 70. I talked with one of the musicians during the break and he said the Czech people were meant to have music in their blood and that he had spent his entire adolescence meeting up with friends and playing. Last night was truly unforgettable.

Today the rain was back and we decided to flag the walking and took a bus to Telč, another Unesco heritage town. It is beautiful, huge square and again a myrad of facades, but somehow lacks the special spirit of Slavonice. Slavonice has had such a turbulent past. It was first referred to in the 13th century and for centuries was a centre of the textile industry, some of that time it housed branch offices of Viennese weavers, dye houses and hosieries.

A predominantly German town led to the German population eventually pushing for it to be annexed to Austria, not without considerable conflict over the years. During the war the town was abandoned by Czech and Jewish people. Slavonice was liberated in 1945 by the red army and within one month as part of the wild transfer as they called, it the Germans were driven out.

In 1953 the town was incorporated into the border zone, valuable relics were destroyed and the town became isolated. Eventually due to its unique historic value it was set apart from the border zone again in the late 1950s and finally after 1989 restoration began. As we walked through the place, we wondered who had inhabited the houses and what kind of lives people had led. A large number of the buildings are now UNESCO protected, along with a huge collection of underground vaults, which are considered of world wide importance, due to their age and sophistication in construction. The value of the town is considered unrivalled not only in this country, but central Europe as a whole.

Tomorrow we plan to go on a 21 km day walk from Telč and then bus on to 20 km outside of Bitov.

Love, Gitti and John

17-21 July

Telc to Bitov to Vranov to Znojmo

Dobri den, a few days without internet.

Telc turned out to be a great stay. We went for a 25 km walk through woods and fields, cherries, blueberries and raspberries in abundance. Up the hill through forest to a superb castle, well preserved and beautifully presented, growing out of huge rocks. We climbed the 7 sided tower and enjoyed superb views over the surrounding countryside, just forest and fields in all directions, only a couple of little old villages, the only signs of habitation. The low population density is really refreshing.

In the evening I managed to get the last table on a terrace overlooking the square, there was a fanfare playing and suddenly lots of cars with trailers pulled up and parked in various locations around the square. The began to unload hot air balloons and baskets and for the next hour or so we watched with interest as they skillfully set up at least half a dozen or so balloons in the square. As they inflated, huffingly and puffingly, the giant balloons began to dwarf the facades and the place looked even more like a toy town. The balloons swayed, just about touching the buildings and eventually took off one by one with sudden liftoffs, it was an amazing spectacle. Several other balloons were launched from the surrounding countryside and soon the sky was filled with at least a dozen of them drifting across the town and out of sight. It was like a scene out of Round the World in Eighty Days.

The next morning after an irresistible visit to the local cake shop and cafe, which served the freshest and decadent selection of cakes and pastries imaginable, of which we ate the forest fruit tarts along with a Viennese coffee with cream and a cream filled pastry we set off by bus to Bitov, a Czech summer resort by a huge lake. We booked into a great little pension with restaurant and set of on a 9 km walk to walk off some of the mornings calorie hit. We felt rather sluggish and decided that cake is always good while you eat it, but never afterwards. The walk took us past a huge campground by the lake with numerous restaurants and a grocery shop, which had the dutch word for grocery above it. The site was predominantly filled with Dutch and Czech caravans, just a few Austrian ones amongst them. We climbed up to the castle, which offered great views.

Dinner was a delicious meal of Dorsch fillet, not sure of the English word, in a crisp breadcrumb coating, filled with a broccoli cream sauce, boiled potatoes and salad.

The next morning we set off on foot to Vranov, famous for its chateau, high on a cliff, which was designed by the same architect who designed the Shoenbrunn Chateau in Vienna. It is reputedly the most photographed chateau in the Czech Republic. The walk took us high above the winding lake, more like a Fjord, the scenery looked a bit like the Queen Charlotte sound, except that the water had a greeny shimmer to it. Little batches and canoes lined the sandy shores.

The rest of the place was not much to write home about and dinner was the worst we have had, so we decided to move on to Znojmo, a historic town in the wine region.

Tomorrow we will take off on a 20 km walk to explore the surrounding vineyards and parts of the national park. We have walked around 260 km so far and my target is 400, will we make it, not so sure. John is not quite as goal orientated as I am on that front.

The greenways, don’t lend themselves to pilgrimage type walking, it is impossible to go from a to b in a straight line. We have done lots of interesting sideloops and excursions and day walks from strategic places and bused a bit in between, which has been fine.

The bus and occasional train rides have been scenic and fun too. The drivers have been great, on one occasion, when it rained heavily the bus driver even gave us a taxi ride to the railway station, how kind was that.

Well Toto would like it here. There are lots of silky terriers around and a lot of the pensions allow pets, so do a lot of restaurants, even inside. We came across several restaurants which had dog food on the menu would you believe.

Bye for now, Gitti and John

23 July

Znojmo

Well we have had an interesting 2 days in this town and environs.

We paid a visit to the Underground system. No less than 38 km of corridors knocked out of granite rock, up to 5 stories deep are concealed under the foundations of this town. The whole thing was created over many years going back to the 15th century. There are underground wells, 16 of them, ventilation shafts, conical shaped spirals, which also acted as lifts to transport food up and down, areas for children, separate areas for convicts, one story has it that there is a particularly wide segment which leads to a town in Austria, which is big enough to take horses and carriages. Over the centuries the corridors have been used for food storage, a steady 13 degrees C, perfect for meat, cheese and of course wine. They have also been used when the town was under attack. In 16 hundred and something the Swedes were conquering a lot of towns in the area and the Swedish army was one of the most feared. As the attackers approached Znojmo already chanting their victory song the townspeople disappeared into their secret underground space. The Swedes found the town deserted, yet fires burning and signs of recent human activity. They were so freaked out by this, assuming they had come across a ghost town, that they fled at great speed.

After one hour of a conducted tour in Czech, I was glad to get out into the sun.

Yesterday we took a local bus out of town and walked back, a challenging 22 km walk through vineyards and National Park area. It was one of our most spectacular walking days yet.

At first we climbed steep terraces, planted in ancient vines to Sobes vineyard. Very old, organic, in one of the most advantageous positions on the planet apparently. They produce what can be referred to as liquid gold, Riesling and Pinot Gris, sold in 500 ml bottles. We had a taste of each and the wine was truly out of this world. All their production would go to the Imperial Palace in Vienna, which served the wines on particularly special occasions.

Then we climbed further to a ridge top, through stunted oak forests, huge granite rock faces and boulders and dramatic views over the river Dyji. We met a group of women, carrying large wicker baskets full of fungi, collected in the forest. The round ones were the size of a large grapefruit and the flat ones the size of lunch plates, one looked like a giant Pfifferling, not sure of the English word. We noted around 5 different varieties at first glance.

We fantasized for the rest of the day about various ways of cooking them and wished we got wangle an invitation to someone’s house for a fungi dinner, as these are not available in restaurants.

Then we passed through a heath, more oak forest and finally a couple of nasty steep bits, both up and down. We felt we had had a work out by the time we got back. We had spotted one or two nice looking restaurants the previous day, which was Monday, when they were closed and assumed they would be open on Tuesday, not so. We spent a good 30 minutes walking all over the historic part of the town, trying to find somewhere for dinner. Every place that was open was totally deserted. Had the locals decided to pay a trick on their visitors and disappeared underground...The place was dead as a doornail. We finally settled on an Italian Pizza joint, which at least had some signs of life and had a great meal. The creamed garlic soup was particularly yummy.

The menu was in Czech only and we were very proud of ourselves actually ending up with what we thought we had ordered. We did get the wrong salad though and ended up with mixed rather than cabbage salad. Not so bad, we could not work out whether they were out of it, got the order wrong or whether we had picked the wrong thing to start with. Unsolved mystery. We only once seriously stuffed up. We had ordered something called Kofala, which looked like stout on the ad and turned out to be a Coca Cola substitute, sweet and not very nice.

Spoke with Sophia last night. She had 3 really great weeks at the school, made lots of friends and enjoyed exploring Vienna. Now though she is somewhat over the whole thing as her friends left after 3 weeks, she does not like the new people, one of her roommates fiddles around with her hair until midnight, then talks on the phone and helps herself to other peoples things without asking. Being vegetarian is a challenge, as they seem to provide meatless options, rather than a balanced vegetarian diet and she has ended up spending a lot of her pocket money buying food, which is really annoying. Her view is that the marketing material vastly oversells the school and that the reality is a lot different. Having got a glimpse of the school, I am sure she is right. Very hard to evaluate these things from afar. Their website certainly looked great, Actilingua in Vienna.

Well she is on the home run now and we have suggested that she should focus on her German language skills as much as possible over the next week or so.

Lots of love, Gitti and John

23 July

Satov

Wow, another gem of a place. It was pouring with rain and bitterly cold, so we bused to Satov, a little wine village, which reputedly had an interestingly decorated vaulted wine cellar. We arrived, the place was pretty deserted as you would expect given the weather and wandered up a little street with a couple of closed wineries and a nice looking restaurant with outdoor tables under grapevines. We felt miserable, wet and cold. We showed a photo of the painted vault to the one person we saw in the street and were let through a padlocked gate onto a field of vines and pointed into the general direction of the church. We crossed a field, walked along a muddy path and finally arrived at an insignificant little whitewashed ancient looking building. We tried the vaulted wooden door and entered a little room, the original grape press room with wooden tables and bottles of wine and glasses, paid 50 Korune, tasted some Riesling, were given an info sheet in English and then a further set of doors were unlocked and we descended via a steep stone staircase into the wine cellar dug out in sandstone. The main passage way was about 26 metres long with an additional 20 or so metres of curved corridor.

The amazing point about this cellar is the indoor decoration. It was like walking into a fairytale. There are pictures and scenes chiseled out as coloured embossments in sandstone. The paintings were done by a one armed artist, Maximilian Appelteuer between 1934 and 1968 on Sundays during his leisure time. He was a worker at a winery close by.

He worked under very difficult conditions, no electricity. When he worked he supported a tin with paint in his left underarm, amputated above the elbow and in his right hand he had a brush and two candles on a hat to illuminated the surface in front of him. The naive style paintings depict scenes from Grimm’s fairytales as well as landscapes, townscapes, writings, mermaids, goddesses etc. Several of the side cubicles were decorated in specific scenes during a time when the cellars operated as a wine bar. There is a narrow secret corridor leading to a little lounge referred to as the Ladies Spa. There is also a secret room, the men used for their amusements, in front of it a space where they played cards and made a lot of noise in order to conceal the goings on from approaching wives.

It was an absolutely fascinating place and not to be missed. Again we were the only non Czech visitors like most of the time in this little off the beaten track places.

We decided to have lunch at the little restaurant in town, as the rain was still pretty steady and after mushroom soup, chicken fillet and potatoes with cucumber salad, washed down with a superb pinot, we decide to have coffee whilst waiting for the bus. I had a special coffee, a Czech favourite with layers of advocaat and cream how indulgent and when we finally paid the bill of 375 Korun, about 27 New Zealand Dollars, less than what we might have paid for the wine alone in NZ, we felt in such good spirits and warmed up enough that we decided to skip the bus ride and walk back to Znojmo. The 13 km through National Park, vineyards, heath, and little villages were a doddle, in spite of the rain and wind.

So now we are back in our ghost town, the rain finally stopped, waiting for summer to return.

Love, Gitti and John

From: Sophia Harre
Subject: Re: Znojmo 23.7.
To: harregitti@yahoo.co.nz
Received: Wednesday, 23 July, 2008, 11:18 PM

leibe mama und papa

meine camera ist kaputt und ich bruche (need) a neue camera. thats all im going to write is gerrman so yeah its broken and im screwed it wont even turn on! so i mean im going to need a new camera anyway so heres the place to get it since im more likly to need to take photos here than in nz. so if you guys were fealing genorous do you think you coud give me money for one. there's not much point in me being her if i cant even take pictures. without a camera there are no memories and no memories means i worthless trip. p.s. it wasnt me who broke her i thing she dyed of old age she was 5 years old!

love soph. x

28 July

Mikulov to Poysdorf

A few days with no internet access, down in Mikulov etc. We took the train to Mikulov through relatively boring flat bits of countryside and Mikulov turned out to be another cultural heritage treasure, protected by UNESCO. The town again full of amazing facades, the architecture and surrounding countryside reminiscent of Tuscany. It really felt like a little bit of Italy. We had a bit of a disaster around the accommodation thing as it was the weekend of a cultural festival and everything was booked out. Very long story to go with that one.

The festival focused around celebrating the different cultural groups represented in Mikulov, both musically and food wise. Everything took place in the central square and there were stalls offering Czech, Jewish, Gypsy, Celtic, Austrian, Mongolian, Serbian, Armenian etc food traditions, a stall was selling cocktails for a better world. The musical programme was pretty varied ranging from men’s and women’s choirs through jazz to rock and various traditional instrumental groups. It was really fun as Sophia would say and went on until nearly midnight, late by local standards, they tend to start and pack up early here unlike Spain and Italy.

We had a wonderful meal at a cellar restaurant with fascinating music provided by 3 men playing violin, base a historic pre piano type instrument, where the strings were struck by mallets.

We went for two spectacular walks, one back to Mikulov from Valtice, another heritage town with Romanesque architecture and the next day through limestone rocks, across vineyards to a sleepy wine village of Pavlov, set on the edge of a huge lake, with lots of wine tasting cellars and interesting little houses with baroque facades in various states of restoration.

The last night in Mikulov was less than I had hoped for, we ended up in a smelly and damp basement room, John does not quite agree with the degree of the intensity experienced by me on both fronts. By 6 am and next to no sleep I escaped to the courtyard and sat outside, at least I could breathe and warm up.

Now we are in the Weinviertel area of Austria, it is beautiful, immaculate and luxurious by comparison. Everything except for accommodation is somewhat more expensive, beer, which one does not tend to drink here is 3 times the price of Czesky and food prices are about double.

Everything here seems rather lighter than over the border and I am loving being able to communicate with people again, have not stopped talking for the last 2 days.

We visited a champagne cellar today, which also had an interesting exhibition related to champagne production in Austrian along with a superb collection of champagne related antiques.

Yesterday at the information centre we received an individual wine tasting tour from a local winemaker, who was so welcoming and friendly we ended up buying some wine for our German family and having it sent.

We walked through cellar lanes and forest and vineyards to a charming little wine town called Falkenstein, where I also climbed up to the castle while John rested his Achilles, which is still playing up. John has done really well, we are just 7 km short of our (my) 400 km goal

Tomorrow we are off to Nussdorf, close to Vienna from where we will pick up a boat to take us to Germany along the Danube.

Love, John and Gitti