The countryside between Nuremberg and the Czech border is curiously underpopulated. A land of low hills and endless forests. The same landscape continues after you cross the border, but feels even emptier. I wondered if it was ever thus, or if the half century when the iron curtain divided Czechs and Bavarians had resulted in depopulation on either side of the militarised border.
These days the border is barely acknowledged - one small blue sign reads 'Republica Czechia' as you speed past a half constructed service area. This is unfortunate because the machines selling Czech motorway passes are located there. We stopped at the next petrol station in the hope they would be on sale. A very grumpy woman at the checkout pointed at a QR code taped onto the back of the till and barked, "only online, no English". Gill zapped the code and entered our vehicle details but the website froze when she tried to put in our bank card details. Gill found an alternative third party site selling a variety of passes for East European motorways. This one worked but we paid a premium price.
From the border to Autocamp Ostende in Pilsen is less than 80kms. The site is located at a leisure lake on the northern outskirts of the city. Getting there meant negotiating Pilsen's ring road at rush hour. Driving in the urban area of an unfamiliar country is always a tad stressful, traffic management systems, driver behaviour, the rules of the road and traffic signs are all slightly different. Bigger roundabouts were controlled by lights and on the whole the trams were confined to a separate carriageway, so even though it was busy we arrived at the campsite without incident.
I was simply pleased to stop driving. It's 1500kms from Buxton to Pilsen and I'd driven it over six consecutive days. Though the daily distances we covered were modest, driving day after day does take its toll. I needed to stop.
The campsite site was basic, reminiscent of French municipal sites of yore, but with less challenging loos.
Pilzen has an ancient city centre, but developed in the nineteenth century as a centre for railway and later automotive engineering - Skoda's main locomotive manufacturing works used to be based in the city. It is also the home of the Pilsner Urquel brewery. I suspect most of our fellow campers were here for the beer tour.
We didn't budge from the site apart from walking to the Lidl which was about 15 minutes away on foot. The store was in a mixed area of suburban housing and apartments blocks.
All very neat and tidy, serviceable rather than stylish, it reminded me of the outer suburbs of some of the towns we visited in Sweden - utilitarian but in a good way.
As were mooching about in Pilsen Matthew, Kristyna and Jesse flew into Prague from Gatwick. They were heading to Karlstejn where Krystyna's mum lives. The plan was for us all to all meet up there. Luckily Karlstejn has a campsite where we can stay with good train links into Prague. Kristyna grew up in the city so can show us the sites from a local's perspective, but first we needed to get there.
Mid-morning, while Gill was at the shower block there was a sudden thundery downpour. A cacophony of hailstones bounced off the van roof, our outside mat became covered in a sleety slime as the hailstones melted. She missed the excitement completely. Clearly it was going to be a day of surprising weather. By the time we exited the campsite it was sunny, sadly this proved to be merely an interlude.
Halfway between Pilsen and Prague the sky grew ever darker. Fork lightning crackled above the forested hills to the north. It drizzled momentarily, then the rain came down in sheets.
The trucks in front of us slowed to 60kph and switched on their hazards. Another hailstorm hit us like a thunderbolt, visibility shrank to a couple of dozen metres and the traffic slowed to a standstill. I guess the worst of the storm probably lasted less than five minutes but it felt un-nerving. Was this the worst weather we had ever driven the van in, we wondered. Maybe, though the torrential downpour on the autovia north of Milan a few years ago also brought the traffic to a standstill. We have a scratch and small dent on the back of the van as a memento because the force of the downpour snapped an elastic on the bike cover and a bungee hook thwacked into the rear panel. Happily this time the only thing we have to remember the moment are the photos Gill took from the cab. They don't quite capture the storm's ferocity.
All countries have their irritations. We came across one of Czechia's almost straightaway. If a road is in need of resurfacing, rather than fixing one carriageway then the other, and managing traffic through a contraflow, Czech road engineers simply close kilometre long sections and redirect traffic via a diversion. Sadly the nearest junction to Karlstejn from the Prague orbital was closed.
Google maps redirected through the wooded hills above the valley of the river Berounka, the scenery was lovely, the roads alarmingly narrow, steep and bendy. Still, we only lost our way once and had to perform a tricky three point turn on a goat track.
Reception was closed for lunch when we arrived outside Autokemp Karlštejn. The big castle that overlooks the village is a UNESCO world heritage site. One thing unites such cultural hotspots, you can guarantee they will have an enormous car and coach park, so we rested there and had lunch while we waited for the campsite to reopen..
The site is beautifully positioned running along the northern bank of the mirror-still Berounka. As well as camping pitches there are a dozen or so chalets.
A nice mix of people too, extended families, groups of young people, couples with and without kids, hikers, bikers and us. The multi-generational group next to us seemed to specialise in dance based party games, the soundtrack provided by a big boombox set on a looping playlist of Slavic Europop's biggest bangers. When they decided to go for a group hike the boombox tagged along. I imagined them trooping through the sylvan trails above the Berounka terrifying the local fauna with a blast of Verona's anthemic 'Náhodou'.
Karlstejn gained UNESCO status because of the big castle that towers on a crag above the village. It was founded in 1348 by King Charles IV, serving as an impregnable place to store the Holy Roman Emperor's Imperial Regalia, the Bohemian crown jewels, holy relics, and other royal treasures. None of these are kept here now. Only the Royal Chapel of the Holy Cross remains much as it was when it was decorated in the latter years of the fourteenth century. The remainder is a mid-Nineteenth century reconstruction as much of the castle was in a semi-ruinous state.
The only part that I was interested in were the frescos in the chapel, but visiting Karlstejn castle is not that simple. Only guided tours are possible, one lasting 40 minutes taking in the reconstructed state rooms and available in English. A more extensive version that includes the decorated Chapel and takes 100 minutes is available once a day but needs to be booked in advance. I have an innate reluctance to joining in any group activity, one lasting almost two hours would be my idea of hell. Matthew booked the shorter one for the three of us
It was conducted by a slender, serious looking young man with beautifully articulated RP English. He explained carefully the function of each of the rooms, painting a convincing picture of the Bohemian courtly rituals of the late middle ages but skirted around the fact that most of what we were looking at was a Nineteenth century reconstruction.
The eponymous village at the foot of the castle is attractive. Old gabled houses meander down the long mainstreet from clifftop castle to the river. Beyond Prague, Karlstejn is the second most visited place in the Czech Republic. Inevitably the village is full of gift shops and cafés, but it's not entirely ruined by them.
It also meant that we had a good choice of places for lunch. Even better, we had local knowhow on hand to help us pick the best one, Kristina knows the village well because her mother moved here from Prague a few years ago and lives in a small cottage in the woods a kilometres or two north of the village.
The place we chose had an informal bistro vibe serving a modern take on traditional Czech classics. Beef with dumplings is not something we would normally eat, but it was delicious.
We stayed in Karlstejn four days. On our last evening Kristyna's mum invited us for a BBQ.
Her garden is in a small clearing deep in the beautiful woods that cover the steep hills of the Berounka valley. We were lucky with the weather - a balmy mid-June evening.
We headed back to the campsite a little after 9.00pm . Matthew accompanied us down to the main road, I think he was concerned for the wellbeing of his septgenarian parents wandering about after dusk. In fact it was beautifully peaceful, no-one about, the air velvet soft, trees motionless, silhouetted against the deep blue sky. No stars yet, but a bone-white waxing moon peeking through the branches - a Summer night to remember.