Slightly cloudy morning, first thing was to go to tourist information and get the right map. Rather unmemorable cycling to meet up with the EV-9 route. Lots of rolling hills through the country side and I was feeling a little bit hot. Walked the bike up a not particularly steep hill which was pretty pathetic.
A roundabout day.
First around the lake and through the forest, past a run-down estate with huge palace, a big gothic St. Hubert statue in a clearing. (put photos here)
Went to the Austrian-Czech border at Valtice, with an awesome Kolonade on top of the hill. Didn’t realize that the other side of Kolonade was Österreich, and so accidentally entered the Prussian empire. Returned and took a rather bad road along the border until Hevlin. Not an interesting town except there was a potraviny there so I could burn my last crowns on lunch.
Then through to the Austrian town of Laa an der Thaya. First mission was to find the campsite. Of course on any map the tent picture means nothing — there was no campsite here. Went into the Rathaus for some maps. It took me a while to find the right room, the rathaus being a bit of a rabbit hole.
Received a quite good map of the area to the east of where I wanted to be. Nonetheless got a large-scale cycle route map with information that there is camping in Poysdorf, and headed there. The cycling signs in Austria are very good. It was no problem getting there, apart from the warm weather, the somewhat uninteresting farm land, and running out of water.
Followed a route called the Veltliner. I have no idea what that means but it goes around a hilly region, takes you up the side a bit so you can get a little view and see some grape vines, then drops you back down into Poysdorf.
I was the only one in a tent at the camping, until a Polish couple arrived on their bikes, Lukasz and Ola. They had caught the train from Katowice at 3AM to Brno and then cycled from there. Nice guys. Though weary, they offered to share their soup and still had time for a chat.
Dep 9:30, arr 5:00, dst 97.5km
No GPS track log today. The GPS was still stuck on the compass screen and the battery was slowly running flat. This was quite depressing for me, I’m not sure why.
Cloudy weather in the morning so I was sluggish getting away. I even considered not going anywhere this day but then I realized I would have to stay in Hustopece.
Lots of vine yards in this region, as well as the usual corn, wheat, sunflowers, poppies. I wish I could get my photos up, it’s just a challenge to find a decent cheap internet cafe to do this from.
Went to Breclav and had a look at the campsite. It was rubbish so I had a look around the town and went shopping. The town was quite nice — a river, big old palace type buildings, nice cycle lanes inside the town. At the shop I bought some Czech delicasies to bring to Austria as gifts — A bottle of Kofola, a big bar of Studentska chocolate, and some obscure beer.
Went back to Lednica and found a minicamping there in a vineyard, next to the lake. Relaxed there for the afternoon as it was quite hot. The owners of the vineyard were shaking overripe cherries out of the cherry trees — perhaps for wine or jam I don’t know. A thunderstorm passed by in the evening but only a little rain. Drank the Kofola and ate the Studentska by accident.
Dep 10:30, arr 3:15, dst 52km.
Mostly sunny day and, rose early, left after condensation dried off the tent. No breakfast because shop closed at 11AM yesterday morning. A decent hill out of Sloup to warm up with, then downhill pretty much all the way to Brno. The route went through a quite touristy area, with lots of cyclists, hikers, people visiting the caves. A lot of road through the forest, and closed to vehicles. Did I mention all downhill? Went to Blansko again in search of breakfast, the best I could manage was some cake from the Cukrana. Interesting old dilapidated factories in the the forest… nature taking back from industry, etc. Had a nice pasta and chicken salad and Kofola in Bilovice, a town above Brno, then mostly dirt tracks into Brno. Still downhill by the way.
Decided to stay a day in Sloup since the camping was nice and I was unsure about camping around Brno. Short ride downhill to Blansko to go to the bankomat, then back up the hill. Was OK because was only carrying one pannier bag. Then a tour of the cave there. Lots of rock climbers climbing up and down the cliffs next to the cave.
Dst 36km.
Exiting Olomouc for real this time. Well, after returning to the hostel after realizing I had left my mobile phone under the pillow in the dorm. The zen buddhist receptionist asked me, “Rodney, now are you sure you have remembered everything?”
Took a different way to yesterday, can’t really be bothered copying out my descriptions of the surroundings but they can be summarised as Europe, agriculture, forest, villages, summer.
Got to a river and started to enter this inviting looking forest, as it was quite hot and I didn’t have much water left. At the base of a small hill I met a cyclist and we stopped and he said warning it is all up hill for the next 7km. Good luck. True that, it was all uphill for the next 7kms. This is reading like a bit like a Celtic myth. Anyway, got to the top eventually, and it was good. Then came down as that’s what happens after going up — into a really nice camping ground on the edge of Sloup.
Dep 8:30, arr 4:00, dst 71km
Later I’ll have to give my definition of a nice campsite.
Turned back to Olomouc due to perceived mechanical fault.
I got a flat tire in the pine forest, patched it, and had a look at the rim. Saw a crack across the rim of the front wheel, didn’t see it on the rear wheel. Panicked and carefully rode back to Olomouc since I prefer round wheels to any other shape. This was the morning after I had written a list of all the heavy junk I had brought with me. Anyway man at bike shop pointed out to me that this is completely normal, and on second inspection I found the same crack on the back rim — it’s the seam joining the piece of metal back to itself. Felt a bit stupid after that.
This time stayed at the “Poet’s Corner” hostel. I had my reservations about the pretentious name but in all other respects it’s a faultless hostel. It is run by an Australian, the receptionist was calm like a buddhist monk, the other guests were friendly. However for undisclosed reasons I don’t like it.
Left for camping early the next morning.
Dep 9:00, arr 2:30, dst 62km.
Short day, destination a nice city called Olomouc. Stayed at the “Betanie Hostel” there. It’s not really a hostel because the rooms aren’t shared. It was completely empty, so quite spooky at night.
Dep 9:30, arr 2:00, dst 43km.
Woken up by big raindrops, then a thunderstorm, but it cleared up after a while. At the time I thought this was miraculous, but I have since become accustomed to the occasional short thunder storm. It seems to be what the weather is like here. In fact there was another one at 2PM, and really heavy rain, so I stood under the eaves of a house and ate a yoghurt while it passed. Afterwards the roads were steaming. Went to Dolni Businov looking for a supposed camp site, but it wasn’t there, so drank a Kofola and continued to Mohelnice. Unfortunately I had to cut across a quite steep hill — a rocky walking track to get there. Nice downhill all the way to camp in Mohelnice.
Dep 10:30, arr 7:30, dst 99km.
Just a walk around Jesenik.